2 Samuel 7:1-16; Luke 1:26-38
- I remember a story about a pastor arriving in a new parish and preaching a wonderful sermon appreciated by the entire congregation. The next week, he preached the same sermon, and the week after that. This led the Chair of the Worship Committee to inquire of him why he had preached the same sermon three weeks in a row and not followed with a second or a third. The pastor's response - "I'm still waiting for action on the first one."
Some sadness appeared, however, on another occasion, when he confided in me that after 20 years of ministry, he wondered if any of his sermons had ever made a real difference. In some sense, he was asking (like the pastor in the new parish of our first story) if human beings were ever going to act on the ever repeated and unchanging story of Christmas and Easter. We hear this message repeatedly, year after year, and yet, in some respects, we're not saved by it. We're not transformed. We don't change.
- Wallace Purling was nine years old and only in second grade. Most
people in town knew he had difficulty keeping up. He was big and clumsy -
slow in movement and mind. Still, Wally was well liked by the other
children in his class, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation
when Wally asked to play ball with them.
Most often they'd find a way to keep him out of their games, but Wally would hang around anyway, just hoping. He was a helpful boy, willing and smiling, and a natural protecto>Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play's director assigned him a more important role. The Innkeeper didn't have many lines and Wally's size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph and Mary more forceful.
A large crowd of supportive families gathered for the pageant that year, the play began, and Wallace Purling stood in the wings watching with fascination. Joseph appeared, slowly and tenderly guiding Mary, and knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop.
"What do you want?" Wally the Innkeeper said brusquely, swinging the door open.
"We seek lodging," was Joseph's reply.
"There's no room here," Wally replied, looking straight ahead.
"Sir, we've asked everywhere. There's no room. We're tired. My wife is heavy with child. Surely you must have some corner for us to rest."
For the first time, the Innkeeper looked down at Mary. There was a long pause - long enough to make the audience tense with embarrassment.
"No! Be gone!" the prompter whispered from the wings.
"No!" Wally repeated. "Be gone!"
Sadly, Joseph placed his arm around Mary, who laid her head on her husband's shoulder as the two of them began to move wearily away. Wally stood in the doorway, watching the exhausted couple. His mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears. Suddenly, this Christmas pageant became different from all others.
"Don't go, Joseph," Wally cried out. "Bring Mary back." Wallace broke into a broad, bright smile. "You can have my room!"
About half the folk thought the pageant was ruined, but the other half thought it was the best Christmas pageant they'd ever seen.[1]
Wallace Purling was willing to make room for Joseph and Mary in the story because it became his story. It stopped being about an Innkeeper, or a story everyone already knows and simply expects to be repeated, like lines whispered by a prompter off stage. Instead, it became a new story, a drama unfolding right then and there because one child was moved by the old story enough to change it - to make it his.
In reality, that's the message of Christmas. Christ is coming into the world. Yes, we know that. However, do we know that Christ is knocking at the door of our busy, full lives? Do we realize that Christ is coming to us as a fragile thing, in a world that dwells in darkness, carried in the womb of a tired and weary church that no longer has a place or a purpose other than just repeating the old stories, weary of knocking on another door to be rejected?
Do we know we're being invited to change the story - to make the story ours - to surrender our room, our lives, our place, everything we have - to give Christ room to be born in us as a living hope that brings good news to the oppressed, binds up the broken hearted, proclaims liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners? Have we, bearing the name of Christ as the body of Christ, made Christ's story our story, saying with the trust and confidence of a frightened unwed teen-aged girl, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."
- Note #13 from KEVIN MAXEY to CHRISTMAS.ILLUSTRATIONS.TOPIC@ECUNET.ORG
(Comments to Michael at mphillip@epix.net.)
First Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Berwick, Pennsylvania (Susquehanna North Branch)