The Christmas scene is so simple and so human.  It’s just a family: two young parents, a new baby.  The setting is a barn.  There are no angels (they’re out in the fields with the shepherds) and nothing supernatural happens.  That humble scene is enough and perhaps the point.

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“In the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter long ago.”

There’s another Christmas carol we sing this time of year.  You’ve probably sung it yourself although you may not recognize this introduction:

“The sun is shinning.  The grass is green.  The orange and palm trees sway.  There’s never been such a day, in Beverly Hills LA.  But, it’s December the 24th and I’m longing to be up north.”

What’s the next line?  That’s right. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know.” 

I grew up in Santa Monica, a little west of Beverly Hills, L.A.  So the Christmases I used to know were mostly of the “sun is shinning; the grass is green” variety.  The only white Christmases I ever knew were the ones I saw on television Christmas specials or the pictures on Christmas cards.

The New England village dusted with snow, lit by lamplight with folks bundled in hats and scarves, carrying packages, is our iconic image of Christmas.  “The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow.”  “All the snow lay round about, cool and crisp and even.”  It’s all “Winter Wonderland” and “Sleigh Ride.”  But that was never my Christmas.  I always felt a little cheated as a child singing carols beneath the swaying orange and palm trees.  I, too, dreamt of a white Christmas, and felt nostalgia for a Christmas I never knew.

It just didn’t feel like Christmas without snow.  I wanted Frosty the snowman, and snow angels.  Santa arrives on a sleigh, after all, not a surfboard.  And even if it’s a flying sleigh that doesn’t technically require snow for the runners, there’s still something wrong with a sun-drenched Christmas.  Christmas should be a “frosty wind made moan” in the bleak midwinter, not a hot wind off the desert.  It’s Santa not the Santa Anas that I picture for Christmas.

But it helps to remember that the original Christmas of Jesus’ birth probably looked a lot more the introduction to Irving Berlin’s song than the white Christmas Bing Crosby goes on to sing about.  The climate in Bethlehem is a lot more like Bakersfield than Boston.  It’s cold in Bethlehem in the winter but seldom gets below freezing.  They get a little rain but seldom any snow, nothing you could ride a sleigh on.  

I’ve not been to Bethlehem but I have looked down on it from Jerusalem.  Jersusalem is on the top of a hill and Bethlehem is only about 6 miles south.  It’s a small Arab-controlled town.  Poor and tired, like Mary and Joseph, come to think of it.  Nothing to make a special trip for.  And probably Jesus wasn’t even born there.  It’s far more likely that Jesus was born in Nazareth where everyone agrees he grew up.  The story of the family taking a special trip to Bethlehem for the census was made up later in an attempt to make Jesus’ birth match the prophesy from Micah about a ruler of Israel coming from that town.

So it’s not at all illegitimate to have an authentic Christmas even in sunny California.  An authentic Christmas doesn’t require heaps of snow, or even heaps of fake snow on the roof or in the yard.  In fact, Christmas is a very simple thing.  It doesn’t require hardly anything special at all.

Do you remember that line from the Christmas Classic, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”?  The Grinch thought he could ruin Christmas by stealing all the trappings of Christmas.  And then he wakes to discover Christmas has come anyway for the Hoos down in Hooville.  “It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags.”

When Jesus came to the world, he didn’t come the way people expected the Messiah would enter the world.  He came without ribbons.  He came without tags.  The divine spirit comes into the world not in a cathedral but in a barn, not among the rich and the powerful, but among the wandering and the poor, not first of all to those already feeling hope and joy and love, but first of all to those who aren’t feeling much hope, or joy, or love.  The divine spirit sometimes feels like holy ecstasies of radiant white light, but can also be born quietly, in the bleak midwinter of our souls.

Christmas comes where we are, when we need it.  It’s not about a grand entrance or a maxed-out credit card.  It’s about us needing a little light in our darkness, a little softening where we’ve gotten hard, a little warmth where we’ve gotten cold.

One of my favorite Christmas songs isn’t actually a Christmas song at all.  It’s the song “We Need a Little Christmas” by Jerry Herman from the show “Mame.”  Auntie Mame and her household are in a bad situation and she decides that what she and the family need to lift their spirits is Christmas now, nevermind the calendar.  She sings, “Haul out the holly; Put up the tree before my spirit falls again.  Fill up the stocking.  I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now. It hasn’t snowed a single flurry, but Santa, dear, we’re in a hurry.”  Her nephew Patrick complains that it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet.  But Mame has the right idea.  It’s not about waiting for December 25, nor must it be over now for a year because we’ve reached the day after.

Christmas is about the special ability of joy to slip in through the tiniest crack in a hard life just when we need it.  Auntie Mame sings, “It’s time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough.  For I’ve grown a little leaner, grown a little colder, grown a little sadder, Grown a little older.  And I need a little angel.  Sitting on my shoulder.  I need a little Christmas now.”

Jesus, so the story goes, practically sneaks into the world.  He finds the absolutely smallest, lowest, most humble possible place to enter the world.  Just as we’ve come to substitute a snowy New England village with the actual original Bethlehem setting. we’re liable to mistake “sing choirs of angels joyful and triumphant” when we should be thinking “silent night.”  Remember that the angels singing “Gloria” aren’t there in the barn with Mary and Joseph.  They’re out in the country singing to the shepherds.

Here’s the story from Luke:

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.  …  And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.  And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem;  … to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.  

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.  And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.  

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

So that’s the scene in the barn when the shepherds get there.  Just Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.  The angels are back in heaven.  The three kings, also known as the wise men or Magi, won’t arrive for several weeks yet.

 It’s a simple and quiet and humble scene.  And what do the shepherds actually see, when they arrive out of breath hoping to see the glory the angels sang about?  There’s no miracle.  There’s nothing supernatural going on.  It’s a barn: dark and cold and smelling like a barn.  It’s just a young man and a young woman and a new baby.  There are no Spielberg-ian lighting effects.  No swelling background score signifies that something important has happened.  If there’s any music it’s only Mary singing a lullaby.

Silent night.  Holy night.  All is calm.  All is bright.

The Crystal Cathedral, down in Garden Grove, when it still existed, used to hold a Christmas spectacular ever year.  I never saw the show but the ads promised special effects, and live animals, and flying angels on wires zooming around the sanctuary.

And then I think of the amateur Christmas pageants I’ve put together with my congregations.  No special effects, no live animals, no flying angels.  Simple costumes.  A few decorations.  No souvenir tee shirt to buy in the gift shop.  No gift shop either.

This Christmas we don’t have even that.  Here we are.  On Zoom.  In our livingrooms and kitchen tables.  Just me, and Sara, and a few powerpoint slides, and all of you.  Just us. 

That’s Christmas this year.  It’s easy to feel a little small compared to the show that some people make of Christmas.  Or the Christmas of other years.

But look at the sort of place that God actually chose for the birth of Jesus.  Does it remind you more of a Crystal Cathedral or of your own livingroom?  

When Mary first got the news that she would be the woman to give birth to the savior of all humankind she responds with the words from Luke called “The Magnificat.”  She says:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
 And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
 For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden, 
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
 For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
 He has shown strength with His arm:
 He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
 He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
 He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
 He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.”

You can hear in those words, a young woman who is both humble and proud.  She knows that she is young and poor, invisible, inconsequential.  And then she’s told that of all women, she has been noticed for greatness.  Suddenly what was ordinary has become special.  What was small has become enormous.  What was low has become elevated.  What was destined to be little known and quickly forgotten has become, “generations shall call me blessed.”  

The universal spirit of love that urges all creation toward joy, does not select some places as suitable and reject others as not up to divine standards.  The universal spirit of love does not weigh some human hearts as deserving and others as unworthy.  There is no list of approved sanctuaries where God might properly be worshipped, and others that God refuses to bless.  There is no livingroom too untidy for holiness to visit.  There is no spirit so broken that healing cannot emerge.  There is no depression so black that a light cannot shine in.  There is no loss or loneliness, or anxiety too overwhelming, or physical pain too debilitating that we couldn’t be comforted, “Blessing came to Mary.  It can come to me.”  The spirit of love leapt right over the Temple in Jerusalem and landed in lowly Bethlehem instead.  Love can appear in Oildale or Panama just as well.  Salvation was born in a barn.  It’s not going to sneer at the dust on your coffee table.

There is no wrong place, or wrong time, or wrong way for hope to enter the world.  Christmas doesn’t require flying angels or flying snow, either.  The birth of a savior needs only a person or two, and the birth of something new among them

When we most need hope and reassurance, as perhaps we do today, the Christmas story assures us that an everflowing, undiscriminating stream of love and creativity is available.  The Christmas story is not a literal history that happened once, long ago, but an archetypal story of how the divine works everyday in every life, not just for Christmas Day but for the day after Christmas, too, in the bleakest midwinter or in blazing summer, in Bethlehem, or Boston, or Bakersfield.  

If you need that entrance of the divine light in your life, you could ask for it today.  Take a deep relaxing breath.  Open your heart.  Create a space, even if it feels like you’re only laying hay in a manger.  Let it come.  You’re neither too high nor too low to receive the gift the universal spirit of Love wants to give you.  “Let every heart prepare a room” the Christmas carol urges.  Beauty and joy could be born even now.  In this Zoom room.  In whatever room you’re in this morning, later today, or tomorrow.  In your heart wherever and whenever you need it.