What is Happening: A Christmas Eve Sermon on Disrupted and Rewritten Endings
Sermon Delivered at The Local Church
December 24, 2024 • Christmas Eve
Scripture: Luke 2:1–20
My youngest, Eliza, has been into Christmas music this year.
Last week, we were in the car, and she said, "Daddy, can we have The Twelve Days of Christmas?" It was that day's favorite. I said, "Sure thing." After another lecture about how lucky she is that she gets to pick the music in her parent's car—a luxury I never had—I asked Siri to play The Twelve Days of Christmas.
Siri obliged. But it was a new version—one she hadn't heard before. Maybe you know this version. It's the one by the a cappella group Straight No Chaser. If you're not familiar with their version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, you have to listen on the way home tonight. It's so good.
It begins with the familiar melody—"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…" but after fifteen seconds, things take a turn. We somehow jump from the second day to the fourth day to the ninth day before they throw in lines from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "Deck the Halls," and even "I Have a Little Dreidel," weaving them seamlessly into The Twelve Days of Christmas. It's brilliant.
I watched Eliza in the rearview mirror to see her reaction with each twist and turn. With every pivot, her eyes started to get bigger and bigger. Her smile grew wider. Her mouth was agape at one point. When they took on the melody of The Carol of the Bells (which was her favorite last year), she couldn't keep it in any longer. She shouted from the backseat, "What!?" Again, when they dropped in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: "What!?" Finally, when this version of The Twelve Days of Christmas ended with the tune of Toto's "Africa," Eliza was full-on laughing, and she exclaimed, "What is happening?!"
It was amazing.
When it was over, she said, "Can we have the silly version again?" I said, "Sure, kid."
The delight and genius of this song is that it takes a predictable, perhaps tired song—and subverts it. Just when you think you know where it's going, this version takes you places you didn't expect to go. It disrupts and rewrites the ending. The resulting joy is palpable.
What is happening?
In this playful disruption of a familiar song, we find an echo of the story we gather to hear tonight.
The arrogance of "all the world"
It may be a familiar story. Or maybe it's been a while.
When we hear in Luke's gospel—the story of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection according to Luke—that "a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered," he's setting the scene for a story unfolding in the shadow of empire, where Caesar, a totalitarian emperor, issues a decree that "all the world" must travel home to be registered and counted. All the world. Did you catch that? The sheer ambition. The audacity. All so that the empire can calculate how much you own and, thus, how much you owe. How much they can squeeze out of you to build their palaces bigger and armies stronger. It's about taxation, but it's about so much more than that. It's about power and control. It's about exploitation. Luke paints a picture of a world and a people experiencing the crushing weight of empire and authoritarianism.
In the midst of this world, we meet Mary and Joseph. Because even a poor, vulnerable, unwed pregnant teenager and her fiancé aren't exempt from Caesar's decree—one that comes with an implicit "or else." They travel together to Bethlehem, Joseph's hometown, to be counted.
Perhaps you have a sense of what happens next. Maybe you've heard it before and know how it ends. The story, as it's been told, is that Mary and Joseph are met with closed door after closed door. There's no room in the inn. We hear it again and again. Year after year. They hunker down in a humble stable surrounded by feeding troughs and animals and mess, and this is the place where love comes local. This is the place where God breaks into our world. This is the site of incarnation.
There was always room
But here's the thing. Here's where our familiar, now predictable story takes a turn. If you listened closely to the scripture reading, you heard it. You can look back and see it in your bulletin: When we hear that there was no room in the inn, we often think of a Hampton Inn or a Marriott, right? A hotel, perhaps. But in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word that has typically been translated as "inn" is kataluma. A better rendering of kataluma is "guest room." According to Luke, there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the guest room.
Luke isn't telling us a story about exclusion or being shut out, as we've so often assumed. He doesn't say that they were the victims of inhospitality. Instead, just the opposite is likely. It makes sense. Because with everyone coming home to be registered, there's a good chance that every home was packed full of people—with other guests. Mary and Joseph, perhaps not moving as quickly as others who aren't about to give birth, might be late arrivals.
In Palestinian culture, hospitality is core. That's true now, and it was true then. I recently read a quotation from a modern-day innkeeper and chef in Bethlehem who spoke of their openness to foreigners and guests. He spoke of how central hospitality is to their identity and faith and that they'd never turn away a pregnant woman or any woman in distress. He said it wouldn't happen now and it certainly wouldn't happen then. The stories of those I know who have traveled and spent time in the Holy Land attest to this same truth.
What many scholars and historians have come to believe more likely happened is that the familiar story of inhospitality is disrupted and subverted. That, in fact, when Mary and Joseph arrived, the family didn't put them out but instead offered what space they could—in this case, it happened to be a lower area of the home surrounded by straw and goats.
Maybe you're hearing this and thinking, "What!?" just as Eliza did when the song didn't play out in the way she expected it to. Maybe this new spin does the same for you, tonight.
I share this because, in so many ways, this is the Christmas story in a nutshell. Expectations upended. Predicted and assumed endings and outcomes rewritten.
That against the backdrop of authoritarian and oppressive rule, amidst an expected end of economic anxiety, more entrenched marginalization, and the fear of so much loss—identity, hope—God subverts that ending and writes a new one when God comes into the world as vulnerable child to usher in a new economy—a new way of living marked by peace, justice, and liberation.
That when it comes time for the Christ child—this King of Kings—to be born, it doesn't happen, as one might expect, in a lavish palace from the womb of elite nobility but in the last place you might look and from the womb of the last woman you'd expect.
That when the news breaks that the Messiah—this Anointed One—is born in the City of David, that news doesn't go first to the priests and rulers as one might expect. Instead, the end is rewritten as an angel appears to shepherds—homeless, migrant workers of their day who sleep with animals and do the work no one else wants to do—a sign that Mary's song will ring true: that the poor will be lifted up, the hungry will be filled with good things—a sign that everyone, especially those who've been outcast and marginalized, will find belonging.
There's a pattern here
We see this theme again and again in scripture. When Hagar and Ishmael face forced displacement, abandonment, and isolation, the God Who Sees rewrites the ending, returning their dignity and offering provision and care.
When the Israelites face certain death in Egypt, God rewrites the ending, parting the sea and leading them to freedom.
When a bleeding woman is marginalized because of her condition, with no hope of healing, Jesus rewrites the ending, stooping low, offering healing, and restoring her to belonging.
When empire tried to take the life of the child we celebrate tonight because of the ways he threatened the powerful and disrupted the status quo, welcomed the stranger, healed the sick, fed the hungry, and reimagined love, God rewrote a predictable hopeless ending, raising him to new life and declaring that the worst thing isn't the last thing.
If God is with us
If God could do that here—rewrite the ending of a story that seemed certain—then what might God do with us? With the parent certain their child will never speak to them again? With the person who's convinced their relationship is beyond repair? With the family facing an impossible medical diagnosis? What might God do in this world through us?
Perhaps the ending you're so certain about—the one that keeps you up at night—is being disrupted and rewritten even now. How might God be rewriting your expected end tonight? What familiar story of pain or fear or anxiety might God be preparing to transform into something new?
Because if God is with us—if love has come local—then that ending you've already written is disrupted anew tonight. This is why Christmas matters. This is why we're here.
If God is with us, then that predictable ending you've already written about how the future is fixed and feeling powerless to change it becomes rewritten to reveal a God who says, "Do not be afraid," inviting you toward a new story.
If God is with us, then that predictable ending you've already written about the grief that will never leave you is rewritten to reveal love entering the world hidden in the deepest darkness.
If God is with us, then that predictable ending you've already written about how there isn't enough and you'll never be enough is rewritten by a God who, amidst scarcity, transforms a crowded house and borrowed manger into a place of abundance.
If God is with us, then that predictable ending you've already written about being lonely or excluded is rewritten to reveal a God who speaks first to shepherds in empty fields, turning outsiders into the first witnesses of this good news of great joy for all the people.
If God is with us, then that predictable ending you've already written about how your mistakes define you is rewritten to reveal a God who specializes in fresh starts and second chances, who looks at your worst moments and still sees possibility.
Love comes local
What is happening?
It's God showing up in the unexpected spaces, in the rewritten endings, in the moments that make us laugh and wonder and say, "What?!" Just like that song in my car with Eliza. Just like that night in Bethlehem.
Tonight, we're invited into that same disruption. That same surprise. That same joy.
Because love has come local. Christ is born. There is room for you here. And this is only the beginning.