A Humble Christmas

Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Justin: Merry Christmas, everyone. Thanks so much for being here and I know that our lives are so busy and we all have family gatherings to go get to. I'm leaving here going straight to the airport so I know that we all have really busy lives but I'm so grateful that we all chose to take just a moment tonight to come together to be here and celebrate the birth of Jesus together.

This Advent season we've been looking at the 23rd Psalm here at The Table and how our shepherd, the Lord, is leading us into hope and peace and joy and love and so I thought it would be fitting for our Christmas text tonight to be centered around the shepherds. So I'm gonna be reading Luke chapter 2:8-20 and it says this:

Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them: “Do not be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is the Messiah the Lord. This will be a sign for you you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favors. When the angel had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that's taken place which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen just as it had been told to them.

So tonight we're stepping back into a moment in history where Caesar Augustus is ruling over the Roman Empire and Augustus was a real piece of work. There was no one that Augustus loved more than Augustus and he was quick to tell people how the Empire was so peaceful and so prosperous. He made sure to put that forward and then to be fair Augustus did lead a 200-year period of peace and prosperity for the Roman Empire known as the Roman Peace.

They made huge structural and technological advances. The arts were booming economically. They were thriving but that's what you saw on the surface. Augustus wanted to be seen as a Savior like figure who was ushering in peace and he made sure that officials and writers and poets were paid off to push forward that narrative. Virgil called him son of a God who will once again usher in a golden age but the only problem is that that golden age was only for a small minority of people. Only about 7% of the population including your wealthy Roman citizens and your governing officials actually experienced anything close to peace and prosperity. The other 93% experienced fear and poverty and persecution and it was into this environment that Jesus the King of Kings was born to a young woman of no notable status to a small town in Bethlehem and placed in a feeding trough because there was nowhere else for Jesus to be laid.

And out of all the people that God could have alerted about Jesus's birth, the angels appear to a group of shepherds who are living out in the fields. There is nothing spectacular about this birth story and other than the angels no real signs that God has come to dwell among us. Just a baby in a manger who is supposed to be good news for all the people. The Christmas story is a story of humility. When we think about humility I know that we're often taught that being humble means that we shrink ourselves and we become the lowest possible version of us and we take up the least possible amount of space. But the Hebrew word for humility is anavah and it means to occupy your God-given space in the world. Not more and not less. Your space. So true humility is about being aware of and comfortable with your place and your purpose. So when we're exercising true humility we aren't taking up so much space that we push others out but we're also not becoming so small that our responsibility falls to other people.

Jesus's birth is filled with examples of humility. Take Mary for example. She exercises humility and saying yes to carrying the Son of God. She accepts her responsibility from God that she could have easily said no to but you you want me to carry the Son of God? That's a job for someone who is much more worthy, much more holy. But instead she says here am I your servant let it be done to me according to your word? That's anava.

The shepherds show great humility and they're answering the call to go see what God has done. Like Mary it could have been so easy for them to say well we're just we're just a bunch of shepherds in a field. This good news isn't for us but instead they they recognize that this moment is a moment that they need to respond to and once they witnessed the child they didn't become prudes who thought that they were better than everyone else because they got a sneak peek at the newborn King. No they went right back to the fields where they belonged, rejoicing and sharing the good news with other people. That is anavah.

And of course there's Jesus who doesn't take advantage of his own divine power and privilege but chooses to take on human form. This baby that is currently in a feeding trough is going to grow up to have a ministry where he ministers to and advocates for the poor and the vulnerable. Not because they're weak but because he loves and throughout Jesus's life he doesn't dominate in his ministry but he also doesn't fade away either. He dwells among us and that is anavah.

So I wonder how the humble birth of Jesus might be speaking into how you and I are called to live our lives in this present moment. Augustus that who I mentioned earlier he believed that peace came through force. He wanted to take up as much space as possible and he wanted to control so that he could glorify himself but the kind of peace that Jesus offers comes from occupying, occupying, excuse me, exactly the space that God has given.

And so the reality is that you and I may not be able to change the world but we can certainly occupy our space in the world. If you're next door neighbor is too afraid to come outside right now because of the color of their skin maybe you as a neighbor could go get their groceries and deliver them to them. That is anava. or maybe in your profession you have some power and privilege that you could use to minister to the vulnerable among us. You can use those resources for that purpose. That is also anava. So being humble being humble should touch every facet of our lives even in the relationships that we're building.

My grandma was one of my favorite people and she's been gone for about six years now. I'm gonna try not to cry telling the story I do every time so I'm gonna try really hard not to. But my grandma did not have a lot of money and so every fall she would take me to a discount store that we had in South Carolina called Roses and she would let me pick out a cheap toy and she would take it to the layaway counter and she would put it on layaway and every time she would clean houses and get a little bit of money she would go back to Roses and pay a little bit more and a little bit more until that item that toy was fully paid for by Christmas. And that gift meant more to me than any Xbox or any go-kart that I ever got because that was anava. She occupied her God-given space in the world no more and no less and I know that she could have really used that money to buy groceries or pay bills but that's how she chose to express her love for me. Like that's something that she could do and she did it. And so I wonder what it looks like for you and the relationships that you have to live in humility and to express anava to those around you. What does that look like for your husband or your wife, your children, your parents, your friends?

I want to wrap up tonight by showing you a piece of art that is called The Census at Bethlehem. If we could put that up on the screen. This was painted in 1566 by Bruegel the Elder and it's a snowy German scene and you can see people in this photo are just living their life. There are kids outside throwing snowballs. There are people trying to pay their taxes over in the corner. People are working. There's some folks in the back who are trying to stay warm by the fire and in the beauty and in the chaos of all of these people living life are Mary and Joseph looking for a place to give birth to the Son of God. They're in the middle at the bottom. You can see Mary riding on the donkey and Joseph is pulling her forward there and it's almost like a Where's Waldo painting, right?

Because if you don't know who you're looking for you might miss them in this picture because there's no pomp and circumstance here. There's just a crowd of people and Mary and Joseph get swallowed up in this image but God is there in the crowd unassuming and humble. Jesus was humble from the first breath that he took and Mary's arms to the last breath that he took on the cross. He knew the God-given space that he was meant to occupy and at least for tonight Jesus occupies a feeding trough filled with hay surrounded by shepherds who are in awe of what God has done and with parents who are treasuring all of these things in their hearts.

And so this Christmas as you go to be with family and friends and then return to your daily lives soon after that I hope you'll consider how you can take up your God-given space. How can you exercise humility like the Christ? It can and it will change over time but right now in this moment what is your space to occupy? Along with the Christ and the manger and the shepherds in the fields. May we also live in humility, rejoicing in all the ways that God is working in us and through us to bring good news into the world. Amen.