A Baby Changes Everything

By The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton

December 24, 2008 – Christmas Eve

Read: Luke 2:1-14

Teenage girl, much too young
Unprepared for what’s to come
A baby changes everything

Not a ring
On her hand
All her dreams and all her plans
A baby changes everything
A baby changes everything

The man she loves she’s never touched
How will she Keep his trust
A baby changes everything
A baby changes everything

And she cries, oh she cries

She has to leave, go far away
Heaven knows she can’t stay
A baby changes everything

She can feel it’s coming soon
There’s no place, there’s no room
A baby changes everything
A baby changes everything

And she cries and she cries O she cries

Shepherds all gather round
Up above the star shines down
A baby changes everything

Choir of Angels say
Glory to the newborn king
A baby changes everything
A baby changes everything
everything, everything, everything
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

My whole life is turned around
I was lost and now I’m found
A baby changes everything
A baby changes everything

(A Baby Changes Everything; Faith Hill Christmas Album 2008)

Those are the lyrics to a new song sung by Faith Hill on her new Christmas album (Joy to the World).

A Baby Changes Everything.

Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. A baby who did indeed change the world! We are often faced with a warm, fuzzy, sweet picture of that night in a stable. But come with me as walk through Luke’s narrative and what must have been closer to reality for Mary and Joseph that dark and starry night: Fear.

For it really is a story that is full of fear, isn’t it? From the moment of the annunciation to the Virgin Mary, who asked a logical question of her heavenly visitor—”How shall this be?” she asked—to the tense discussions about the possibility of a divorce on grounds of infidelity, to this desperate search for suitable lodging at the most vulnerable moment in a woman’s life, the very moment of childbirth. The birth of Christ, from the outset, had been a very precarious thing. It was anything but smooth. Anything but reassuring. And nothing about it suggested that this was going to be safe. It was dangerous in many ways. It was a scary situation, one that required great faith in God on the part of all concerned.

Mary and Joseph, the way they look in picture books, in artwork: she’s so sweet and calm and young; he’s older, but also calm, strong, dependable and reassuring—they are the Mary and Joseph we want them to have been, but they are probably not the Mary and Joseph who really were. But that is good news. The birth of Christ is, in it’s human dimension, a profound story about trust in God in the face of terrible adversity: marginal people in an occupied country coping with a difficult and uncertain situation. There were no easy answers. Only now, after it is over, do we see reassurance in it. What they knew must have been fear. And yet, I would describe them as courageous people. They were courageous people, doing what they knew, deep down, was right, even in the face of fear.

It wasn’t just Mary and Joseph that were afraid, either. Tonight we hear of an angel appearing to the shepherds and they were “terrified”. The first words out of the angels lips are: “Do not be afraid”. And then the angel goes on. “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people; to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child lying in a manger.” And more angels appear praising God. In spite of the shepherd’s fear and uncertainty, they went to find this baby that would be lying in a manger. The sign.

So, what does it mean to proclaim that Christ was born in a barn? What does that signify? What would it mean today if angels proclaimed a miraculous, holy birth and we were led to a homeless shelter or a truck stop? Here we are faced with Luke telling us that our Savior of the world, the Word incarnate, takes on human flesh in the most ordinary way. In the most ordinary way. And that is the good news. God dwells among us and within us in a powerful way. In the midst of trials and tribulations; difficult times; sad times; lonely times; fearful times; all times; there is One who understands. There is One who is born right smack in the middle of it.

“Ultimate power poured itself into our powerlessness. The source of life entered into a journey that would end in a death we all will face, each on our own particular cross. A group of simple men—and probably some women and children, too—awoke on a hillside and stared, terrified, at a visitor from another world with a message about this one. “Do not be afraid,” was the message. “Tonight we begin the sanctification of all your sorrow, all your fear, every burden you bear. Tonight we begin a journey you can only begin in fear. And all your tomorrows will be lived in the palpable love of God.” (Barbara Brown Taylor)

And so, tonight, we creep up to the manger at Bethlehem, peering over the edge, anxiously wondering what is born among us, and there we see, to our never-ending surprise and eternal delight, the Friend. “I know you and you know me,” (Barth) we hear the little one say as we come face to face. His face is our face and the future is His—and so the hope is ours.

Time and again in our story, the One has come among us, into our darkness, to stand beside us. As Karl Barth said: “A true Christmas celebration is an event that penetrates our hearts and lives. It takes possession of us and does not relinquish us any more. We breathe freely and no longer gasp. We are permanently freed from unrest.”

Amid the songs, the poetry, the visions, and stories of this day, may this strong word be yours:

Do not be afraid.
Shepherds all gather round
Up above the star shines down
A baby changes everything

Choir of Angels say
Glory to the newborn king
A baby changes everything
A baby changes everything
everything, everything, everything
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

My whole life is turned around
I was lost and now I’m found
A baby changes everything
A baby changes everything

May Christ be born in you, over and over and over again! Amen.