Luke 2: 1-16
Where do you consider home? In a recent Pew survey in the United States, it was found that among all foreign-born adults, including recent arrivals to the United States “38 percent describe home as their country of birth.”1
Personally, I think that survey result is far too one-dimensional. I wish that survey elaborated further, because I have found the question of where one considers “home” to be not necessarily a very easy answer. If a single person has a contract to live in a certain place, for a certain time say a year or two, the meaning of home may not be the same, compared to a person, married, with children living in the same community for years. One’s answer about home would be quite different.
An old adage goes, “home is the where heart is.” From my experience that also is naive, for the suggestion is that a person cannot love more than one place and consider more than one place home. Alain de Botton, a philosopher in the United Kingdom, put it this way “To speak of home in relation to a building (or place) is simply to recognize its harmony with the things we believe are most important.”2
That survey result, the broad and various meanings of home and what our experiences may be, are a crucial staring point for us to begin to understand the good news of Christmas.
As our story goes, Jesus was not born in a home or hospital. As there was no room in the inn, he was born in a stable or barn and placed in a feeding trough termed a manger. Clearly temporary! For how long that was, we do not know. And the village where he was born, Bethlehem, was not the place were he was to spend much time. Joseph and Mary were there because as the Gospel tells us, Joseph had to --- something that we who live in Japan can fully understand --- register with his family because of a Roman census based on his ancestral roots. Joseph was part of the tribe of Benjamin, like King David it’s most well known of ancestors.
Then as we come to find out later, this new born baby within weeks, with his parents had to flee death, and live as refugees in Egypt, until the family finally settled down in Nazareth. That varied experience of home continues for an adult Jesus, as Nazareth and later Capernaum are not necessarily stable locations. When Jesus begins his ministry, Nazareth is ready to throw stones at him and Capernaum the home of Peter, seems to have been an office for Jesus. And there of course Jesus’ own words: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”3
Home! As I said before home takes on a whole new meaning in the context of the good news of Christmas. Let me share what I mean by telling you this story. This story may or may not be true. The source from which I secured it stated that it has not been legitimately verified.4 And in my own research, I did not find anything that supported or contradicted its authenticity, yet, whether it is true or not, it illustrates what I mean.
Back in 1994, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, two consultants from the US were invited by the Russian Department of Education to provide assistance on the teaching of ethics in prisons, at businesses, fire and police departments and even at a large orphanage.
They were also told they could teach on occasion if they chose from the perspective of their Christian faith. However, it was the experience of these two in the Russian orphanage that proved to be particularly illuminating. According to one of them, "Will Fish" possibly a pseudonym for an anonymous Christian, there were about 100 boys and girls in the orphanage, children who had been abandoned, some who had been abused, but all left in the care of a government-run program. This Fish person tells the following story of what happened when Christmas approached and they presented a program on the story of Christmas.
"We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem," says Fish. "Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger. Completing the story, we gave the children three small pieces of cardboard to make a crude manger. Each child was given a small paper square, cut from yellow napkins we had brought. Following instructions, the children with the help of the staff, tore the paper and carefully laid strips in the manger for straw. Small squares of flannel were used for the baby's blanket. Before the event, we had cut doll like babies from tan felt we had brought. The children were busy assembling their mangers as we walked among them to see if they needed any help. All went well until we got to one table where little ‘Misha’ sat - he looked to be about 6 years old and had finished his project. As we looked at the little boy's manger, we were startled to see not one, but two babies in the manger.”
"We called for the translator to ask the boy why there were two babies in the manger. Crossing his arms in front of him and looking at his completed manger scene, the child began to repeat the story very seriously. For such a young boy, he related the story accurately - until he came to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger. Then ‘Misha’ started to ad lib. He made up his own ending to the story as he said, 'And when Mary laid the baby in the manger, baby Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. No, I told him as I have no mamma and I have no papa. Then baby Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn't, because I didn't have a gift to give him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift. So I asked Jesus and Jesus told me, ‘If you keep me warm that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me.’ So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him - for always.’”
We call Jesus by the name Emmanuel, which means "God (is) with us." That what Christmas is about; God who came in Jesus Christ, came to us, to dwell with us, and this Jesus will never abandon or abuse us, but will stay with us - for always.
You see, we are never completely without companionship or support, for we have a home, as long as there are two babies in the manger. Furthermore, this same Jesus will stay with us on every journey we take, every step of the way, no matter where we find ourselves, no matter what we consider home, and will guide us toward an everlasting kingdom, one marked by love and peace and justice.
There is something more, because there is always room for another baby in the manger. Our challenge as Christians is never simply to stay close to Jesus and to enjoy his forgiveness, acceptance and peace. Instead, we are to explain to the world why we are choosing to be one of the babies in the manger, to dwell with Jesus as he has with us. On Christmas, and everyday, Jesus invites us to join him, as Misha understood, for the Christmas manger is really and truly our home. Amen.
1 “Americans changing homes at lowest recorded rate,” Roberts, Sam, International Herald Tribune, Monday, December 22, 2008.
2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6151624.stm
3 Luke 9:58; Matthew 8:20
4 www.homiletics.com
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