Festive Christ’s Mass, December 24, 2007

One of the things that I love about this time is the traditions, both public and private. One of my choicest traditions are my Nativity sets. I have three Nativity sets. My favorite is the ceramic one my mother made. It is a classic 1950’s Nativity: Mary is a blond and of course in blue. This is my mother’s gift to me and to my heirs, a blond Mary.

I have two sets from Mexico. One is ceramic all in deep blue ceramic with white accents, very much a folk Nativity set that was an ordination gift. The other is a very small ceramic set in white with blue trim. I keep it up all year on my home “altar” with other holy images in my bedroom. The Nativity raises for us all types of images, from our childhood, movies, Bible story pictures, and our own imagination. Tonight brings it all together: the favorite carols, the reading from Luke’s Gospel, the incense, the feeling of Christmas Eve, memories of past celebrations, the hopes of Christmas morning, and everything else that is going on in our lives in this present moment. It is perhaps too easy to keep this story safely in ceramic Nativity sets and Christmas carols. It is perhaps too easy to keep the story-line of the Nativity before us rather than the reality of the birth of Jesus. We have built such a story-line of myth and legend, music and magic around the Nativity that I feel we tend to lose sight of the people. These are real people. Joseph and Mary were real people. I feel we too often forget the real flesh and blood of the people we read and sing about. Mary was a young teenager, pregnant, betrothed but not married. Joseph was a real man, whose family honor has been questioned at best.

We just heard St. Luke’s Nativity narrative, but I wonder what there is about the narrative that we will never know. What did they talk about in Nazareth as they came to the realization that this is something from God and not from them? What did Mary and Joseph talk about on the way to Bethlehem? How did they interact with each other, care for each other, love each other; two people in love in a very difficult situation. And, what was it like with the in-laws?

As we read, Jesus was born in a stable, a cave. Were there midwives there? What kind of support and help did they have? What was their life like, alone in a strange village, no family or friends to be with them, in a stable with sheep and other livestock? What did Joseph say to Mary as she held her newborn son? What did she say to him? What did they share that night?

And then there are the shepherds. Who are these folks coming to visit? Shepherds in this time were seen as less than favorable, the lower caste, nomads and not keepers of the Mosaic Law. Now they are coming to visit.

It is all very real. Very real people. Very real smells and sounds and feelings of uncertainty. It really is not a tidy story as we look at it in context.

It is easy to forget that Mary and Joseph were real people, with real feelings and fears and hopes; a teenage mother and an older man, stranded alone away from home and family, living in a stable. They did not start out as saints of the churh. Our image if Mary gets so mixed up with popular religion and culture, be it our Lady of Walsingham, Our Lady of Guadelupe, Theotokos, Ever Blessed Virgin Mary, on and on. Mary has more titles than any other saint in the church. I have a great personal devotion to the Virgin Mary and she is an important part of my spirituality and personal piety, but I also know that each title tends to hide a piece of her humanity, her reality, her life. Each of these titles can obscure her as a real person: pregnant, faithful, and trusting with a man who loves her and will protect her and this Child.

In all the busyness of this Season, let us remember the real people we celebrate this night. There is an underlying reality here we can over look in all of the traditions of the season. For me this reality finds voice in the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. This is what Mary sang and prayed according to St. Luke at the time of the Annunciation, upon learning that she will give birth to the Son of God. Mary sings for all the world the truth of her faith and the promise of her God:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
My spirit rejoices in God my savior;
      for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
      the Almighty has done great things for me,
      and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
      in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
      he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
      and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things.
      and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
      for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
      to Abraham and his children forever. (BCP #91)

God has remembered his promise of mercy to Israel and to us. Thanks be to God and thanks be to the faithfulness and courage of Mary and Joseph to bring forth and care for the One we call Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus.