Bowing Toward Bethlehem

John 1:5

December 25, 2022 • Mount Pleasant UMC (online)

So every year, I inevitably get asked the question at some point during Advent: do we really know when Jesus was born? I guess that’s important to us; we like to know times and dates and places and such. The first time I went to the Holy Land, Bishop White was leading our group, and on our very first day in Galilee, we went for a boat ride out on the sea. While we floated in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, Bishop White preached and among the things he shared, he said something like this: “There are a lot of places we will go where we’re not quite sure if this is the place or not where Jesus was. But everywhere I’ll be wondering: was it here? Did he walk here? And since we don’t know for sure, every place is holy because he was here.” Maybe the same could be said about the calendar. Since we don’t know exactly when Jesus was born, maybe we could think about how he touches every day on the calendar, how he can transform every moment of every day if we let him.

There’s a lot we don’t know about that first Christmas, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t in December. Early on in the history of the church, Christmas wasn’t a thing. Easter was the thing; the celebration of the resurrection was the focus of the early church, and rightly so. But at some point along the way, someone began to wonder about Jesus’ beginning, not just his end, and celebrations of his birth began. The church chose this time of year because this is the time when light begins to conquer darkness, when the days begin to get longer, when the writing of John is reflected: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1:5). No matter how dark it gets, the light will always win. That is one of the messages of the manger. But there is more.

In a couple of weeks, I will be with some travelers as we go to Bethlehem, and we will walk up a hill to one of the most prominent places in town, the Church of the Nativity. There are several remarkable things about the church, one of which is the fact that the older, much taller doors have been closed up and the only way into the church is through a tiny door that even Cathy would have to bow to enter. It’s called “the Door of Humility,” because approaching Jesus requires us to bow humbly like the shepherds and wise men. Then, after you walk through this cavernous, barn-like church (the rafters are designed to look like a barn), you go lower still. The grotto, or cave, where it is believed Jesus was born, is below the main altar. To get to it, you have to go down some stairs, then bend down again and go lower. To reach the savior, you have to bow. You have to kneel.

All of that is very intentional, and very symbolic. To get to Jesus requires we put aside ourselves, our own stuff, our own pride, and we bow. We kneel before the one who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And as we kneel, he comes to us. That’s what he did in Bethlehem, all those centuries ago. To a humble virgin and her loving carpenter, Jesus came. He did not come in the way we expected him to come. He came in a way that required bowing, even to see him in the manger. Michael Card has musically asked the question, “How do you worship a king in a cattle trough when you cannot bow any lower than he?” It’s a good question, one the shepherds must have asked, and though most of our nativity scenes picture the shepherds bowing, Luke doesn’t tell us that they did. All Luke tells us is that seeing Jesus took the shepherds’ eyes off themselves, because all they can talk about after being to the manger is Jesus (cf. Card, The Nazarene, pgs. 89-90). We don’t know if they bowed, but we know they sang praise.

I wonder what our trip to the manger this year has done to us. Will it cause us to bow? Will it help us kneel before him? As we enter a new year, will we be people who tell about the one we have seen? Christmas is not about us; it’s about him. It’s not our birthday; it is his. So let’s kneel before our king, let’s let our light shine out to beat back the darkness, and let’s be people who glorify and praise God for all that we have heard and seen (Luke 2:20). Amen.

By the way: the answer to the question, “When was Jesus really born” is—are you ready?—we don’t know! But it was probably in the spring, since that’s really the time of year the shepherds would have been out in the fields, during the times the lambs were being born. So, there you have it. I won’t argue about it because we don’t really know, but that’s my best guess.