Our son and daughter-in-law Jeremie and Anna love to play cards. They come over every Sunday night to have dinner and then we clear the table and engage in a full-throated, trash talking, all-out-war, in the form of Gin Rummy (We take card playing quite seriously). When you play you have to pay attention to both what’s in your hand and what’s in the discard pile and if you see someone discarding a card that creates a run you quickly yell, “Rummy.” Unfortunately, I don’t think quickly on my feet and can never remember what I’m supposed to say so I often yell out, “Budabudabuda” or “The thingy! The thingy!” The first time it happened everyone looked at me stunned as if I had had a stroke at the table. I want you to listen to Luke again and pay attention to the discard pile:
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
What’s the budabudabuda? What’s this thing? Why didn’t they just say, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this baby . . .”? What did they go to see?
The budabudabuda, the thing, is bigger than a baby. It’s the glory of the Lord, God’s amazing gift, the joyful love of God for all people. Christmas is God plus us, which equals to us, with us, and for us, that’s why it should be spelled “Christmus”.
In vs. 9, we are told, “the glory of the Lord shone.” The “glory of the Lord” is a Hebrew phrase referring to God’s presence and strength, often associated with light and shining.
One of the first places we come across God’s glory is in the rescue of God’s people from slavery in Egypt. In Exodus 14:17-18 God declares that he will get glory when Pharaoh is beaten and God’s people are freed. So God’s glory is first revealed as liberation. Then, God’s glory is seen in the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day – a presence that travels and guides people and provides bread for them along the wilderness way (16:10). God’s glory is presence, guidance, and sustenance. Finally, when the people of God came to Mt. Sinai, the glory of God was present on that mountain as a “consuming fire” that brings about holiness or wholeness in people (24:17, 29:43).
Christmas isn’t simply the birth of a baby. It’s jaw-dropping,
good news, that God joyfully delivers us, guides us, feeds us, and transforms
us. Christmas is God plus us. The thing the Shepherds go to see is Emmanuel – literally
God with us. That’s why a nativity is always more than a manger and a cute baby.
It’s a whole cadre of characters – the educated and the marginal, the messed up
and the looked over, the wealthy and the poor, men and women, young and old, political
tyrants and refugee fugitives – it’s us. That’s why we need to make French creches
and have more Santons – figurines from all walks of life present at the birth
of Jesus. This birth is because of us, for all of us, in order to save us.
And notice that God’s joy comes first – before anyone knows, before anyone responds, before anyone goes – God’s joy comes first. Friends, God doesn’t save us because we are unlovable. God’s joy and glory is to send this baby because you are - lovable.
The good news, the thing, is that each of us is a person whom God loves deeply and for whom God desires liberation. The bad news is that this truth is often buried beneath layers of bad theology and bad experiences which have us imagining God’s joy doesn’t really include us. In the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, the main character, Owen, is very small due to birth defects. He is forced to play the baby Jesus even though he’s a teenager. Embarrassed – he forbids his parents to come to the Christmas play only to discover that they came anyway and are sitting on the front row. When he sees them, he stands up in the manger, points at them and yells, “Who let you in here?” How many of us think like that? How many of us suffer from Christmas imposter syndrome imagining that this baby wants nothing to do with us, that God is not joyful about us. Yet the good news is that the gospel is not a moral tale and God is not some heavenly Santa with a naughty and nice list. We all need a savior and aren’t saved because we are good but because God is good. Friends, Christmas joy is God plus us.
And the Shepherds are amazing. They listened and went even though they were afraid. Called by God, they left at a moment’s notice to go chasing after the newborn of two homeless, unwed foreigners from Galilee. This whole project, this great joy, this “thing that has happened” is Christ-mass.
The word “mass” in Christmas comes from the Latin word “missa”. Ite, missa est was the ancient liturgical formula of some of the earliest Christian worship in Latin. It concluded the service and literally means “Go, be sent.” In Old English it was translated “sendness” [“In sendness, I go.”] Friends, our text today reminds us of these origins. Christ was massed – sent – to the masses, with us, for us, for all people. And we, like shepherds, are also massed – sent - to declare good news of great joy for all people. It's never just Jesus. It’s Christmus. So go in sendness with a wonder watching joy. Christmas is God plus us.
