December Journeys

Luke 2:1-5

December 24, 2017 (Candlelight) • Mount Pleasant UMC

Christmas is a busy and stressful time for many things. Nearly every activity seems to invoke stress to some degree, but we notice it even more if we set out to travel. For the last eight years, due largely to lower gas prices and increased consumer optimism, travel at the holidays has grown, to a point where it is expected that this year, over 100 million Americans will take to the highways and friendly skies this Christmas. We’ve never been ones to really travel at Christmas (due in part, I suppose, to the fact that I have this job which requires me to work holidays), but one year we planned a trip to Walt Disney World over Christmas break. We did the Candlelight services on Christmas Eve, just like tonight, and then we got up early on Christmas Day and flew to Florida. It was an interesting experience, traveling during this time of year, especially on Christmas Day. Christmas cheer is not something you experience a lot of as people hustle from gate to gate trying to make sure they catch their next mode of transportation. And Disney World was packed; in fact, we were told that year that if you’re not in the parks at opening on New Year’s Eve, you won’t get in. It’s that busy. We had a good time that year as a family, but it didn’t make us anxious to travel again during the holidays.

Some of us will take trips during this time of year, though. And some of those trips will be journeys we plan, map out and want to take. Many of them will work out the way we want them to. But there will be other journeys we undertake that we don’t want to take. Of course, those journeys aren’t just confined to this time of year. Any time of year, we can have a December journey, just as Joseph and Mary did on that first Christmas.

During Advent, we’ve been looking at Christmas through the eyes of Joseph, the gentle step-father of Jesus, and we’ve been thinking about his character, the things he might have taught Jesus, and his willingness to take on Mary’s shame by becoming, at God’s request, father to a child that was not his. But then, just when everything seems settled, just when the plans seem to be all made, they get an unexpected summons. Mary and Joseph find themselves in the midst of a December Journey, a trip they didn’t want to take.

Let’s remember the larger story that Joseph and Mary find themselves in during these days. Luke tells us this journey happened during the days of Caesar Augustus, at a time when the government had ordered a census. In the Roman Empire, a census was ordered about every fourteen years, and it was done across the Empire for two main purposes. For one, they needed to determine how much people owed in taxes and for another, they needed to see if there was anyone out there who was liable for compulsory military service. Now, Jews in Judea were exempt from military service, so the census that sends Joseph to Bethlehem is just about taxes (Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, pg. 20). Rome wants to make sure they are getting their share, fair or not. And a census was not something you could skip out on, either. There were severe punishments for everyone who failed to comply. Senators could be removed from the senate. Wealthy citizens could lose their property and, thereby, their status. But ordinary citizens could face imprisonment, scourging, confiscation of property or even slavery (Hamilton, Faithful, pg. 95). This was a serious matter, and so there was some urgency for Joseph to report back to Bethlehem, his hometown, in order to register on time for the census. He had to go; he had no choice.

But why did he have to take Mary? The reality is, he didn’t have to take her. Only the men had to report for the census. And common sense should have told him not to take Mary on this journey. It’s an 8-10 day trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and Mary is, obviously, nine months pregnant. Now, we always picture her riding on a donkey, but Luke does not mention a donkey at all. Despite what the movies and paintings say, all we’re actually told is that they went to Bethlehem together. Mary very well may have walked the whole way alongside Joseph; we simply don’t know. So why would he take her with him? I believe there are several possibilities. For one, as we talked about this morning, Joseph had made a promise to God to take care of Mary. She was already a source of rumor, gossip and scandal in her small hometown of Nazareth. Joseph most likely did not want to leave her there, even with her family, to undergo more of that during this crucial time. He would be gone maybe up to three weeks at least, and he had to have known it was almost time for her to give birth. It’s also true that the Jews did not much like the Roman census, as it reminded them that they weren’t free people, that they weren’t able to decide their own destiny. They were subject people. And so, then like today, when some sort of governmental decree came down, it made people testy. There are historical records of revolts often happening as a response to things like a census, especially in Galilee where Nazareth was located. Acts 5 (verse 37) specifically mentions a census-related revolt that had recently taken place in Galilee. Joseph may have been nervous to leave his wife alone during a time when Galilean emotions were running high, when a violent revolt could break out. He didn’t want anything to happen to her or to the baby he had promised to raise (cf. Hamilton 95-96). So, probably to protect Mary, Joseph takes her with him to Bethlehem because that’s his character: faithful to those to whom he has made promises.

It was, after all, a dangerous and violent time. As Luke reminded us, these were the days of Caesar Augustus, the first real Roman emperor. Eighteen years old when his father was killed and he took over the throne, young Caesar quickly settled into rulership and proudly claimed the title “son of god” when the Roman leadership declared his father to be divine. Though Augustus did clear the seas of pirates and establish law and order, the famous Pax Romana or “peace of Rome,” throughout the empire, he did it at the point of a sword. He was a bloodthirsty tyrant, comparable to Hitler or Moussolini (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 47). As Matthew tells us, these are also the days of Herod, a half-Jewish pretender to the throne who was Rome’s appointed “king of the Jews.” He was largely a puppet ruler, but he took his power seriously. He was called “Herod the Great,” not because he was a wonderful person but because of his incredible building programs. There are things Herod built you can still see partially standing today in Israel. This past summer, we walked through several of them, including his great city meant to honor Caesar, Caesarea Maritima, his palace fortress at Masada, his monument to himself known as the Herodium, and the only remaining piece of the Temple itself, the Western Wall. All of these Herod built; he was manic about building projects. He was also increasingly paranoid as the years went by and he had two of his sons and his “favorite wife” killed because he believed they were trying to take his throne, his power, away from him. It is said Caesar once remarked that it was safer to be Herod’s pig than his son. And, of course, we know about one of his more evil deeds. When the Magi come to Jerusalem looking for the newborn king of the Jews, Herod has all the baby boys in Bethlehem under two years old murdered (Matthew 2:16-18). It was a dangerous and violent time when Jesus was born. It was dangerous and violent time when Joseph and Mary found themselves traveling to Bethlehem.

And yet, in the midst of all of that, there is also evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit, prompting Joseph and pointing toward the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. Micah had, centuries before, promised that Bethlehem, the town of King David, would be the place where a “ruler” would be born: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2). Even the Magi, who were probably astrologers from modern-day Iraq, knew this prophecy. The Spirit is clearly at work in this census, in the midst of this dark and violent time. And let me just say that if the Spirit was working then, why do we think he is absent and not working even in the midst of the current world we live in—a violent, broken and divided world? The Spirit can work in the midst of even that, even if he leads us on a journey, like the one Joseph and Mary were on, that we don’t want to take.

Now, we know that Jesus was probably not born in December; this date was chosen by the early church as a symbolic date, the time of year (at least in the northern hemisphere) when light is just beginning to overcome the darkness. December 25 is meant to represent the beginning of hope, and was matched with Jesus’ birth to emphasize the hope found in the manger. Jesus was, probably, born in the spring, which is when shepherds would have been out in the field with their sheep waiting for baby lambs to be born. So when I call this journey a “December journey,” I’m not talking about literal journeys necessarily taken in December. But this time of year, for many, is a time when whatever darkness threatens them often becomes hard to push back. Suicides often skyrocket at this time of year, as do deaths in general. A funeral director friend of mine once told me they would always see an increase in funerals during December because folks who are very sick would just give up. But such journeys don’t just happen in December. We’ve all had to take journeys in our lives that are uncomfortable, the way Mary’s would have been, or unwanted, the way Joseph’s was.

December journeys—journeys that are unwanted, uncomfortable, and in the midst of which we can’t begin to figure out what God is up to. Some journeys have led through the dark place of disease, when you’ve heard the word “cancer” or “surgery,” and your heart sunk. Fear threatened to take over and the journey looked dark. We’ve had a couple of pastors in our community this year who have faced December journeys with their children—one who was born early and had many health problems from the start, and another who is continuing to undergo treatment for leukemia at a very young age. These are journeys they never would have expected or wanted. It’s tempting to ask, “Why me, God?” It’s tempting to demand that God remove the journey, the challenge. Others of you may have faced a journey through the experience of the death of a loved one, and even if it wasn’t this year or even recently, the journey can still feel difficult at times. I once had a friend tell me it seemed to get more difficult every year, and even though she held tightly onto her faith, her husband’s loss was something she never wanted to or could “get used to.” It’s a December journey.

There are other journeys we don’t want to take, journeys like the one that comes with divorce or the end of a relationship. There’s a reason Malachi (2:16) says God hates divorce, but it’s not what we usually think. The NIV actually does a much better job of translating that verse; it says God’s concern is the violence divorce does to those involved, to those who should be protected. The journey damages everyone involved, and no matter how amicable we may say it is, or even how needed when there is abuse and broken vows involved, it still is a December journey: unwanted, unexpected, hurtful to all. Others of you have faced the loss of a job and the other losses that come with such an event. Starting over, finding a new career, determining how you are going to support your family—all uncomfortable and unwanted stops on the journey. We’ve all, from time to time, found ourselves on December journeys.

Most of you know that our family found ourselves on a December journey back in October when I entered Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis for a heart valve replacement surgery. As I shared then and as I have since written in my blog several times, I was not concerned about the outcome; I had trust in my surgeons and in God. And even though it was, by all accounts, a very complicated surgery due to some extenuating circumstances, it all went according to plan. It was during the month after when the real journey began, though. My blood levels were all over the place, I was tired all the time, no food sounded good, and I know I must have frustrated my wife and daughter over and over again with how moody I was. There was one night where I lay in a fetal position and said over and over again, “I just can’t do this.” I felt that bad. This was a journey that had not been on the radar when the year began; it was unwanted and unplanned and tremendously uncomfortable. It was a December journey. If you’re on a similar journey tonight, I want you to know I understand. I don’t pretend to know what you’re going through, but I do know what it’s like to be on the journey. But even more than that, I want you to know that Jesus understands. His life on earth began because of a December journey, one his mother and step-father willingly understood because they, of all people, knew the greater good that would come from this journey. Joseph’s ancestor, King David, had, after all, written centuries before these words that still offer comfort and strength on all of our December journeys: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). In the midst of our December journeys, he is with us. He is Immanuel, God with us, just as surely as he was with Mary and Joseph on that first Christmas night. He goes with us, walks alongside us, on all our December journeys.

So Joseph arrives in Bethlehem, a very pregnant Mary in tow, and we know what happens next. Luke reports that there was no room in the “inn” as older translations say, or in the “guest room” as it is more accurately translated today. The family home is full, and there is no place for a young woman to privately give birth. So this young couple is offered the stable, the lower level of the home, and there, in seclusion but with help nearby, Mary gives birth to the savior of the world. The bread of life (cf. John 6:35) spent his first night sleeping in a feeding trough, but even more symbolic is the lack of place in the family home for Jesus to lay. Biblical commentator William Barclay put it this way: “That there was no room in the inn was symbolic of what was to happen to Jesus. The only place where there was room for him was on a cross” (Barclay 21). Jesus’ life began with a December journey, and his life ended with an even more difficult journey. Nearly half of Luke’s Gospel records Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem (cf. Hamilton 103), where he was then crucified and buried, but where he also rose again to bring life and hope and love into the world. The question that we need to ask ourselves tonight is this: is there room in your life for the baby who is to be born this night? Will you invite him along on all of your December journeys, on your bright days and on your dark days? Will you allow him to lead, guide and walk with you? Will you allow him to save you this night and always? As we sang earlier tonight:

How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.

On this night of nights, as we soon pass the light of Christ from one person to another, the question remains: will you receive him still?