Step into the stable. It is a cave, a basic space that protects the work animals from the elements. It smells of hay, grassy and sweet. It smells of animals, of sweat and manure. On this cold night, steam rises from the breath of the donkey and the ox. They stand quietly in crude stalls. Their gaze guides your eyes farther back in the stable, from whence emanates a soft light. A lantern is set carefully apart from the hay and straw. And by its shadowy light you see a woman lying in the straw, covered up to the chin in a man’s cloak. And tucked in next to her is a brand-new baby, swaddled snugly in cloths, his shock of black hair plastered to his head. A man is tending to them and seems protective; nevertheless, he whispers a welcome, and he is beaming.
“Look!” he says, “We have a fine little boy. Isn’t he the most beautiful baby you have ever seen?” He picks up the baby, who sleeps on, and places him in your arms. And in that moment, you think you have never seen such a fine newborn.
There is something magical about meeting a newborn baby. Today, this one and only day, they will do all the basic things for the first time: breathe, eat, poop, cry, see, hear, taste. This is their first time ex-utero in this body in this world. I don’t know about you, but I gaze into that sleeping face and wonder what life will bring. What might you become, little baby? You don’t know anything about prejudice or oppression, about famine or want. Everything is wide open; everything seems possible. Maybe you could be president, or king. Maybe you could be a great teacher or preacher. Maybe you could be a doctor, healing people whom others could not heal. Maybe you could feed the hungry. You are fresh from God. What messages do you bring?
And when we’re thinking along these lines, we might also consider how messed up things are, how cruel people can be to each other, and how trusting and vulnerable this little baby is, because he doesn’t know yet about all that. We may instinctively want to shield him from anything that would cause him harm. He doesn’t know yet, for example, that his parents are poor and couldn’t find a place to stay in Bethlehem. He doesn’t know that Caesar made them take this trip in order to enroll them in a census so that Caesar could keep tabs on all the world and tax everyone to fund his empire. Caesar is saying, “It’s all mine, and you all work for me. I am the son of the gods, the king of kings and lord of lords, and I have all the earthly power.” This baby doesn’t know that a stable is an unusual place to be born, that having an ox and a donkey looking over you and breathing their warm breath on you is not the way it’s always done.
So here is this family, with no address for Caesar to track, hanging out at the margins, with other of God’s creatures to welcome them. And for now it is enough.
And you, you are from the margins, too. You live out in the hills, tending sheep. Like this family, you have no address, no home. You live with God’s creatures, sleep under the stars, protect the sheep from any who would harm them.
The woman stirs. She opens her eyes and sees you. She smiles, weary. “Have you met our gift from God?” she says.
There’s something you have to tell these people. So you begin.
“We were out in the hills. The sheep had settled down for the night. We were sitting around a fire to keep warm, talking about who would take the first watch. And then—I don’t even know how to describe it—we weren’t alone. There was someone else standing by the fire. And she said she had good news, that this baby had been born who was going to be something special, who was the one we had been waiting for. And then we heard great singing, praising God. So we had to come and see.”
The woman and her husband exchange a look, the meaning of which you don’t know.
“This baby is going to be somebody,” you say. “He is something special. He is indeed a gift from God.”
A smile steals across the woman’s face. “Thank you,” she says. “I think so, too. I know so. Thanks be to God.”
You don’t stay much longer. She is clearly exhausted. But you drink in this sight. And you find yourself wanting to make the world a more hospitable place for this special gift from God, to work with God to bring justice and peace, food for the hungry, housing for the homeless, healthcare for the sick, education for the children. Things you often don’t have yourself. But maybe if we worked together, out in the margins, away from the censuses and all those who tell you how things are supposed to be—maybe we could make some things better.
A few miles away and a few months later, Herod in his palace will pace and fume, stomping with frustration. Passing magi have asked directions to the new king, and they didn’t mean him or anyone in his household. Which tells him that he is not the future. Herod thinks only of himself and his human power, including the ability to inflict enormous pain and suffering at a whim. In spite of his current power, he will not last.
But there is something about this baby that endures, through all the despots, through all the suffering. We fall in love with this gift from God every year, and every year we are inspired to work with God to make this world better for all the babies—human, bird, fish, donkey—all of them. For on that night in the stable, the beauty of God’s creation and the magnificence of God’s gift to us became clear as never before.
So on this Christmas Eve, come to the manger. Come to the manger and just sit in awe and wonder and love. Be enveloped in the flow of new life and new possibilities. Hold that baby in your arms and gaze at the miracle before you of God made flesh and dwelling with us, not just 2,000 years ago but now, today, in us and around us, maybe out at the margins in someplace that has no address. Sit in the straw near the ox and the donkey and feel their warm, gentle breath as they, too, check out the new arrival.
We are invited to be a part of the new possibilities. For the sake of that baby in the manger—and all babies everywhere, human and otherwise—out of an upwelling of love and a desire to make this world as hospitable and thriving as possible, recommit to all that is life-giving, not just for yourself but for the whole.
Christ is born. Tonight. In our midst. Amen.