Preparation
- Four Christmas Crackers with the Bible texts inserted.
- Hide the baby Jesus somewhere unexpected
Treasure hunt –
Have
you noticed – the manger is empty!?
The
baby Jesus is hiding somewhere unexpected.
When
find him, put him back where he ‘belongs’ in the manger.
Except, when we stop and think about it,
it
is so incredibly unexpected to find Jesus in a manger.
I mean, we all know he belongs there,
but
this is only because we’ve been told,
since
we were children ourselves,
that
the baby Jesus belongs in the manger.
There is a carol we sing sometimes which begins
‘Come,
Thou long expected Jesus’
But I sometimes wonder if it would have been better as,
‘Come,
thou unexpected Jesus’
Because although the people of Israel
had
been longing for their Messiah for centuries;
they certainly didn’t expect that he would arrive,
as
a baby born in a stable and laid in a manger.
So Liz and I were wondering, as we were preparing for today,
about
whether there were other places
in
the story of the birth of Jesus,
where people encountered him in unexpected ways.
And here I’m going to need some help
as
I have some crackers to pull
which
might just have some clues in them to help us.
Cracker 1
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields,
keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel
of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and
they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them,
"Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for
all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of
David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. (Lk. 2:8-11)
It certainly all came as a bit of a shock to the poor
shepherds, didn’t it?
There
they were, peacefully passing their time
on
the hillside overlooking Bethlehem,
washing
their socks by night,
or
whatever it is shepherds do.
And then, suddenly – angels everywhere!!!
And
unexpected news of a baby in Bethlehem.
The fact that they were so terrified when the angelic host
appeared
speaks
volumes of the level of unexpectedness they experienced
And then, Luke tells us,
even
after they had paid their flying visit to the new parents,
everyone
they told was amazed too!
But it probably shouldn’t surprise us
that
the shepherds were so surprised.
After all, this had been an unexpected story from the
beginning.
Cracker 2
The angel came to Mary and said, "Greetings, favoured
one! The Lord is with you." 29 But she was much
perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The
angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with
God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and
bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. (Lk. 1:28-31 )
Poor Mary certainly didn’t expect,
as
a teenager engaged to be married to a nice man called Joseph,
that she would end up being visited by an angel,
and
then unexpectedly find herself pregnant
with
a child who came to her as a gift from God.
And it wasn’t just the shepherds and Mary
for
whom the arrival of Jesus was unexpected.
Cracker 3
An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,
"Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the
child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. (Matt. 1:20)
Poor Joseph had a couple of big and unexpected shocks:
firstly
the news that Mary was pregnant,
and then secondly the night-time visit of an angel,
telling
him that God was involved,
and that he should take Mary as his wife
and
love the child as his own,
because
the baby was a gift from God.
But it wasn’t just the shepherds, and Mary, and Joseph
who
were caught out
by
the unexpected arrival of God’s son.
Cracker 4
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem
of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the
child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its
rising, and have come to pay him homage." (Matt. 2:1-2)
The wise men weren’t so wise after all,
because
they expected the baby born to be king
would
be found in the palace in Jerusalem,
and so they nearly gave the whole game away
by
stopping off there to look for him,
rather than following the star beyond Jerusalem to
Bethlehem,
to
find the baby not lying a palace at all,
but living in poverty with his parents,
in
a troubled and overcrowded rural town.
And here’s the thing.
God
is often not found where we expect.
Jesus comes to us,
as
he came to Mary, Joseph, Shepherds and Wise Men,
which is that he comes unexpectedly,
in
ways that we can’t predict,
in
places we can’t foresee.
Sometimes God is not revealed in the powerful and the
successful,
but
in the weak and the vulnerable and the damaged.
Sometimes God is not found in happiness and joy,
but
in sorrow and suffering.
For some people, Christmas isn’t a time of family and
sharing,
but
of loneliness and difficulty,
and maybe Jesus is just as present there,
as
he is with those who gather round a roast turkey.
Maybe God can be found in caring for someone else,
or
in a walk through the countryside or the city,
just as much as God can be found in carol services and
nativity scenes.
So today, as we celebrate those who found God
in
unexpected places two thousand years ago,
maybe the challenge for us,
particularly
as we look ahead to a new year,
is to seek Godin the unexpected places,
in
the unexpected people,
and
in the unexpected situations.
Come, thou unexpected Jesus
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