Wrapped in Bands of Cloth

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 9: 2-7 and Luke 2: 1-14 Sermon Title: Wrapped in Bands of Cloth Preached on December 24, 2021 I’ve been captivated lately, by an article I read in The Atlantic magazine by a self-described, “grumpy old man.” It’s titled: the Most Beloved Christmas Specials Are (Almost) All Terrible. Do you agree with that statement? The author is especially critical of those Rankin/Bass stop-motion Claymation stories. He describes the most well-known, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, like this: “It has pleasant songs and touching moments, if you like that sort of thing. It’s also terrible.” Now, you might ask, “If not Rudolf or Frosty the Snowman, what should we be watching?” According to the author of this article, Tom Nichols, “Once you clear away all [the] detritus, there are two greats that should be the mainstay of your Christmas watching, and you already know what they are: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas.” I was especially impressed with his explanation for why A Charlie Brown Christmas. Our author says, for one thing, A Charlie Brown Christmas is only 26 minutes long, but most of all, in this classic, when Charlie Brown gives up on understanding the meaning of Christmas, Linus takes center stage, asks for a spotlight, and humbly recites the announcement of the birth of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke as if it’s a perfectly normal thing for a small child to know by heart. “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown,” he says, and he’s right. So tonight, we focus on the baby. The one who is wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger, for while there is much to think about: Presents to wrap, food to cook, pandemics to worry over, conversations with your uncle to avoid, this baby, like all babies, demands our attention. That’s what babies do to people. Think about that trick play GEICO commercial where the football players pretend that the football is a baby and the defensive lineman start playing peekaboo. This is true of most all of us. We will do anything for a baby. I’ll be headed out to lunch when our preschool kids are getting picked up by their parents. These kids are two and three-and four-year-olds. If one calls me by name, especially this little girl named Kate Callahan, it doesn’t matter how late I’m running, I just stop in my tracks to listen to her. Likewise, a baby named Anna Leigh lives across the street from our house. If her parents are pushing her down the driveway in her stroller, she’ll literally stop traffic. Why? Because she’s precious, that’s why. And everyone wants to make her smile. Therefore, in this divided time, fraught with anxiety and fear, tonight, this worship service calls us to what Christmas is all about. And what is Christmas all about? A baby wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. In this passage from the Gospel of Luke, everybody surrounds him. You can imagine the shepherds trying to make him laugh. The angels, those celestial beings, hovering over him to touch his cheeks. This is the effect babies have. If wearing a mask in the grocery store made all the babies smile, no one would mind wearing them. If showing a proof of vaccination made them laugh, you’d have to pay people not to get their shots, rather than the other way around. Which points to the problem. That when the government makes us, no one wants to. And that’s where the Christmas story begins. With an Emperor who ordered his subjects around. All had to go to their own towns to be registered, for the emperor wanted to know how many people he had. Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem of Judea. Surely his wife said, “but I’m pregnant,” then Joseph feeling helpless and frustrated, grumbled something at her, and wandered outside to check on the donkey, for this feeling of being helpless in the face of government bureaucracy is one of the worst feelings that a person can feel. What Joseph felt as he was forced to uproot his family and travel like that surely felt something like living during a global pandemic, when the virus dictates what to wear and how to be. Last Christmas we were even kept from going where we wanted to go. People have had enough of it. Of course, we have. For we all have a very low tolerance for our lives being disrupted unless our lives are being disrupted by a baby. Have you ever thought about how much babies and emperors have in common? Babies drop things off their highchairs. Why? To display their power, for no matter how often they drop it, we just keep picking it up. \ Now think about Joseph. Joseph went from being told where to go by an emperor to picking up, again and again, the pacifier of an infant. He’s lost all sense of agency. However, no matter how much babies require, babies make their parents into better people than they were, because they save us from being so self-centered. They upend our plans left and right, but they also reprioritize our lives in the best way. Babies refine us and remind us again that what we were on the way to, whatever it was, isn’t nearly so important as loving them, which makes us better people and brings us joy. So, both make us do things we wouldn’t choose to do. Babies and emperors have that in common, yet they’re different, and I learned about that difference again just a few days ago. County Commissioner, Keli Gambrell, who sits in our balcony every Sunday with her family at the 8:30 service called. She told me that SafePath Children’s Advocates had received dozens of donated bikes for the foster kids in their care. They had more bikes than kids. She wanted to know if I knew of any kids who needed one of their extra bikes. Now this was the week before Christmas that Keli called me. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but most pastors are busy the week before Christmas, so there was a part of me that didn’t want another thing to do, yet, nudged by an angel I called Tim Hammond, who has a pick-up truck, and we made two trips and lined up 16 bikes right outside our church doors. Now there are 16 kids with a bike to ride on, but to make it happen, to be a part of this wonderful Christmas miracle, Tim and I had to put aside whatever else we thought was the most important thing. I had to walk away from what I thought I was supposed to do, to do what I needed to do. And now I’m here to tell you that there is an important difference between going to Bethlehem because the emperor ordered you and going to Bethlehem because you get to see the Christ child. Do you know that difference? My friends, Jesus is born unto us, and he demands our attention. He calls us to stop what we’re doing. His law of love is a call to change our ways, for just as the shepherds had to come out of the fields and the angels had to come down from heaven, we must stop in our tracks to come and see. Now this is a change. We don’t like change, so remember that his call to us is so different from the demand of an emperor. Do you know the difference? I know some people only made it here tonight because the emperor made them. I don’t know what her name is in her house, but I can imagine that she said: “No one touches the scotch until after the service.” Still, tonight is not an obligation kind of night. Why? Because Jesus didn’t come out of obligation but out of love. That’s the point. If you leave the love out of Christmas, what have you got? I hope you have plenty of egg nogg if you have a Christmas full of obligation. That’s the lesson of the other Christmas special that the old grouch, Tom Nichols of The Atlantic magazine approves of, for the Grinch can try to steal Christmas, only once he’s bagged up the trees, the presents, the decorations, and the food, he reveals what no one can ever take away. He removes the distraction to get to the heart of the matter: the baby wrapped in bands of cloth. The gift of love from God on high. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who comes to us bringing faith, hope, and love that all our tears would turn to laughter and our despair to joy. That’s what tonight is about my friends. A child who was: Born at the instant The church bells chime And the whole world whispering Born at the right time. That’s what Paul Simon sang, and this child comes to us, unafraid of our brokenness. To love us despite it. So, love him. Kneel at the manger. See him smile. Hear him laugh. And enjoy your family. Be kind to your mother. Hug your children tight. Love your neighbor as yourself. Go out of your way to do what is right. Forgive. Be kind. Care. Not because you must, but because when we love one another, we honor the one who first loved us, and came to us as a child wrapped in bands of cloth. May his light shine bright in you. Amen.