Tonight, God has chubby arms, bright curious eyes, tiny fingernails, soft feet. Because tonight God is a new baby. If you want to know what divine power is, search for it here. Not in Fortnum and Mason, not in Westminster, not amongst the Fortune 500: here. In the fragile infant born with the animals, to parents who have just been forced to walk for 80 miles uphill from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Did they think they’d find an open door, or a high wall? Would they be welcomed?
They made this journey, as Luke’s Gospel tells us, because of a new Roman tax regime. They went because they had to. But ‘aha!’ says St Luke, that means that even this economic strategy to make the rich richer and poor even poorer, is turned to God’s advantage – to be born in Bethlehem is a sign that Jesus is descended directly from King David, who, though flawed, had a uniquely glorious relationship with God. Generations later, people longed for his successor.
And so Mary and Joseph stand, hopeful and exhausted, outside an inn. It’s cold. It’s dark. And it’s good to wonder – what if you or I ran this Bed and Breakfast? The rooms are full, the couple in cheap clothing and muddy from the road, among the crowds making their way to their home town because of this new taxation plan. Why should you treat them as a special case? Would you invite them into your own home? Help them out in some other way? Smile awkwardly, apologise, maybe recommend the next B&B along the road, and shut the door? The inn-keeper did nothing wrong. ‘Sorry, we’re full. But I’ve got a shed out back you can sleep in.’ Fair enough. He did more than others might have done.
The inn-keeper prompts us to think outside the box a bit more, trust a bit more, open our minds just a bit more. When we do, we become more alive to the splendour that is everywhere. The beauty in the ordinary. This moment when heaven and earth touched and a young woman gave birth to God.
Mary and Joseph take up the offer of a stable. At least it’s shelter. And now a very ad-hoc birth, with animal snouts and improvised strips of cloth keeping the Son of God warm. As Martin Luther reflected, ‘Simple and little are the swaddling-clothes, but dear is the treasure, Christ, that lies within them.’ I promised a member of the Youth Group that I would preach tonight about the tattoo on my arm. It says ‘The drawing of this Love’. It’s from T. S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’, written during the Second World War. The full line of his poem reads ‘The drawing of this Love and the voice of this calling.’ Love is with a capital L and when I talked with the tattooist about this she was surprised. We spoke about theology for the whole duration (20 minutes and relatively painless. I highly recommend it!). We are all called to love, I said. This is what we were made for, mind, body, and soul. I believe in this Love enough to have it on my arm for the rest of my life.
The God of the stars and solar system, the creator of everything, is also the God of tiny elbows, a skull not yet fully formed, a new belly button. Someone asked me recently if I thought that Jesus was an innie or an outie. Whatever the shape of Our Lord’s belly button, this baby is the real thing. Not God pretending to be human. Not a human being pretending to be God. Truly divine. God’s best and most needed gift to us, pushed by Mary’s strength through her birth canal and wailing his first oxygen-filled cry.
And who comes to see him? Who are the first to experience wild light breaking into the deep darkness that can so easily and painfully surround us all? Local shepherds. They’re not rich or powerful. Their job is hard and has no status.
Imagine a couple making their way from Northampton to Croydon. That’s about the right sort of Nazareth-Bethlehem distance. Maybe they have to get to Croydon to submit their immigration visa application, fearing deportation. Our migrant couple get to Croydon, they are exhausted, the contractions could begin tonight, they need help. They ask at the Holiday Inn – ‘no, sorry’. They ask at the Travelodge – ‘no, sorry’. They go to a Newsagent’s, talk to the woman behind the counter who looks weary too. She gazes at them, realises they’re desperate, and says, ‘I tell you what. Sleep here on the floor. At least it’s dry.’ The baby, born in the white neon light, is beautiful. Real. Loved.
Suddenly, an angel, brighter than any street-light, appears to a group of Deliveroo cyclists who are killing time on social media, waiting for their next delivery request. They’re all on zero hours contracts and need the money. Some are homeless. The angel is huge. And bright. And loud. Though they don’t want to show it really, they’re more scared than they’ve ever been before. And this burst of light and fiery wings and glittering eyes is talking to them. ‘A baby’s just been born in the Newsagent’s! He is going to bring peace and mercy and justice to everyone! Go! Meet God!’ They pedal hard, full of adrenaline. They are the first to see this soft, tiny, vulnerable boy. And they adore him. And life is different now, somehow.
Tonight, we meet God. In the baby, in each other, in the Body and Blood of Jesus at the altar for Holy Communion. We’re all giving and receiving hospitality. Every single one of you is welcome. Bring your hopes and fears, your joys and sorrows. Come as you are. Hear the story of Jesus’s first breath. Breathe the same air, and receive the same truth of God’s love for you.
May your hospitality inspire those around you. May your revolutionary tenderness seek out and support those in most urgent need. May your gifts, given and received, be signs of God’s love. Because right now, right here, God is with us. Angels sing. Jesus is born. Amen.