A Sermon by Rev. Henley on the Second Sunday of Advent, December 6, 2009.
The story is told of a young wife, expecting her first child, riding on a donkey, for sixty miles through the rugged, hilly terrain of the desert, from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Her husband, along with all the other Hebrew men, was called to the city of his birth to be counted in the census of the great Roman emperor Caesar Augustus.
At a time when a couple would be most excited about the birth of their first child, they find themselves looking for a place in a strange city and hearing there is no room in the inn.
It must have been surprising, even fearful, when the first pains of birth came upon Mary. Joseph must have been frantic until he found the stable where he could settle down with her and look after her needs. They were expecting, but not so soon, not this way, not here, not now.
The Hebrew people, as we heard in Jeremiah’s prophecy, were expecting a Messiah. Ever since they had returned from their exile in Babylonia, the prophets had told the tribes to expect someone to come and lead them. For over five hundred years, the tribes had waited for that One. He would bring “justice and integrity to the land.”
Throughout their story, the Hebrew people had struggled with unity. When Moses was on the mountain, communing with YHWH, receiving their Law, some of the people of the tribes built a golden calf. What they had expected when Moses led them out of Egypt was a land of milk and honey. What they got was a long, hard travail in the desert.
After Moses died, the tribes were ruled by judges. They were loosely connected by their Law and their need to carve out the land YHWH promised. They expected peace, they got war and battles.
The Israelites found unity when they turned to a king to unite them, first David, then Solomon. After Solomon’s death, they became two kingdoms, Israel in the north, Judah in the south. For hundreds of years they had sovereignty.
It was after this they were scattered throughout the Mediterranean and Near East. After hundreds of years of exile, they were allowed to return to their promised land. They were devastated, yet the prophets gave them hope. They expected a Messiah who would come and unite them once again, one who would bring justice and integrity to the land. By the time of Caesar Augustus the Israelites had been a conquered people in their own land for hundreds of years.
As the story is told of a people, so the story is told of the person.
We all, as individuals, have a need for unity and peace. We are born; we develop the personality we need to function in our family. We carve out the individuality which gives us a separate identity. We want to make our own decisions and build our own lives. Not one of us wants to be ruled or subjugated by anyone.
As the story is told of a people, so the story is told of the person.
What does Mary and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem represent to us? She is expecting, yes, but they are both anticipating a change in their lives. There will be a change so dramatic that there are no words to describe their feelings. They only know that something miraculous is about to happen.
Can we imagine what it was like to be expecting and ride a donkey or walk through the desert only to find out what we needed or wanted wasn’t there? Symbolically, we do it all the time. We plan, we anticipate, we expect our lives to be a certain way, and all of a sudden we find out there is no room in the inn. Yet, change comes, anyway. We have no words for the experience, miraculously, symbolically, a child is born, and we are forever altered.
What is crucial for our own story, for our own individual lives, IS the journey to Bethlehem.
How much do we trust God in our lives? What do you suppose was the level of trust that Mary and Joseph had for YHWH? In those sixty miles of desert, which took them days to travel, were they afraid? Did they know there would be no room in the inn?
Life is not easy for anyone. The Garden of Eden lasted only a short while for Eve and Adam. All too soon awareness,
or conscience,
or knowledge,
or reality
brought them to a place where they had to struggle. And humans have been struggling ever since. We wonder if there will ever be peace for us, peace on earth?
We have to believe there will be, we have to believe there is. It is a matter of trust. A friend of mine has a sister-in-law who was permanently crippled by an automobile accident. Her sister-in-law said that as the accident was happening, as if it was all in slow motion, she knew she would be all right. And sure enough, her life IS “all right.”
She trusted God as the accident was happening, and she has trusted God every since.
As we live our journey to Bethlehem, we must trust God, we must believe in the promise of a land where there is justice and integrity. Where there is peace for us as a person and peace on earth, even when we find there is no room at the inn.
First Reading
Jeremiah 33:14-16
“The days are surely coming, say YHWH, when I will bestow on Israel and Judah all the blessings I promised them. In those days and at that time I will raise up a righteous branch from the line of David, who will bring justice and integrity to the land. In those days Judah will be safe and Jerusalem will be secure. They will call the land, ‘YHWH is our Justice.’
Second Reading
Luke 2:1-7
In those days, Caesar Augustus published a decree ordering a census of the whole Roman world. This first census took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All the people were instructed to go back to the towns of their birth to register. And so Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to “the city of David”—Bethlehem, in Judea, because Joseph was of the house and lineage of David; he went to register with Mary, his espoused wife, who was pregnant. While they were there, the time came for her delivery. She gave birth to her firstborn, a son; she put him in a simple cloth wrapped like a receiving blanket, and laid him in a feeding trough for cattle, because there was no room for them at the inn.