It was the final party in my university residence at Mount Allison just days before Christmas. We knew that many of the students were going away, although I believe the engineers and the religious students still had exams to write. The rest were ready to party! It was Saturday night, so the people on my floor invited others to come to a beer fest. Now, they had a dilemma: What to do with the empty bottles after the party. You see, in those days there were no recycling bins; there was nowhere to put them. And, let’s be honest, you could get five cents for a bottle, and for university students, you just didn’t throw that kind of money away! So, where to store the bottles? Why don’t we store them in Andrew Stirling’s room? On Sunday he will be in chapel leading in the carols so he will be sober and they will be safe. As the party concluded, my room filled with empties of Olands and Mooseheads and Schooner bottles – floor to ceiling!
I fell asleep at 3:00 am. At nine in the morning there was a knock on my door. I staggered out of bed, opened the door, and who was there, but the soon-to-be Moderator of the United Church of Canada! The Reverend Doctor Clarke MacDonald! He looked around my room, although the odour caught him well before he ever arrived. My father, who was a friend of his, had said “Whenever you go to Mt. A, you must look in on Andrew.” He smiled and said, “I am glad I did!” I didn’t have the words to say – the fumes had got to me overnight! I staggered out of bed, I got showered and changed, I mumbled something about the bottles not being mine, but I don’t think he believed it. About an hour-and-a-half later, I walk into the chapel at Mount Allison, ready to lead the chapel folk group in the singing of carols, only to find out that the Reverend Doctor Clarke MacDonald was the preacher! As we gathered there up on the stage next to one another, there was a rather awkward silence. Clarke delivered his usual brilliant, socially relevant sermon. He was a great guy! We sang our carols, and it was lovely.
Afterwards, over coffee I explained to him what had happened, and I hope, I mean I really hope he believed me. It was a tense moment, but what I was struck by was the contrast of the whole event. On the one hand, the beauty and the holiness and the gorgeous nature of the service and on the other, what had happened the night before: The guilt I had been feeling, and then the joy and release in being in worship. I thought that contrast epitomizes all that is Christmas, for Christmas, if it is nothing else, is born with a profound sense of contrasts. In fact, if you read the Gospels, certainly three of them, the message of Christmas is one of contrast in a dramatic sense. In the Gospel of John, it is the distinction between light and darkness and life and death (David will be preaching on that next Sunday). In Matthew, there is the distinction between the royal lineage of Jesus and the ignominy of the Cross. And in Luke, the great historian, there is the distinction between the powers of this world and the humility of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Nowhere do you see that contrast more starkly than in the opening words of Chapter 2 of Luke. What we have here is a massive contrast between powers. Perhaps it is epitomized most by two words that are in the text, and those two words are “no room.” “No room” seems to sum up the whole curriculum vitae of Jesus of Nazareth. As I am going to show as we look at his life, it is that “no room” that becomes the dominant symbol of the life and the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Why? Because it is a contrast with earthly powers and the power of the Son of God.
Many years ago, in 1948 to be exact, there was a very famous book written in political science by Hans Morgenthau entitled Politics Among Nations. In it, there is this search for peace and justice. Morgenthau, in his thesis says that the relationship between nations is a relationship of power, and that one shouldn’t let moral principles dictate the policies of governments, but rather the realism of power is what should be at the forefront. One shouldn’t get carried away with secondary things when the power and the nature of power is what defines the relationship between nations and governments. Morgenthau is probably very accurate in his assessment of the way that things often work, but nothing could summarize that more than the very introduction of Luke, for it is by a decree on the part of Caesar Augustus that this whole issue of Jesus’ birth gets thrown into what it became.
It is no accident that Caesar Augustus is mentioned. He was the Roman Emperor at the time of the birth of Jesus. It was his decree that set everything in motion. Caesar Augustus was one of the great Emperors of Rome. Pax Romana was defined after him – the peace of Rome. In fact, it should have been called the “Pax Augustus.” It was the peace of Rome that allowed Rome to preserve itself and to stop conflicts among nations. Augustus was brilliant because he overthrew nations and then he created buffer states around those nations that were of secondary importance. He fought some twenty-one major battles to be able to preserve the integrity of the Roman Empire. Judea, where Jesus was born, was one of those satellite states around the Roman Empire. He was so aware of his own power that he even named himself to reflect that. He called himself The Imperator, the victorious one: The Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus. What a mouthful! But, he was the Imperator: the victorious one, the powerful one, the one who was victorious in battle. It was on the basis of that power and that military prowess that Augustus ruled. It is fitting that it was his decree for a census that brought Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Why did Caesar want a census? Two reasons: One, so he could conscript people into his army if they were nations that belonged to the core; and for everyone else, he could register them to pay taxes to support his military missions. Mary and Joseph are thrown into this vortex of Augustus’ power. It was there that they were influenced.
Luke knew what he was doing here when he wrote this. It was Caesar Augustus that stood in contrast with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in Bethlehem. He was born in a most lowly state. It is no accident that Luke tells us that he was born in a manger. Now, there is some scholarly debate as to whether it was an actual inn, or a guest house. But even if it was a guest house, it was a rural society often having rooms for the animals of the guests, because the guests were travelling with their animals from town to town. Clearly, the rooms for the humans were gone. Jesus had to be born in an animal room, in a manger, and a manger of course is where the cattle would graze. That became his place of birth. Luke does not mention any animals here. We always put the animals into the story. Timothy Eaton Memorial Church is notorious for putting animals into the story! But it is not there in Luke! It was in Isaiah when he talks says the calf will lie down with the lion, so we will give him that. It was in an animal room where Jesus was born, because there was no room – no room! Contrast: Caesar Augustus – Jesus of Nazareth – an empire – a manger!
Last week I suggested that Away in a Manger was a little schmaltzy for me, a little bit of saccharin, when I was a young man and I saw nothing redeeming in it until I read that wonderful line “Be near me Lord Jesus” – remember? There was another carol I didn’t like, in fact, I thought it was worse: Infant Holy, Infant Lowly. That is as saccharin as it gets! That is a Hallmark hymn if ever there was one! However, as I read the words, I saw the power in them. The final line says it all: “Christ, the babe is Lord of All.” The hymn writer conveys it! Maybe it was a manger, but it was in this manger that the Lord of All is born. The great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, put it even more succinctly. He wrote:
What we see in the Christmas story is a God who is courageous, a God who is willing to come into the most difficult and dangerous situations in the most vulnerable form, in one of the poorest outposts of the Roman Empire and he comes courageously, humbly, vulnerably, as a refugee for the sake of humanity.
Barth realized, you see, that if this child really is who The New Testament proclaims him to be, if he really is the fulfillment of all that the prophets had pointed to, if he really is the Son of the Living God, then the one who is born in a manger is humble and vulnerable, but he is also powerful. Where does his power come from? Does it come from the grandeur of the Imperator Augustus or does it come from the heart of God himself? It is that very contrast, that very question that should be on our minds this day. It is that contrast between what we often expect God to be and what God is actually like that is the most challenging contrast of all: Infant Holy, Infant Lowly has a second verse, and at the end of the second verse it says, “Christ the babe was born for you.”
I don’t know this Christmas what you are expecting or wanting. I don’t know what brought you here today. I don’t know, for those of you who are listening on the radio, where you are today. Some of you might have come to hear the magnificent string quartet and the choir. Some of you might have come to sing the great carol, O Come All Ye Faithful. Some of you will have come today because you come to church every Sunday to worship your Lord. Some of you have come because you are reuniting with family at this wonderful time of the year. Some of you have come because you are struggling with something in your lives and you need some peace. Some of you have come because you are grieving and you need to be embraced. Some of you have come because you are frightened about the state of the world and you need some hope. Some of you have come simply to have a good time, and where better than in a place like this. Some of you don’t even know why you are here; you just are. The word I have for you is that whatever your expectations might be, whatever your wishes or your desires of your heart might be, what you find here is the God who has come for us.
A great preacher, Charles Swindoll, tells a story of how as a young boy he was infatuated with basketball. More than anything else, he wanted a basketball for Christmas. He dropped as many hints as he could in the weeks leading up to Christmas. He got one of his friends to phone his parents to very seriously say that Charles really needed a basketball. Charles even actually made sure that when the newspaper was opened to the Sports Section, basketball was prominently mentioned. When the Sears Catalogue came around and basketballs were for sale, he put copies in front of his parents’ dishes at breakfast so that they might see what a good deal they are right now. He went to bed on Christmas Eve sure that his campaign for a basketball had succeeded. He woke on Christmas morning so excited, and rushed down, and under the tree there was this big, round thing, and he said, “Oh God, thank you!” Gifts are exchanged, and he opens it up, already bouncing the ball in his hands. He had been out in the back garden with no ball, but he had been ready to play and to shoot! He opens up the gift, and it is a great big, round globe! Charles was heartbroken – gobsmacked! Furious! No basketball! Later on, as he reflected on that moment, he said, “I might have not got what I wanted, but what my parents gave me was the world!”
We have our expectations of what God is going to do for us, but giving us Christ, is the world in God’s hands. As you look at the life and the ministry of Jesus, you realize that it was from the “no room” of the manger that everything else followed and made sense. It was from the manger that made sense of Jesus telling the story of The Good Samaritan and defining for us our neighbor. It was from the humility of the manger that we understood why Jesus saved the Samaritan woman who was being. It is from the humility of the manger that the wise man Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night to find out what God was like, and he found it in a new life. It was through a manger that two outcasts, Zacchaeus and Matthew, a Jew and a Gentile, both found salvation and acceptance. It was through a manger that a blind man called Barthemaeus found sight. It was through a manger that a paralytic who couldn’t walk the stairs, did. It was through a manger that a leprous person was healed. It was through a manger that a bleeding woman was cured. It was through a manger that a prodigal who had been lost was found. It was through a manger that a crucified man was raised from the dead. And when in our world right now, perhaps more than at any other time in recent history, people – you, me – are asking, “What is God like? What is God really like?” we see it in a manger, a manger because there was no room.
Last week, I read something that is remarkable: More than a thousand times in history a baby has been born who will become a king, but only once was the king born who would become a babe. More than humans, the King of all Kings, the Lord of all Lords, more powerful, more prominent, more capable, more loving than all the powers of this world, was born in a manger because there was no room. If you want to know what God is like, look there and you will find Him. Amen.