Thought for Today
Leviticus 10:10 You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean;
1 Samuel 21:4 The priest answered David, "I have no ordinary bread at hand, only holy bread--
Luke 2:7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Acts 4:13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.
Christmas Eve is Wednesday. Our congregation, like so many others, will have a Candlelight Service of lessons and carols. We will hear our choir sing beautiful hymns; our congregation will sing familiar hymns like O Come, All Ye Faithful, What Child is This?, Joy to the World, Angels We Have Heard on High, We Three Kings and Silent Night. We will hear the prophetic promises from Isaiah, a portion of Luke’s birth narrative, stories of emperor’s decrees, winter’s journeys, angels singing to shepherds and visiting foreign dignitaries. Each year I am struck by the magic of it all, lost in the wonder of the birth of God’s Son.
Today, however, I am struck by the ordinariness of the birth of God’s Son. Often, lost in the celebratory magic of Christmas Eve, we lose sight of the fact that the birth for which we give thanks on Christmas was by human standards rather ordinary. Despite the angelic chorus and magi, even taking into account the stories and myths that have arisen over 2000+ years, Jesus was not born in what any of us would consider royal circumstances.
The King of kings was born in a stable. Not the sort of stables we see when we watch horse races on television. The stables at Churchill Downs where they run the Kentucky Derby are quite elaborate. The Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace is palatial compared to the stables connected to that inn where Jesus was born. It is easy to forget that a manger, that neat, little wooden arrangement in every crèche, was a trough for feeding livestock. “A manger or trough is a rack for fodder, or a structure or feeder used to hold food for animals. The word comes from the Old French mangier (meaning ‘to eat’), from Latin mandere (meaning ‘to chew’).” (en.wikipedia.org) Those of you who grew up on farms or ranches know that stables and mangers are not neat, clean, or sanitary. They are messy, dirty and odoriferous. Maybe we should at least be glad for the Hebrew dietary laws and the assurance that Jesus was not born in a pigsty.
Certainly, the King of kings should be born to a powerful royal family. Kings are the sons of Kings. We do have the genealogy of Jesus thanks to Matthew and Luke. But, we know that those genealogies are presented not to prove Jesus’ claim to the political throne of Israel but to demonstrate God’s covenant faithfulness in relation to the Davidic Covenant.
Some years ago, the television series Roots sparked an interest in the U.S.A. in genealogy. Since homo sapiens are not native to the Western Hemisphere, all of us in residence in this hemisphere are either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. Today, we have genealogical libraries and computer software to assist those who are interested in tracing their ancestry. For many, if we go far enough back into history, we can find a connection to some royal family. That is the sort of connection we see demonstrated in those birth narratives in the gospels.
Joseph was a carpenter. Mary was a stay-at-home-mom. There is no evidence they were highly educated scholars. There is ample evidence they were devout, pious children of God. There is ample evidence they were good parents of a large family. They were the earthly parents of Jesus. Good, ordinary folks who raise their children in a good, ordinary home in an unremarkable, ordinary village.
As we celebrate Jesus’ birth and as we listen to the stories of extraordinary events, we need to always remember that God chose to send God’s Son into the world not to a royal household, not to be born in a palace or raised to rule as an ordinary king. God chose for Jesus, the Christ, to be born in a stable, laid to rest in a feed trough, raised in a regular, ordinary home. God doesn’t do things by accident!
Stay safe, find the extraordinary in the ordinary, trust God,
Pastor Ray