2nd Day of Christmas, 2021 - As Many As Received Him

“Good news of great joy,” the angel choir sang when announcing the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. But the birth of Jesus was not good news to everyone. His coming was not welcomed by everyone.

His lack of welcome is a theme found in all three accounts of his birth.

In Luke’s account, there was no room in the inn for the expectant mother so Jesus was born out back where the animals were housed. His first bed was a feed trough used to feed the animals. They were in Bethlehem, far away from their home in Nazareth. There was no room for Jesus there. There was no one there to welcome him other than his mother and father. In Matthew’s gospel, Herod was disturbed by the news of a newborn king and all of Jerusalem with him (Matthew 2:3). The news of his birth led to a plot to destroy him that resulted in the slaughter of all male children under the age of two who lived in the region (Matthew 2:16-18). John’s prologue said it most succinctly. “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him,” John 1:10-11.

The lack of welcome recorded by each gospel writer foreshadowed the resistance and rejection Jesus would experience in his ministry, leading ultimately to his death on the cross.

The reason Herod did not receive him is obvious. This infant who was called the newborn king of the Jews was a rival for Herod’s throne as King of the Jews. He was a threat to Herod’s power, his place, his privilege, his affluence, his very identity. The same could be said of the religious leaders who opposed Jesus and plotted his death. Jesus’s proclamation of forgiveness undermined the authority of the priests to dispense forgiveness through the Temple and its sacrifices. Jesus’s healing on the Sabbath undermined their law-focused, merit-based religious life. Jesus’s embrace of tax collectors and sinners undermined the status and privilege they enjoyed over those who did not live by the law. Jesus was a threat to their power, their position, their privilege, their affluence — to their very way of life and the identity they had crafted from it. For Herod, for the religious leaders, Jesus had to die if they were to maintain their way of life.

While each story recorded the lack of welcome Jesus received, each story also told of those who received him.

In Luke’s story, it was the shepherds — directed by the angels — who sought him out. Their response was one of joy — “glorifying and praising God,” Luke 2:20. They told everyone they met about their experience and about the Child (Luke 2:17). In Matthew’s story, foreigners — guided by a star — sought him out, bringing him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

In both stories, the most unlikely welcomed the birth of Jesus. Shepherds lived on the margins of society. They were “the lowly” of Mary’s song (Luke 1:52) whom God lifted up. They were commonly looked down upon and shunned. Yet they were the first to see the Christ Child and the first to witness to others about their experience of Christ. The magi in Matthew’s story were Gentiles — outsiders who did not even worship the God of the Hebrews. They were astrologers who studied the stars as a part of their religion. Yet they sought him out and paid homage to him, recognizing that he was someone of significance (Matthew 2:17). These unlikely characters — shepherds, foreigners astrologers — were the ones who welcomed the birth of Jesus.

“But to all who received him,” John’s gospel proclaims.

To welcome the Christ Child is to experience God’s grace. “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace,” (John 1:16). It is to know God. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth,” John 1:14. To welcome the Christ Child is to live in relationship with God as beloved child. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God,” John 1:12-13. It is to experience God’s life as one’s own – what John’s gospel calls eternal life. To welcome the Christ Child is to be changed — transformed into the likeness of Christ.

I cannot explain why some welcome him and others do not. The only explanation I can offer is God’s grace.

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.