Matthew
2:1-12
In August of 1981 I was driving from Dothan, Alabama to Wellsburg,
West Virginia. Somewhere along a lonely stretch of I65 in northern Alabama I
pulled over to get something to drink.
It was one of those exits in the middle of nowhere with one very small
service station. As I was walking
back to my car I noticed the smell of something burning. I got down on my hands and knees and
looked under the car and there was oil dripping, which is never a good
sign. I opened the hood and there
was oil everywhere. Oil was all
over the inside of the hood and all over the engine.
I’ve never been the most mechanical person, but I certainly knew
that had I driven much further all the oil in the engine would have emptied and
the engine would seize up. I was
stuck, without much of an idea of what to do.
I walked back in the service station, which was one of those
one-person operations, and asked the operator if he could take a look at my
car. He was kind enough to do so,
but he kept shaking his head as he looked at it and making noises that
convinced me I had a real problem.
When you see oil everywhere you assume it’s going to be a fairly
serious repair. He looked things
over for a bit and stood up and said the problem was something like a sensor
for my oil pressure gauge. It had
blown out and the oil was spraying out of that spot on the engine. Well, of course I had two questions – can you fix it and how much will it cost?
I didn’t have much cash on me; a little more, perhaps, than what I
needed for the trip. I had no
credit card or other way of paying.
What I had was a broken car and a panicked expression on my face.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and the man said he didn’t have the
part in his little station but would call someone who might be able to deliver
it. Well, now there were two
people involved in the repair, and that sounded really expensive. I asked again how much it would
cost. He never really gave me an
answer, which I took to be a bad sign.
He asked, do you want me to call
and get the part? I gave a
foolish answer. I said yes, which was foolish because I didn’t
know what it would cost and if I could pay for it. I answered yes in
the hope that something would work out.
He called for the part, which was delivered after a little while. I watched the two of them talk for a
few minutes and wondered if they were hatching some kind of plan – let’s really take advantage of this guy. The guy who delivered the part drove
off and the service station owner started to work on my car.
Have you been in a similar situation? Or am I the only one who drove broken down cars? It’s a lonely feeling sitting and
wondering what would happen.
He finished the work, walked over, and said let me show you what I did.
I looked under the hood, trying to act like I knew what I was looking at
– oh yeah, there’s the engine. He showed me the new part and explained
what it did and I noticed he had also cleaned up as much of the oil as he
could. He said he didn’t want me to
smell burning oil the rest of my trip.
I was happy for him to keep talking about anything but what it was going
to cost.
He finally said, I think
you’re good to go. With a
great deal of hesitation I asked, how
much do I owe you? I can still
remember the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach, wondering what I would do
when he quoted me a really high price.
He said, I think five dollars will
do it. Five dollars! He had a part delivered, had to pay for
the part, put several quarts of oil in the engine, took a lot of time to
replace the part and even cleaned up the old oil, and he charged five
dollars. I was ready to hug the
guy, but was afraid he might charge me more if I did.
Perhaps he was a father who wanted to know someone would help his
child if they were stuck somewhere, perhaps he was just a kind person. Whatever his motivation, I was very grateful.
There are times when we feel very vulnerable in life. There are times when we have a very pressing
sense of anxiety. There are times
we face problems and we don’t know what to do. The world sometimes seems so large, so unkind, and we feel
very small and fragile. Those are
difficult moments, and it reminds us how fragile and how perilous life can be.
Imagine how Mary and Joseph must have felt at they traveled to
Bethlehem. They were forced to
pack up and travel because the Roman government decided they wanted to conduct
a census. A census is very easy
for us; we fill out a form and put it in the mail or complete it online. If we don’t get it done someone will
come to our door and ask us the questions. The Romans were not as cooperative. You went were they told you to go, when
they told you to go. It didn’t
matter that Mary was late in her pregnancy. It didn’t matter what kind of financial hardship it placed
upon them as a family. Nothing
mattered except they were told to go to Bethlehem to register for that census
and they had no choice but to comply.
It was a journey of about 80 miles. They would travel east rather directly south because they
would seek to avoid Samaria, where they would not be welcome and may be
vulnerable to attacks. At the
quickest, it would be a four-day journey, but taking into account concern for
Mary’s health it was probably closer to a week’s journey. It was days away from work for Joseph,
which certainly imposed a financial burden.
And along the way, questions; many, many questions. What is the purpose of God in these hard
to understand events? Why does God
work in such unusual ways? How do
we see God’s hand in the events we experience?
As we have talked in recent weeks about what shapes our thinking,
the birth of Jesus is the ultimate event in shaping our thinking, in shaping
how we think about the world, how we think about others, and how we think about
God. We are preparing to celebrate
the coming of God into the world.
What a strange way he chose to enter the world!
Why does God work in such strange ways? Why doesn’t God make himself known in more obvious
ways? Why can’t we see and know
exactly what he is doing? Why do
we have to struggle to connect the dots as we struggle through life?
Skeptics and doubters will rail against God – and even against us
for believing – as they ask where is God in the world? If God is really out there somewhere,
why doesn’t he show himself in a more obvious way? Where was God, they will ask, on Friday morning as the
tragedy unfolded at Sandy Hook Elementary School?
Mary and Joseph lived through the tragic taking of life. Herod was so paranoid about his throne
that when he heard of the birth of one who was a king he took the lives of the
male children up to the age of two.
There are always Herods in the world, tragically, who will take even the
innocent lives of children in order to accomplish their twisted purposes and we
will always be vulnerable to them.
God came into the world in such vulnerable circumstances to remind
us that he walks with us through the vulnerabilities and struggles and
tragedies of life. Life is not easy,
and it seems to be getting increasingly complicated and difficult. Life has never been easy, and it seems
we are at a tipping point from which there will be no return. And I say that as one who is an
optimist at heart.
But I hold to the truth that God came into the world as a vulnerable
baby, surrounded by a family who felt the vulnerabilities of the time – just as
we feel those of our time. And God
entered the world in such a way to remind us that he is not unfamiliar to what
we experience in life. Whatever we
have experienced, God has as well.
But God also demonstrates that in spite of our vulnerabilities and
struggles in life, faith and hope are the foundations of life.
It is in the coming of God into this world through the
vulnerabilities and frailties of a young and anxious couple, into a troubled
time, into a difficult world, that we find that faith and hope. And God’s coming into the world reminds
us that it is not the Herods of this world or the Roman Emperors of this world,
or the mighty armies of this world that overcome. No, it is the power of love.
The poet Carl Sandberg wrote in Star
Silver –
...
back in a barn in a Bethlehem slum
A
baby's first cry mixing with the crunch
of a mule's teeth on Bethlehem
Christmas corn
Baby
fists softer than snowflakes of Norway
The
vagabond Mother of Christ
and the vagabond men of wisdom
all in a barn on a
winter's night
and a baby there in swaddling clothes on hay –
Why
does the story never wear out?
It doesn’t wear out because it is forever a
story we need to hear – a story of faith, hope, and love that reminds us God
and his love will always overcome.
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