Picture it: A dark night, the end of a week long trip with only a donkey for transportation, a young teenage mother, 8 ½ months pregnant goes looking for a place to sleep for the night. Due to their social status she and her husband have arrived after more mobile members of this town to take place in a census. They’ve returned to her husband’s hometown. For whatever reason, perhaps connected to the fact that he married a young woman who was already with child, a child that was not his, no family member steps up to offer them shelter. Despite their lack of money as Jewish citizens in a Roman ruled society, they try the inns of the town. It is left up to us to guess whether there really were no rooms or if the patrons of the town simply did not want to let them stay there. Either way, they end their long travel sleeping on hay among the stable animals of the inn owner. My grandfather raised beefalo for most of my life. I can tell you from experience, that no matter how diligent the farmer or inn owner, barns and stables are not the cleanest places, and you don’t want to be in the way of an angry or hungry cow, that’s a story for another time. So when this couple realized that the young woman was to deliver her child that night, with no midwife, no sterile cloths, no bed, no anesthesia, we can only imagine her feelings about this. My guess is that no matter how devout she was, she was not singing God’s praises at this time. By some miracle, she delivers a healthy baby boy. She and her husband clean out the manger, where the animals’ food was stored and place their child there, wrapped in cloths they must have had the foresight to bring. My guess is that at this point in time, she is so tired and possibly downtrodden by her experience, that she is unable to lift her voice in celebration. So we are told that God sends angels to earth to shout glad tidings and sing Glorias.
This describes Mary and Joseph, as you well know. It could describe many couples 2000 years ago, and sadly with very little tweaking, it could be a tale of many of modern-day refugees, poor, outcast, and marginalized people. There are too many in this world whose only wish is to leave it. They feel alone, challenged by bullying, believing they will never be accepted as they are, feeling hopeless in the face of economic hardship, weighed down by addiction or depression, or physically too ill to enjoy life. For those of us not in these places, it can be hard to keep up communication and encouragement. It is very easy at the holiday season to fall into two patterns. In one, we get so caught up in our own lives; buying presents, making travel plans, cooking, cleaning, and going to parties that we can forget the message behind Christmas. On the other hand, we often get overwhelmed with the amount of suffering in the world; the homelessness, wars at home and abroad, desperation and despair of those all around us that we can forget that Christmas is a celebration as well as a call to living new lives in the path Jesus followed.
It is at these times that passages like Psalm 148 can be essential. For many it is less challenging to focus on the psalms of praise and ignore the more difficult passages of the Bible, these psalms are a standby when the road ahead is unclear. I believe if we look closer, we will find that this psalm speaks of the radical power of God that is present during good times and bad and so far beyond comprehension that not only the human race, but the very elements themselves must cry out God’s praises. Walter Bruggeman, a prominent Old Testament theologian, puts it this way in his book The Message of the Psalms, “All these prayers and songs bespeak the intervening action of God to give life in a world where death seems to have the best and strongest way. The songs are not about the “natural” outcome of trouble, but about the decisive transformation made possible by this God who causes new life where none seems possible.” By no means was Jesus’ birth the natural outcome of his day. Infant mortality was at a staggering rate, the sanitary conditions of his birth left much to be desired, his mother as a pregnant unwed teenage girl was lucky not to have been stoned. Where do we see the new life Bruggeman refers to more clearly than in the Birth Story? And not only were the angels reminding the parents of the miracle of life, all creation joined in the song. We are told of a star bright in the sky, the creatures whose home they shared for the night providing warmth and shelter, and those who heard of the birth from lowly shepherd to mighty Kings of the Orient rejoiced. They reminded this young couple of the Good News that each new life brings and that this little baby signified.
For many on the margins of society today, the angel’s clarion call is desperately needed. We who have faith and the ability to sing alleluias to God are to be God’s voice in the wilderness of their lives. For the poor, the meek and lowly, we may be the only angel voices that they hear. We must sing the glorias and the alleluias the psalmist entreats us to in Psalm 148. Let us recount the Creator’s works. Let us remind those for whom all seems dark and dreary that there are miracles happening all the time, that just as the little baby, born against all odds, signified new life where none seemed possible, God is always working in our lives to make them better and more blessed. So let us sing a glad halleluiah for all those who live in darkness and oppression, let us sing a glad alleluia we who have been through the valley of death and can now see the beauty of life, and let us sing a glad alleluia who have never been in these places and hope that no one ever shall be. Let our voices raise to the sky the angel chorus, Glory to the God and on earth peace to all.
- Guest pastor Julia Hickman-Himes
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