Love Came Down: A Divine Disruption

Friends, let me ask you a very serious question: Is the turkey in the oven?

Are the stockings hung by the fireplace? Are the chestnuts roasting? Wait, what do you mean the chestnuts are on fire? What happened to the cookies I baked? No, don’t eat those, those are for the neighbours! Did we pack the presents? Kids, get in the car!

Christmas, this “most wonderful time of the year,” can sometimes feel like the most frantic time of the year. I often feel a bit like Kevin McCallister in the opening scenes of the movie Home Alone, surrounded by the magic of the season, but also overwhelmed by the noise, the movement, and the chaos. We are surrounded by so much, yet often we just want a moment of peace.

If you are feeling that rush today, take a deep breath. Because the truth is, the very first Christmas was just as hectic, just as chaotic, and just as messy as ours.

When we turn to the Gospel of Luke, we have to strip away the polished pageantry we are used to. We love the plays where the shepherds are cute toddlers in bathrobes and the sheep are well-behaved. But Luke tells us a story that is gritty and real.

Luke reminds us that we cannot separate the birth of Jesus from the hard realities of the world. He begins not with “Once upon a time,” but with a political reality check: “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus…”

Unlike Matthew’s gospel, which focuses on King Herod, Luke names the Emperor and the Roman governor. This isn’t just a time stamp; it is a contrast. It reminds us that Mary and Joseph didn’t travel to Bethlehem for a holiday vacation. They traveled because an occupying imperial power demanded a census for tax purposes. The birth of Jesus was shaped by the manipulation of an empire.

Imagine that journey. Mary is pregnant; Joseph is anxious. They are forced to move by a government that views them as numbers, not people. When they arrive, there is no room. Mary and Joseph, perhaps are likely staying with family and the house was packed. This relegated them to the lower level, the place where the animals were kept, because the guest rooms were full.

It was loud. It probably smelled. It was uncomfortable.

And then, the visitors arrived.

In our nativity sets, the Magi and the Shepherds often stand side-by-side. But in Luke’s account, the rich and powerful Magi are nowhere to be seen. Instead, the first people to hear the news are shepherds.

This is where the heart of God is revealed. Shepherds were on the margins of society. They were laborers, working the night shift, living outdoors. Yet, they are the ones God invites first. This shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus comes from the line of David; David was a shepherd before he was a king. Jesus comes to fulfill the law of Moses, who tended flocks in the wilderness.

God bypasses the palaces of Rome and the religious elite in Jerusalem and sends the angels to the workers in the fields.

The angels tell them, “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior.” What the angels say is subversive. The Emperor claimed the titles of Savior and Lord of the world. But Luke is telling us that the true Savior isn’t the one sitting on a throne in Rome; the true Savior is a vulnerable baby, born to a poor family, sleeping in a feeding trough.

This is the good news. As Karri Aldrege asks, “Now the baby has arrived, but violence, economic disparity, and division continue to plague our societies. It leaves us asking, what is the good news of the nativity for our present world?”

The good news is that God is found in the disruption. God is found with the lowly. In her Magnificat, Mary sang that God would “bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly.” Tonight, in a stable, we see that promise beginning to come true.

So, consider the scene again. The shepherds didn’t arrive in silent reverence; they likely arrived as a loud, energetic mob, terrified and excited, looking for a baby. It was a chaotic scene of animals, exhausted parents, and rough laborers.

But then, the text tells us something beautiful: “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

Eventually, the shepherds left. The census counting continued. The empire kept churning. But in that stable, the noise faded, and a holy silence descended.

We try so hard to manufacture that silence, don’t we? We try to create the perfect Christmas moment. But the message of Luke is that God enters the chaos, the political chaos, the economic anxiety, the family drama, and plants a seed of love right in the middle of it.

We need to slow down enough to see it. We need to look past the busyness to see the vulnerability of God. This story challenges us to offer a different vision of power to the world, a power not built on hierarchy or wealth, but on hope and presence.

So, if your turkey is slightly overcooked, or the wrapping paper runs out, or the world feels heavy with bad news, remember this: Love has already come. It didn’t come to a perfect world; it came to a real one.

As the poet Christina Rossetti so beautifully wrote:

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine,

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,

Love Incarnate, Love Divine,

Worship we our Jesus,

But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,

Love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

And Mary took all of this in and treasured it in her heart. May you also take all of it in, the chaos and the quiet, the challenge and the comfort, and treasure it in your heart.

On this Christmas may we trust in the love of God, just as they did on that First Nowell. Amen.