The Christmas story has been told, performed, presented, acted out, staged every year for the past two thousand. It is a story, obviously, that bears repeating. The world keeps echoing the Christmas story through the ages. The combination of the ordinary with the extraordinary, of the mundane with the marvelous creates a compelling narrative. We are dazzled at the appearance of the angel who shines with the glory of the Lord. We thrill to the proclamation of “good news of great joy for all the people.” We delight in the heavenly choir singing and praising God, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” The extraordinary elements of the first Christmas morning are striking. But the ordinary also captures the imagination because it connects the long ago reality with our day and time. What could be more ordinary than some bored working stiffs on the night shift like the shepherds! What, unfortunately, could be more ordinary than government policy pushing a young couple into homelessness like Romans did to Joseph and Mary! And what could be more ordinary than a father trying desperately to provide housing for his family, for a woman giving birth and caring for her child as best she could under trying circumstances! As we listen once again to the Christmas story, we are both drawn into this ordinary tale all the while we are held in awe by its extraordinary nature.
The combination of the ordinary and the extraordinary might momentarily blind us to where the miracle occurred. The miracle was not the angelic messenger. The miracle was not glory streams from heaven afar. The miracle was not that heavenly hosts singing “alleluia.” The miracle was not in the extraordinary at all. The miracle was in the ordinary. The miracle was in the birth of a child. What could be more ordinary than being born? It has happened to every one of us. Yet it was a miracle for in this birth, earth was joined to heaven, God became a human being, the word was made flesh. All of the extraordinary — the angel, the shining glory, the heavenly choir — pale to insignificance in the face of the ordinary. This child, who looks and smells and feels just like every other child, means that from now on everything will be different. The people who walk in the darkness of grief and pain and loss can see a great light because of this child. Upon the people who dwell in the land of gloom — gloomy at a world filled with injustice, with sickness, with financial woes, with family problems — a light as shown. For this child incarnates the blessed assurance that God has a share, a stake in the human condition with all its joys and sorrows. The Christmas story, therefore, is about the miracle of the ordinary. The coming of Jesus says don’t get distracted by the unusual. Find in the ordinariness of human life the presence of God that lights our way.
The miracle of the ordinary enables us to discover the true meaning of Christmas. This season is best conveyed not by the unique gift, the remarkable meal, the special occasion. Christmas is best embodied by living the ordinary with care and attention. Take, for example, the way we deal with children, either current children, former children, or future children. The Old Testament lesson from the prophet Isaiah says: “A child is born to us, a son is given us.” Passive voice, for all you grammarians out there, something that happens TO someone. No one chooses to be born. Nor can we control who God will give us in life. But the Bible implies that those who are born, who are given to us are the ones we are charged with caring for and nurturing. Ordinary people who are part of our lives — in our families, our schools, our work places, our neighborhoods, our church — have been given us by God. The miracle of the ordinary occurs when we stop judging them as inadequate and start loving them as God does: not overlooking their faults and foibles but seeing the God-given potential that every child of God, of whatever age, possesses. The shepherds were told to recognize the face of God in Bethlehem’s child. The Bible tells us to see the face of God in every child, current or former child, who is woven into our lives.
The miracle of the ordinary comes in the first words of the angel to the shepherds: “Do not be afraid.” Actually, that seems to the first words of every angel in the Bible. Maybe the angels know how fear-filled our lives are. We’re afraid of the gun violence in our city. We’re afraid of the nation’s future after the election. We’re afraid about the condition of our planet. But besides those more cosmic issues we have personal fears. We’re afraid of illness and death, we’re afraid of forgiving lest we get hurt again, we’re afraid of being alone, we’re afraid of missing out on life. The angel instructs us not to be afraid because this is God’s world, not ours, and for some reason or other God’s favor rests on us. God can use our ordinary selves in order to accomplish great things, bless his Holy Name. Once we give up fear and enter into trust then a miracle of understanding happens that in God all will be well, all manner of things will be well.
The miracle can be found in that Jesus announced his presence by crying. Isn’t that ordinary, to be expected? The wail of the new-born infant is a constant human trait. Perhaps the tiny voice caused Joseph and Mary to smile in delight. For in the tears of Jesus everything is different from what we imagine it to be. We have a God who weeps. We have a God who shares our suffering. And the irony is that those very tears free us to be happy. Jesus embarked on the journey of human life like each one of us to insure our happy ending. In his life he experienced all the weakness, the pain, the failure that are part of the human condition. But by mingling his tears with our own we find that the distance between heaven and earth, between God and creation, between death and life have been irrevocably closed. God is one with us so that we can be one with God. Jesus brings us abundant joy and great rejoicing not by eliminating all the physical problems, the monetary concerns, the family squabbles, the personal dilemmas that plague our existence. The new born king instead promises that in all these things we have a Wonder-Counselor, a Prince of Peace, who feels what we feel and who brings all things to good. Truly, tidings of great joy. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.