Sermon based on Luke 2: 1-14. "Wrapped in swaddling clothes," that's the phrase I heard growing up. Mary wrapped her first born son in swaddling clothes. Now we say, "wrapped in bands of cloth," which is a more accurate translation, but much less poetic, don't you think? Or perhaps you prefer the artistic license on the front of some of your bulletins --- a shiny, plump naked baby.
To say that Jesus was swaddled or wrapped is not unusual. As all Jewish children when they were born, were washed in water, rubbed with salt, and then wrapped in strips of cloth, or "swaddling clothes."
The idea behind swaddling of course is that it helps the baby transition from the womb --- a very snug place --- to the outside world. Swaddling clothes are still used in many cultures today, but with some modifications. I can just imagine a quilt made by one of our many churches gifted through Lutheran World Relief wrapped around a refugee newborn, material sewed with care touching an unknown refugee, newborn. In general, wrapping has been proved to help infants sleep better, to prevent them from scratching themselves, and to reduce the risk of SIDS. At the time of Jesus, a swaddled infant was understood to be in safety if wrapped and watched properly.
The Biblical passages that refers to swaddling or wrapping cloth occurs twice --- both in Luke: "And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." We can assume from the fact that the couple wrapped the baby Jesus that they were attentive parents and followed the customs of the day.
It is the second reference however, that has received more attention, swaddling is revealed when the angel who spoke to the shepherds on the hillside mentions wrapped cloth as part of the sign to the shepherds that they had found the Messiah: "This will be a sign for you; you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."
Over the centuries, much has been made of this connection of swaddling with sign. Some commentators reference an obscure portion of a passage from a book called the Wisdom of Solomon. Commentators suggest that this sign is a reference to Christ's place in the Davidic line, and his rightful place as heir to the Throne of David.
Other commentators, particularly the church fathers who tried to find metaphor in everything, suggest the swaddling clothing used by Mary and Joseph are a sign of the strips of cloth used in burial rites. In other words, this wrapping foreshadows Jesus's later death.
I've never liked those interpretations not only because cloth for burial uses a completely different word, and ignores the fact that nearly everyone did the same. And I have never liked the reference from the Wisdom of Solomon because it is out of what is called the Apocrypha; books with doubtful authorship and conflicted history. But more importantly, the image of Jesus wrapped speaks to something much larger for me. It is a visible mixture of Christmas, the mystery and the common bundled together, a sign of the gift.
The mystery is of course, how God doesn't hide from us, but comes into our world. God isn't aloof; God is with us, Emmanuel. The unimaginable God took unimaginable action. The German writer Goethe described it as: "The highest cannot be spoken; it can only be acted." God acted on that first Christmas. This unknowable, inconceivable God, far beyond us, entered our world. And God came into the world not as a demi-god but as a tiny, helpless, human infant, born in obscurity, to a plain, peasant couple. The infinite God, beyond all boundaries, takes on the limitations not only of time and space, but of a human form --- of one who suffers pain and anxiety; one who experiences joy.
All this is wrapped into the common cotton strips of life. Now God has a face --- of a 1st century male Jew in Palestine. Jesus was a certain man, from a definitive place, who was born at a specific time, with parents like you and me. God reveals God's self on a night in time, in a place called Bethlehem.
All this mystery and common wrapped together begins in a backwater part of the world, born suddenly, on the road, in a lowly cave like animal shelter, near a no-vacancy inn. The places are real, Nazareth in Galilee, and Bethlehem, the House of Bread, in Judea.
Furthermore, this was not into a vacuum, for no time is free of deep undercurrents, for a conflicting religious-political world swirled. The other Roman province of Syria, was tussling with Rome over Palestine's borders, the Parthian empire in present day Iran was a constant hazard and Emperor Augustus, the ruler and restorer of a new age in the Roman Empire did so with a power politics of "take-no-prisoners." Yet, all these currents are totally unaware of Jesus, the embryonic Prince of Peace, laying all tightly wrapped in bands of cloth by a teenage mother, and a soon to fade into oblivion father.
Heaven bends to earth; earth lifts to heaven and sits bundled in a feeding trough. Thus, is born the savior of the world --- all swaddled, all wrapped up, a gift in a poopy baby.
What does this all mean for us who live in a 21st culture, where we for the most part do not give birth in stables, but in sterile suites? The gift that is Jesus, the Christ child born and wrapped into our world this night, begins a journey teaching us about God. From a baby, onwards we learn God is not a distant far away God, like an aloof or judgmental parent. But God enters the fray we are in, living here in the material world. We can almost smell the animals, manure, urine and hay Jesus was born into, see the blood and struggle of the birth, feel the shocking poverty of the rustic shepherds. This we know is only the beginning.
This leads to the second part of the gift wrapped in this baby. Jesus is the bread of life, born in Bethlehem, the city of bread. God becomes tangible to us, as tasty and as fulfilling as Communion's thanksgiving meal.
This Jesus, who begins as a full human being enters with a "borning" cry as a new born child birthed from a squatting mother received into the hands of an expectant father, with gurgling sounds all initiating and incarnating God's Holy Word and life-giving mission. It is in the words of a cooing baby that God begins the healing of our inequities, and the restoration of God's justice and peace.
Christmas is the celebration of this incarnational intertwining wrapped up earth and heaven, sacred and secular, hay and communion bread.
So, tonight, we stand in awe at each of them and marvel at the package. In Jesus, redeemer of the world, this present gifted to us, is not based on if we have been "naughty or nice." This baby is not a living "Elf on a Shelf," reporting back to a Santa God.
Instead, God sends Jesus to us where we are, among us and with us, among our joys and sorrows. God presents to us a little new-born child wrapped in bands of cloth, lying in a manger, with grubby shepherds the only witnesses, his first believers. In this action, God says despite our grubbiness, and our flaws and failures, I give you this Messiah, this Reconciler, the Savior and Prince of Peace as promised. Jesus, a gift by way of the Holy Spirit, wrapped in traditional human birth clothes of the time, begins to unwrap us from our own self-importance, and re-wraps our lives in the incarnate gift born among us.
This is God with us, the bread of life, the bread of heaven; all wrapped up for us to open each day. Merry Christmas for the gift is wrapped and waiting! Amen.