God in the Ordinary Night
I wonder if you’ve ever been present for the birth of a baby. At the time of Jesus’ birth, about 6,000 babies were born in the Roman Empire every day, and roughly 30,000 born each day across the world. That’s a lot of babies. So the addition of one more in this quiet town of Bethlehem is hardly unusual or noteworthy.
This baby’s mother was nobody unusual either. Just another young woman starting her family like so many others. The father was no different. An ordinary man with his new wife, welcoming a child into the world. How perfectly unremarkable it all was. And yet this birth has ended up being celebrated across the world by millions of people so many years later.
What else is ordinary in this story? Well, everyone is tired. Mary is far from home, in labour, without comfort or support network. Joseph is doing his best in circumstances he cannot control. The shepherds are awake because the sheep always need looking after. This is a story about people just getting through the night. And it’s to them that the light comes. This selection of normal people, awake when most are asleep, get to see a glimpse of the divine. God meets them in the night.
I wonder if you feel ordinary. Just another normal person going about their life. And have you ever sensed God drawing near? The prophet Isaiah looks ahead to the birth of this baby in the language of drama and poetry: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” and perhaps the people who heard this expected something blinding, explosive, overwhelming. But Luke’s gospel then shows us what that light actually looks like when it arrives: it looks like a child wrapped in cloth, lying in a feeding trough. That is the heart of Christmas. The great light does not come as spectacle. It comes as a quiet, ordinary, presence. God changes the world by entering it almost unnoticed. But from this moment on, nothing in normal human life is untouched by God.
So if you feel ordinary, just a normal person - You too are surrounded by the presence of God.
When the shepherds receive the news of the baby from the angels, they go, they see, and find the world changed. But then they return to their lives. They go back, carrying with them the knowledge that God is now woven into everything. And that is what Christmas invites us into.
Not into escaping from ordinary life, but into a new way of living it. Not into certainty, but into trust. Not into perfection, but into presence. We are invited, like the shepherds, to look at the world and recognise that God is already here, that God is in the ordinary. Holiness does not belong only in churches or sacred moments, but in kitchens and roads and fields and bedrooms and hospital rooms and office buildings and classrooms. Now, the great light shines not from above us, but among us.
So today we do more than just remember the birth of one among thousands. We gather to worship God among us in the ordinary, and to declare that this world — this complicated, fragile, beautiful world — is still the place God chooses to live. That is why this perfectly unremarkable birth has become the most remarkable story the world has ever known.
And for us, as normal as we are, each of us just one among millions, we celebrate God knowing us each by name, drawing near in our own hearts, and through us shining a light into darkness, bringing the joy of Christmas in Emmanuel.
Amen.
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
A reading from the Prophet Isaiah (9:2-7)
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness– on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. ______
Psalm 96 Cantate Domino
1 Sing to the Lord a new song; * sing to the Lord, all the whole earth. 2 Sing to the Lord and bless his Name; * proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations * and his wonders among all peoples. 4 For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; * he is more to be feared than all gods. 5 As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols; * but it is the Lord who made the heavens. 6 Oh, the majesty and magnificence of his presence! * Oh, the power and the splendor of his sanctuary! 7 Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples; * ascribe to the Lord honor and power. 8 Ascribe to the Lord the honor due his Name; * bring offerings and come into his courts. 9 Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; * let the whole earth tremble before him. 10 Tell it out among the nations: “The Lord is King! * he has made the world so firm that it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.” 11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea thunder and all that is in it; * let the field be joyful and all that is therein. 12 Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the Lord when he comes, * when he comes to judge the earth. 13 He will judge the world with righteousness * and the peoples with his truth.
A reading from the letter to Titus (2:11-14)
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
