The Ghost of Christmas Present                                           Rev. Tracey Davenport

Luke 2:1-7                                                                           December 23, 2007

          Christmas Day, 2002, my family set off from Georgia on a car trip back to Texas.  We were looking forward to being back in Texas, even if just for a little while.  We woke up early Christmas morning, opened presents, ate breakfast, and loaded our car.  After a late lunch, Jack and I, Taylor and Alia, and our two little dogs headed west on I-20, hoping to get to Jackson, Mississippi to spend the night.  We got to Tuscaloosa, Alabama around 7pm.  Needing something to eat we drove around off several exits to find that everything was closed.  Fast food, gas stations, convenience stores, even the Chinese Buffet Palace were all dark.  We were getting desperate.  We wasted almost an hour looking for somewhere or something to eat.  We were all hungry and tired and it seemed we would find nothing.  Finally, just as we had given up, we saw a light shining in the darkness.  A neon sign was lit off the last Tuscaloosa exit, beaconing us to come closer.  It was an eating establishment and they were open.  We had a good meal.  The workers and other customers were festive and friendly to us.  But this was not the Christmas night meal I had envisioned.  We ate our Christmas night meal, celebrating Jesus’ birthday, at Hooters.

          If you knew me well, you would know how Hooters would be the last place I would ever want to eat.  Being vehemently against women parading around in scanty clothing, it is the last place I would want my husband and children to go.  Hooters is a scandalous place for any clergyperson, male or female, to be found.  God has a sense of humor; no doubt about that.  It wasn’t perfect. It was a Christmas night I could have never imagined.  And yet we were together; we had been provided for; we celebrated that God was with us in Jesus Christ; we were full of joy.  Five years later, we are still laughing about that night.

          Luke tells us briefly of the trip that Joseph and Mary took on what is now known as the first Christmas.  After a long trip to Bethlehem because of the census, they arrive in Bethlehem to look for a place to stay.  “Hotels in their day would make even the most meager of our contemporary economy motel chains look luxurious.”[i]  Hotels back then were a serious of thatched rooms or porches, built around a common courtyard. They were dirty, uncomfortable, badly kept and badly managed.  Innkeepers had a bad reputation, because inns were so often used for immoral and criminal acts.  This is the sort of place to which Mary and Joseph came to ask for a room.

          Have you ever shown up without a reservation to see the desk clerk shake his head negatively?  Have you even been where you thought you could drive no further, but unable to find a place to spend the night?  It is unpleasant enough in a car, but imagine if you or your spouse were nine months pregnant and you were traveling on a donkey?  A stable at this motel was all that the last possible stop had, and so a stable they took.

          It still seems like such a simple and beautiful scene, the way Luke tells it. “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger.”  We lay out the beautiful picture in our nativity scenes.  But, we have to know Luke leaves out a lot of details.

          Marjorie Holmes, in her book Two from Galilee, fills in what she imagines might be the details of this story.  Listen to what it might have been like for them:

          Joseph saw at once that the fears of these last tortuous miles were to be realized.  “I’m sorry,” said the Innkeeper. “We’re full up.”  “But my wife’s in labor,” Joseph protested.  “She is about to bear a child.  You must give us shelter, at least for a few hours.”  “But I can’t,” the Innkeeper wheezed.  “Can’t you see for yourself?  There’s simply no room.  I’m sorry lad, but I can’t perform miracles.”  Miracles, Joseph thought in a flash of bitterness.  Let the Lord produce one now.  “You must,” Joseph repeated.  “You must help us.”  “Well, there is the stable.  It’s full of creatures, but if you don’t mind the stink and the noise, you can stay there.”

          Joseph was heartsick as he hurried back to Mary.  A stable!  That God had chosen him to look after her, and the best he could provide was a cave with animals in it. Mary was in the grip of such pain that there was no use apologizing.  “Come,” Joseph said gently.  “The inn is full, but I’ll make you a soft bed on the hay in the stable.”

          At last, at the far end of the rocky path was the stable. Inside was the mealy smell of oats and the tang of the animals tethered in semidarkness.  There was one lone manger, but the straw in it was rancid. Joseph found an empty stall, hung his lamp, and cleaned out the manger and the stall, replacing old straw with fresh.  He spread out his outer cloak and helped Mary to lie down on it.  “Thank God,” she moaned softly.  “You must go and fetch a midwife,” she panted.  “Yes,” he said, “I should have thought of that before; I should have inquired with the innkeeper.”  Again, he is shocked by his appalling ineptitude.  “Fool, fool,” he said to himself.  He headed down the path until stopped by a scream too horrifying to believe.  He whirled and ran back to Mary.  “Joseph, don’t go.  Don’t leave me.”

          “Mary, Mary,” he said as he cradled her in his arms.  “O God,” he thought, “You, God, if you are the God who performed this miracle, why are you doing this to Mary?”  “Go and fetch some water,” Mary instructed Joseph.  Men were not allowed to be with a woman giving birth, much less did they know what to do.  Joseph got water from some herdsmen around the fire in the inn’s courtyard and returned to Mary who lay writhing in pain.  “You must build a fire,” she told Joseph, “and keep cloths warm to wrap the baby in.  We need a knife, and you must dip it in hot water before cutting the cord.”  “A knife?” Joseph gasped.  His head was beginning to whirl.  All these things, these rancid, improper, human things, and Mary’s swollen body before him – surely an angel would come deliver this baby without the pain and the blood.

          “Help me!  Help me!  Help me!” cried Mary.  Yet Joseph could not help her.  “It’s all right Mary.  Yell if you have to.  I’m right here.” Joseph bent near in love and reverence and to their surprise told her, “I can see his little head.”  There was a great ripping and flooding and burning in Mary and her son was born.  Joseph lifted him up for Mary to see. As they looked together, they marveled.  When he squirmed in Joseph’s arms and uttered his first cry, the thrill of all mankind ran through both of them, for they knew a miracle had happened.  The pain was past and ecstasy flooded them both.  Joseph cleaned the baby and rubbed him with salt as Mary directed. As she now held the baby, dozing, Joseph tidied up this small nest that had become their home, replacing the bloody straw with fresh.  How beautiful this place was to him now.

          The first Christmas wasn’t perfect.  Jesus was delivered by a man who didn’t have a clue what he was doing.  Jesus the Son of God, came into this world the same way all of us do.  He came to a place that didn’t have room for him, the smelly stable of a seedy motel.  And yet God was there. Joseph and Mary were together; they had been provided for; and Jesus their promised child was here, safe and sound.  God was in their present, even though it wasn’t perfect, to bring help and peace and joy.

          The Ghost of Christmas Present comes to Ebenezer Scrooge and escorts him to the Christmas celebration of his clerk Bob Cratchet.  The family’s clothes are worn, but have been dressed up with new bows.  They cannot afford a big goose, but act as if they are having a feast to end all feasts.  Bob has several children, one of whom is disabled and, as Scrooge finds out, terminally ill.  Yet Scrooge sees that everyone has enough to eat and that they are full of joy in the holiday of the birth of their Savior.  He sees the whole family gather around the hearth after dinner. Bob raises his cup, as high as any golden goblet, and exclaims, “Merry Christmas to us all, my dears!  God bless us!” which all the family echoed back. “God bless us, every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.  They sang together a round of joyous songs.  Dickens writes, “They were not a handsome family, they were not well dressed, their shoes were far from being waterproof, their clothes were scanty.  But they were happy, grateful, and pleased with one another.”

          Scrooge is then led to a place where miners work and live. The Ghost of Christmas Present exclaims, “See, they know me.”  Scrooge finds them a cheerful assembly, around a glowing fire, singing Christmas songs of joy.  Scrooge finds the same on a ship far from shore and at his nephew’s house.  “Much they saw and far they went, and many homes were visited, but always with a happy end.  The Spirit stood beside sickbeds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and there were close at home; by struggling men and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty and it was rich.  In almshouse, hospital, jail, in misery’s every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing.”  The Ghost of Christmas Present showed Scrooge that where Christmas is celebrated, where Christ is born anew, no matter the situation, there is joy.  Scrooge had wealth and everything he thought he wished, and yet was without the joy that Christmas brings.

          Where are you this Christmas?  Are you home or away from your true home?  Are you overworked or looking for work?  Are you healthy or ill?  Are you rich or poor?  Are you overwhelmed with company or lonely?  Do you find yourself at Hooters or in a stable or somewhere you never imagined, like me in Maryland?  Our move to Maryland has not been perfect.  It is always difficult to move to different place.  But Jesus is Emmanuel: God with us.  God is present with us here. God has provided abundantly for us:  a place to live, a marvelous and kind church family, and his love and grace poured out and overflowing through us.

          If you saw the email from Najla, our church’s former intern who is now serving in the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, you hear the same.  “Despite all,” she writes, “we are assured of Immanuel: God with us, even when we fail to see clear signs . . . For unto us a child is born!”

The good news of the Ghost of Christmas Present is that no matter where we are, Christ can be born there.  Just because things are not perfect, do not assume God is not there.  Life will not be perfect.  No Christmas was ever perfect, especially the first one.  But Christ can be born and celebrated in any situation and bring more joy and peace than we could ever imagine.  Can we welcome the Ghost of Christmas Present and the joy it will bring?  Or have we made fast the door and barred the Spirit out?  Can we learn that welcoming the Ghost of Christmas Present will do to us what it did to Ebenezer Scrooge when he awoke?  “I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath.  “I am as light as a feather. I am as happy as an angel. I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man.   A Merry Christmas to everybody!  A Happy New Year to all the world!  It’s Christmas Day!  I haven’t missed it.”  May we never miss it!