Christmas Eve
Year A 
Love Came Down at Christmas

Readings: Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20 

She was a little donkey with no great aspirations.  Her name was Jenny and she lived in Nazareth.  Like any self-respecting donkey she had a stubborn streak, but she knew life was good.  Joseph was a kind owner who didn’t work her too hard.  There was plenty of grass on which to graze.  At night she slept snug and warm in the shed at the back of the house.  Always there was a kind word, a scratch behind her ears, and a handful of oats or something special for her to eat at the end of the day. 

Then bright and early one morning Joseph loaded her up with packages and supplies.  As if that wasn’t enough he helped his wife, Mary who was expecting a baby any day up on the little donkey’s back.  If it had been anyone else her stubborn nature would have taken over.  She trusted these wonderful people.  Truth to tell, with the love she felt for them Mary and her unborn child was no burden at all.   

They started out on their journey.  They were not alone on that dusty road.  Everyone, it seemed, was heading in one direction or another.  People would turn off the road from time to time.  Still Joseph led them on, mile after weary mile.  They travelled for three days, stopping from time to time by the roadside to eat a hasty meal.  At night they slept beneath the stars.  The donkey could see that the journey was taking its toll on Mary.  Late on that third day they turned off the busy main road and entered the village of Bethlehem.  Joseph stopped at several of the houses but at each one the story was the same.  No room! Finally someone showed them into a stable behind a small wayside inn.  Jenny gratefully sank her nose into the manger, ate her meal and then settled down in the straw.  It seemed odd to her that Joseph and Mary also bedded down in the straw, snuggled together for warmth. 

Then Mary's labour pains began, little wonder, after the arduous trip they had made.  But the sound, so natural to her, did not seriously disturb Jenny’s sleep.  It was sometime later that she awoke to the sound of a baby crying.  “His name is Jesus,” Joseph said to Mary.  “That is what the angel told me in the dream.  Jenny didn’t know why, but the mere mention of the name sent a thrill of hope through her heart and she looked with awe at the tiny, wrinkled baby settled in his mother's arms.  Then Joseph wrapped him in some clothing they had brought for him, filled the manger with soft, fragrant hay, and laid the baby there to sleep. 

Jenny dozed off, lulled by gentle singing coming from somewhere above the stable.  Suddenly their peace was shattered by loud, happy voices.  Some rough looking shepherds jostled their way into the stable.  As they came close to Mary and the little one, a hush fell over them.  They told Joseph the story of how they had been watching their sheep on the hillside outside of Bethlehem.  “Some angels appeared to us,” they explained, “and told us about the miraculous birth of a baby boy, the Saviour of the world.  ‘Go to Bethlehem,’ the angels told us.  ‘You’ll find the baby wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’”  The shepherds left gifts for Jesus. They laid them down there in the manger – raisins and nuts, a carved shepherd’s pipe, and a warm piece of sheepskin.  Then they hurried off, singing and shouting all the way about the Saviour born in a manger.  They were determined that everyone would hear the good news about Jesus’ birth. 

Looking at that little baby that night some primal memory stirred deep inside the donkey.  She had a sudden vision of the greatness that lay in her feeding trough.  She knew that the long journey had been worth it, that God's hand was in it.  In a flash of insight she saw ahead to another donkey carrying this child, now fully grown into the city.  She had a vision of a cross, as clear as the cross that marks her own back as it does every little donkey. 

The cross marks the life of every Christian.  It is easy to forget amidst the tinsel and sugar and twinkling lights that make Christmas such a wonderful celebration.  Tonight we celebrate the mystery that is Christmas.   We celebrate knowing that it meant long journeys, homelessness, poverty, and sorrow.  It meant also Emmanuel, God with us.  It meant, as any birth does, a great gift of joy. 

Our destination tonight is the stable.  What better place for a loving creator to enter our world and our lives?  It is part of that deep mystery at the heart of Christmas.  The birth of Christ is a perfect introduction to the life, death and resurrection.  If we will let it, it can tell us beyond all doubt that God is love.  Love came down at Christmas.  Love dwelt among us.  God was revealed to humanity in a new and transformed way.  God reached out to us so that we might come to know and love our creator. 

A light shines from the open door of the stable tonight.  It beckons to us to enter.  If we go in we too will look with awe and wonder upon God's child.  Emmanuel, the Saviour, the Prince of Peace, is born.  Love has come down to earth.    

Christmas more than any other day of the year confronts us with the wisdom of the observation: "The past is history, the future is mystery; today is gift, which is why we call it present."  Amid the gathering and celebrating, amid the gifts and discarded wrappings and ribbons, take a moment to remember that the most precious gift we will receive today is the gift of a child.  Let us embrace the child in the manger.  Let him guide us to better lives.  Let us accept the healed world that is visible in the eyes of a child.  Let this be the first day of the rest of our lives.