A Dramatic Monologue for Christmas Eve
Hi. My name is Rebecca and I want to tell you about something that happened not all that long ago. My family have been inn-keepers for generations, and after all those years in the “hospitality business” nothing should have surprised me! BUT that day, that night, I was certainly surprised!
You all know about the census that has just wrapped up! Caesar Augustus, the Emperor, decided that too many taxpayers were falling through the cracks and for some really odd reason they made everyone travel. It would have made more sense to send out some civil servant from Rome and a bunch of soldiers to round up all the people and make them appear at a set place an and take all their data BUT NO, every able bodied man and woman had to go to the town of the husband’s ancestor’s birth. How dumb is that! No one was able to open their business because all the employees were away!
It seemed like “tousands and tousands” came to Bethlehem. Oh, I know there could not have been THAT many, but it sure seemed like it! Now, our only claim to fame in Bethlehem is that the great King David came from here. You would not believe how many descendants and cousins that guy had!
Since the registration process could take several days, the first thing most people did was to try and look up their relatives for a place to stay but that did not work, the extras would end up at our door. By nightfall on the first day of the census we were hanging out the “no vacancy” sign. The next day we found room for a few more. The next day we said goodbye to two families and welcomed three smaller ones. Do you know how many donkeys we had to feed and water! Do you know how noisy just one cranky donkey can get! Two are five times worse! And our own lambs trying to out-bleat one another with all the confusion in the stable! We were sleeping on the roof, or rather TRYING to sleep on the roof. We had extra guests up there too!
On that last night of the census, I had turned away a half dozen or so couples when a faint knock came to the door. There was an older man outside, speaking in a Nazareth accent; Joseph and Mary, his wife, they said. Good, common, Jewish names! I saw how weary they looked and something made me hesitate. I knew NONE of my colleagues had any space - I knew people were sleeping in sheep pastures and olive groves - taking their chances with the bandits! Something about this couple made me take a second look. It’s sometimes hard to tell with travelling clothes and all, but I realized that she was “with child” as my grandmother taught me to say. And she was in labour!
She was so young and so desperate looking. I blurted out, before I had really thought it through, said my husband later, “oh, if you are really in need we have the stable.” I sent for a midwife as I was asked but it turns out there were no midwives available!
I head periods of silence punctuated by screaming, and after a while that beautiful, sweet, unmistakable sound of an infant’s first cry. Then silence - I assumed the baby was now nursing. So I went out to have a look. I took some broth too, just to be helpful. Well he was some scrawny looking little thing! All arms and legs and kinda homely, but “man” could he cry! When he finally latched on and found food he was as content as could be. Joseph seemed a little more worried than the usual dad, but Mary was just holding her baby, admiring him. Oh, yes, they told me it was a boy and his name was Jesus!
‘Bout that same time, the next really weird thing happened - the heavens just lit up - and it was the middle of the night. I could have sworn that I heard singing and over on the hills it was as bright as day, for a few minutes! I heard a great commotion out at the stable and I saw a bunch of local riff-raff shepherds running over the hillside shouting, “Where is he?
They seemed to think that the new baby in our barn was something special or someone special. I told them to halt. The last thing a new mom needs when she is trying to get used to nursing is a bunch of nosy men who want to see the baby! So I went in and apologized for the intrusion and asked if they were ready for company. You could have knocked me over with a feather when she said “yes”. Well I went back out and told them to be quick and then get going because we all needed to sleep.
Soon they were back and raving about messiahs and singing angels and bright lights. I thought they were a little cooky but that’s what you are like I guess when you hang out with sheep all night.
The couple did not seem in much hurry to return home. Maybe they had no real home! After the crowds all left, the baby’s father found work as a carpenter, (I knew it by those hands) and they rented a little house and settled in. It was almost like they were always here even though no one knew anything about them.
A while later though that baby brought death and destruction to our quiet little town. It started out fine, really fine, but then it turned nasty, really nasty. You see, this huge star appeared in the sky and started coming toward Bethlehem. The folks I knew from the astronomy club at the school said that stars just do not behave like that! But then we heard a rumour that a group of men from Persia had arrived at the Palace looking for a new King. Anyway we heard they were on their way from the palace and they ended up at the house this carpenter had rented, on the next street to our inn and stable. It was then that I noticed that, that the star had stopped right over their little house. Odd. Very odd.
Those guys got off their camels, took down their packs and carried some very nicely wrapped gifts into that house. Then they came here and got all the rooms at our inn, and did not ask for a discount or anything; paid extra for the camels keep too! I was exhausted that night so I slept like a log. I got up early to make breakfast for the guests but something did not seem right; it was just too quiet. My husband went to the barn and came back saying, “they are gone, all gone” . He checked the guest rooms, and they were empty. They had already paid so I was surprised to find a tip under the pillow, a nice sized bag of coins.
Then I went over to see if they were visiting the Mary and Joseph and Jesus family. They were gone too. It was the weirdest thing. Gone. Half their stuff left behind.
Then the last thing that took place was something we will never forget - I heard the sound of soldiers, a whole legion of them - you know, armour, and horses hooves, chariots, and big loud men shouting. They were looking for boy babies of a certain age. As soon as they found a boy of that age they killed him, right then and there - right in front of the parents. The parents and grandparents tried to bribe the soldiers. Some tried to hide their boys or even say they were girls but once they were found out that it was a boy, they put him to the sword! It was awful. I was so thankful that my grandboys were too old.
I had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with those rich fellas looking for a king. If only they had not gone to the palace! I suppose they assumed a king would come from a palace but if they had any brains at all they would have realized the newborn king might be a rival to the current one AND KEPT QUIET!
All we heard for days was weeping and the sounds of funerals from the synagogue for 2 year olds! At least a dozen of them! Oh how we hated Herod! O how we were so afraid. If he would do that, - to BABIES, what was next?
I knew it had something to do with that young baby but what? I was hoping he had escaped in time!
By and by we heard from some traders that the carpenter and his wife and son were safe in Egypt! I breathed a sigh of relief. What if he was as special as those shepherds and those rich travellers thought? What if he was destined to be king? There are so many what iffs!
I wonder when we will hear from him or see him next?
Ephesians 1: 3-14
Psalm 147
John 1: 1-18
When most people, including most church people, think of the gospels, they think of them as a single whole story. In our minds, and hearts, we assemble bits and pieces together to ensure that they form a cohesive whole that makes logical sense. This is especially true with what we usually call, “the Christmas Story”. At some point in Advent we give people a “heads up” and read the story of the angel’s announcement of Jesus impending birth . On Christmas Eve we put all the other accounts together and tell a unified story, combining the various “events.” So we hear about the journey to Bethlehem, the angel choirs and shepherds and finally take a journey with strangers from the east, guided by a star, and it is, as if, they are subsequent chapters of a single extended event. We don’t always pay a lot of attention to the fact that not all of those stories are in the same gospel and in fact, in Mark and John, there are NO birth stories at all. Maybe we clergy types are the only ones who even notice!
Here we are, on the 2nd Sunday of Christmas, a day before the feast of Epiphany, (where those mysterious eastern visitors are supposed to “belong”) looking at the meaning of Jesus ministry and message through the words of John’s Gospel. It almost goes without saying, “his view is unique!”
Matthew’s gospel began his Jesus story with Abraham, many generations before Jesus and goes generation by generation, till he gets to Jesus. Mark skips Jesus’ birth altogether and begins with the ministry of John the Baptizer. Luke goes back to the announcement of a miraculous pregnancy involving an ageing Elizabeth and Zechariah who became parents to John the Baptizer, before he tells of angels, travels to Bethlehem, mangers and excited shepherds.
John goes back even further! John begins with creation itself. And I guess you can’t get back farther than that - in biblical terms; it’s when time began.
Scholars have long wondered about the differences between the Gospel of John and the other three - the way the author begins his story is only one of many differences!
Writing for a different audience than the other Gospel writers, I am told that John begins his gospel in a way similar to a Greek stage-play, setting up the scenes and characters. His audience was probably accustomed to such an introduction. We, on the other hand, scratch our heads and wonder why it begins this way. Why begin the story of Jesus this way?
Some have described these verses as an “early hymn”. We know how hymns stick in our heads; how the Christmas Carols, in particular, tell the story. Somehow the combination of words and tune make it “stick” in the memory.
The focus of this hymn is this mysterious concept of “the Logos” or “the Word”; that’s Word” with a capital “W”. It was this WORD which took human flesh in order to dwell on earth as a human being. Just what IS this “word”? Well, if we look at the opening lines of the book of Genesis, we read that WORD plays a crucial part in creation itself. According to this creation account, not one thing in creation came into being without WORD. In short, God spoke the world into being. To speak is, of course, to use words.
A major part of this passage from John is the association of “the Word with light”. If you remember the first story of creation in Genesis you will recall that the first words spoken by God were, “let there be light”. In Genesis, light and creation go together; light and word also go together. Light and life go together.
Right now I am working on a puzzle; it has a a great deal of dark background and a black cat. I have it set up in my kitchen under the “chandelier” and have 2 “Ott Lights” trained on the puzzle! On Friday I bought brighter bulbs for the chandelier. Still it’s hard to see all the differences in shading.
For some reason all of this reminds me of a funny story I heard a long time ago. There was a man who was seen searching for something on the sidewalk under a street lamp late one night.
A passer-by asked, “Have you lost something Mister?”
“Yes, I lost my car keys.”
The man offered his help and began to help in the search when the offer was accepted. Finally the helper asked, “are you sure you lost your keys here.”
“Well no, I dropped them over there,” he said gesturing to an are a few feet away.
“May I ask why you are looking for them here, then?”.
“Well I’d never find them over there, there’s no light over there!”
It leads me to ask the deeper and more profound questions of why we look for meaning in the wrong places and why we give so much of our time to things that are not really all that important. The Gospel of John guides us to the place of light, life and profound meaning. In the 12 day long season of Christmas we are called to seek out the light and to dream the dreams of Emmanuel, “God with us.”
Then, as I was writing this part of the sermon and was probably a little weary, my mind wandered to a hokey, and risque country song, “Day dreams about night things” - its funny what associations some minister’s make when we should have eaten hours ago.. You know how it goes, “I’m having day-dreams about night things in the middle of the afternoon.” The singer is slaving away at work, and can’t wait to get home to be in the arms of his beloved. In the song the “night things” ” were what was most important in his life, not the day stuff! Then I began to wonder how to apply it to my sermon! You may be wondering that too!
I just turned the song upside down and inside out! I wonder what things of the light we dream of, or long for, when there is darkness all around and how the ways of Christ help us or prompt us to dream the things of light into being.
A lot of the news we read, hear on the radio and see on tv - is bad news- that seems to be what sells. Because I have former parishioners with Australia connections I have been paying a little more attention to the news of the fires ravaging large portions of eastern Australia. The smoke has turned day into night and the suffering of the people and the loss of animal habitat is enormous. Yet there is light in that story; light has come in the form of Canadians willing to give up Christmas to go and fight the fires on the other side of the world; in heat over 40 degrees, without working next to a raging inferno! The recent news with regard to the American assassination of the top General in Iran is unsettling. And it goes on.
The other day, I heard someone quote “Mr. Rogers” or perhaps more correctly, Fred Rogers mother. Apparently she taught him that in a time of crisis you look for the “helpers” and look to see what they are doing. When we see people helping we see hope. When we see people helping it is as if light has shone in the darkness. I also believe that it is when we see people helping strangers or the enemy that we see most clearly the work of Christ.
(Show my flashlight) This is supposed to be a “superduper” flashlight - it takes a whole bunch of batteries and is supposed to have some kind of superior technology - I know it cost a lot of money. And, I pay careful attention to what happens to it whenever I take it out of the house! But here, despite it’s high price tag, in the middle of the day, it’s not much good. At night, while walking or looking in dark nooks and crannies it’s amazing.
When do we see helpers in the darkness. What does this kind of flashlight show? Take a time of flooding, for example. We see news coverage of a flood and we see people being rescued by helicopter and rowboat, people filling sandbags, people feeding first responders, or the temporarily displaced, people looking to reunite family members separated by the disaster and a myriad of others helping. It sometimes takes extra work to see this or at least to name it as light and life giving, but it’s well worth the effort.
When we look at problem of hunger in our own area of Saskatchewan we CAN be the helper, the light. Our food bank focus in this Epiphany season is cereal and milk. My suggestion is that we enclose the communion table in boxes of cereal - maybe the canned milk can be smokestacks !!! The bread of life, the light of the world can translate for us into a response of caring.
We have come here today to seek a light for our darwkness; because the good news of Jesus has become such a part of our lives that we want to bring this light to others, in spiritual and in very tangible ways.
Like John we are tasked with the mission of pointing to the one who has given us light for our darkness and hope for our despair.
Arise, your light has come!