Who or what are we waiting for:
Royalty in a manger?
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
December 22, 2002
Luke 1: 26-38
Did you know that if Queen Elizabeth and Shaquille O’Neal were riding together in the back seats of the Queen’s limousine, it would appear as they drove by and waved, that the Queen was the same height as the seven foot plus basketball player? The Queen, you see, has a very special limo. In a recent issue of Christian Century magazine, Martin Marty points out that Queen Elizabeth rides in a specially designed Bentley that cost a cool $15 million. It has some features one would expect in these dangerous times: armor plated sides, a mine-resistant floor, bazooka-proof glass, and a cabin that can be sealed against a gas attack (I assume that means “external” and not if the Queen stops at Taco Bell). Just basic transportation for royalty today. However, you will be relieved to know that the burred walnut trim in the rear was removed. It proved hopelessly impractical because wearers of “medals and swords and jewels” might scar and gouge it as they moved in and out of the car. I know that’s something that worries me every time I step into my limo!
But let’s return to those rear seats, where the passengers ride behind the front-seated chauffeur. It seems that they can be individually adjusted for height. Says Marty, “It is unlikely that Shaquille O’Neal will ever ride with the queen, but if he did, he and she would appear to be the same height. It’s a royal thing that has to do with the presumption of authority.” No one will sit higher than the Queen, at least not in her car.
And I suppose that fits with our assumptions about royalty, the high and mighty, people of power and influence, celebrities, the President or Bill Gates, Bret Farve – we rather expect them to be up there, removed from us, riding just a little higher than we are. And maybe we even want that. Maybe we don’t really want them to be like us. What fun is it touring celebrity homes in Hollywood if they all look like Washington Avenue in Sebastopol?
And so the announcement of the angel, Gabriel, certainly fits with this expectation. “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Not exactly a grocery clerk at Albertson’s. This is one powerful dude we are talking about, the kind of guy you expect to see riding high in the back seat of a $15 million Bentley, sitting higher than anyone else, hanging out with royalty and captains of industry and political movers and shakers, paying big bucks to lobbyists to get him what he wants in Sacramento and Washington. Isn’t that what greatness and power really mean today? Isn’t that what we would expect from someone whose kingdom will have no end? If we are going to have a king, at least he had better look and act like one. Yes, that’s the kind of king whom Gabriel seems to be talking about all right.
Except for one small problem. This momentous, angelic announcement is not made in Congress or the White House, not made at the United Nations, not made at the Vatican. It isn’t even made on CNN. The announcement is made to a teen-aged peasant girl in some dusty town north of Jerusalem. She had probably never even seen a Bentley! But it gets even worse. We find out that she is going to be his mother. This king will be the peasant son of an uneducated, dirt-poor, peasant girl.
Surely Gabriel has made a mistake. He needs to call in for further instructions. Must have had a bad cell phone connection. But in fact there is no mistake. The announcement is true. Reflecting on this shocking news, Frederick Buechner suggests that even old Gabriel himself might have been having some doubts. Says Buechner, “She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. ‘You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,’ he said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of this girl.”
It is a promise which is both awesome and absurd. Mary heard that her baby would be called Messiah, Savior, Lord, nothing less than the Son of the Most High. Yet look where we would be born…and to whom. This anointed Savior, the one bearing God’s holy name, would be born to a poor and homeless exile, taking shelter in a stranger’s barn. It strains the limits of human credulity. Martin Luther once said that the greatest of all the Christmas miracles is that Mary believed. She received an unbelievable announcement and she believed.
In her Christmas album, Good News, Kathy Mattea picks up this theme of an unlikely birth when she sings about the journey of the Wise Men:
They chased a brand new star, ever towards the West
Across the mountains far, but when it came to rest
They scarce believed their eyes, they’d come so many miles
The miracle they prized, was nothing but a child.
Royalty in a manger. Mary believed. The Wise Men finally believed. How about us? In a world of multi-million dollar business deals, where bigger is better and money talks louder and buys more influence than ever before, where institutional, military and political power calls all the shots…are we ready for such a birth? In fact, in a world such as ours, what difference can such a birth really make? In the words of John Stroman, “God’s chosen manner of coming into the world is always low key, almost casual. God shuns the spectacular and prefers the ordinary. What is more ordinary than the birth of a child? God has a way of appearing to be less than God really is – appearing as a child born in poverty and obscurity. God’s coming is so common, so ordinary…Are we ready for such a birth? Are we ready for such a God? Or could it be – whether we are ready or not – that such a God, such a birth, is just what we need?
Several years ago, Frederick Speakman wrote a dialogue in which two residents of Bethlehem are reflecting on some rumors they have heard concerning events in their town – talk of a birth, but not just any birth; the birth of one who was being called Son of God. They dismiss it as idle chatter. For God, the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, would certainly never choose a poor, out of the way place like Bethlehem for such a momentous birth. And for that matter, God the almighty Creator of heaven and earth would probably never choose to be with humanity anyway. Never going to happen. But then one of them says, “What if, what if God should decide to abide by the rules of his own game? What if God should ever decide to get into this? To risk it? To be just as limited as we are, just as prone to suffering, to risk our sorrow, even death; to take the full undiluted dose of His own medicine? That would do it. For then we would know and God would know. God would know what it’s like to be here and what it will take to salvage us. We would know what God is like and what we can expect of him.”
We don’t need a Lord, a Savior with a Bentley and his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame. We need a Lord, a Savior, who understands what it is like to walk in our shoes, on our streets, indeed who is willing to make that walk with us. That is why Gabriel’s announcement is so radical and so powerful. For he announces the birth of One who intends to do just that – who intends to take nothing less than the “full, undiluted dose” of our humanity. Not in some high and holy place, but right here, in the midst of our wonderful and crazy, joyful and painful daily lives, is where the promise of peace and good will, hope and love, must take root and grow. And by God’s grace, it will. That’s what this birth means.
Harriet Richie, a freelance writer, recalls a drive home following a midnight Christmas Eve service: “The houses in our neighborhood were dark. As we passed the Milford’s I wondered what Christmas Day would be like for them. Their daughter died in a car accident during the summer. Next-door Jack McCarthy had lost his job. A little farther down the street lived the Baileys, whose marriage was hanging together by the slimmest thread. Mrs. Smith’s grown son had died from AIDS.
“After we tucked in the children, I picked up a Bible and read, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.’ Then I found the Christmas story in Luke just to be sure it really did say, ‘I bring good news to all people.’
She concludes, “Rich, poor or in between, we are all poor in spirit. We all have more unhappy memories than anyone would guess and burdens that we never share. In the endless, sometimes meaningless daily grinds, in the coming and goings of our lives, our souls are often far from home whether we know it or not. In the places where we are broken, in the dark holds where something is missing, in the silence of unanswered questions, the wondrous gift is given.”