Christmas Eve communion Luke 2: 1-7

If the story of the birth of Jesus doesn’t leave you shaking your head in disbelief, maybe you haven’t been listening properly.

Don’t panic, I’m not going to give you one of those gloomy sermons about how the gospel accounts are all different and a bit unreliable and we’ve got to stop imaging the stable in Bethlehem. 

But just before tomorrow’s festivities, as we quietly think about the night Jesus was actually born, let’s pause for a moment to take in how strange and amazing the story actually is. 

 

The story, ‘Cat in the manger’, gives us a cat’s eye view of the stable in Bethlehem.

And helps us reflect on the starring role given to the manger in the story of Jesus’ birth.

The baby was laid in a manger.

 

Well, of course he was, because we’re so used to seeing our lovely nativity scenes with Mary & Joseph in the stable and the baby tucked safely into the warm, soft, sweet hay.

 

Perhaps it has become no more strange to us than the stories our grandparents told us of new-born babies popped into a drawer where a crib couldn’t be afforded; 

or the ‘baby box’ expectant mothers are given in Finland, containing bodysuits, bedding and a small mattress – where the cardboard box itself can be the baby’s first bed.

 

A manger was probably the safest place to put a baby in a stable – off the floor, out of the draughts, away from trampling feet or hooves.

 

And how do we know the baby was placed in a manger? Luke tells us- three times actually: once in the reading we heard tonight; then the shepherds are told by the angels that they will find the baby lying in a manger; 

and then Luke tells us that the shepherds do indeed find Mary & Joseph, (important Oxford comma) and the baby lying in a manger. 

 

Maybe Luke tells us this because it is so unusual.

Or maybe he is wanting us to get this really important fact. 

The first time we see Jesus he is in the place where we would expect to find food.

 

Jesus hasn’t come from heaven just to experience human life; he has come to cherish it, to nourish it and to change it.

 

This Jesus, when he grows, will feed 5,000 people with just bread and fish; he will teach his followers to pray to God their Father for daily bread; he will share bread and wine with his disciples at the last meal before he dies, and tell them that whenever they eat and drink they should remember his life given for the world.

The baby, Jesus,  is in the manger because it is the place where animals are offered what they need to grow and live – and so are we.

 

So here in this manger we see what we expect to see on Christmas Eve – we see the baby, wrapped in cloth, lying in the hay in a manger.

 

(Get bread from manger)

But here is also what we need to feed us – our share of Jesus’ life given for us: bread for our communion meal. 

Here God feeds us with his very life – with his body and his blood, given in Jesus.

 

Whatever our needs, whatever we hunger for, Jesus offers to feed us here – from the moment of his arrival on earth he has come to give himself to the world, for us all, to meet our needs.

 

This is truly a strange and amazing story, which caused the poet John Betjeman to write:

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

 

So all are welcome to eat and drink and remember Jesus this night – and to receive the best Christmas present of all – the presence of Jesus Christ in your hand, in your body and in your life. 

Amen.