Luke 2:8-20

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There are certain stories that come out whenever family gathers, like a favorite old sweater. In my family of origin, one of those stories is about an exchange that took place with my grandfather. This was my dad’s dad, and we didn’t see him a whole lot. But one time he had come to visit our family and with sitting at the kitchen table with his favorite Stoli on the rocks. I don’t remember what it was about, but I think my brother was asking my mom if he could do something, or go somewhere and he wasn’t getting the answer he was hoping for. He began to press the matter and my mom in the frustration every parent of a teenager has felt at some point or other exclaimed, “I’m not going to argue with you.” To which my grandfather quipped, “I’ll argue with you. What side do you want me to take.” And that, my friends tells you everything you really need to know about me and my family. We’re always up for an argument, just tell us what side you want us to take. 

Maybe that’s why I take such delight in arguing the question of whether the 1988 action movie Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis, is a Christmas movie. The truth is I don’t have a dog in that fight. But the people who want to argue that it isn’t are so emphatic about this point that I sort of want to argue that it is. Of course that movie has nothing to do with the story we just heard. The one about the census and Bethlehem, about a baby born with the animals and no room for his family, about shepherds and angels and good news of great joy. But then again, very few so-called Christmas movies have anything to do with that story either. When it comes to  Die Hard I will say this, there’s a cliché when it comes to the genre of action movies, and especially their sequels. Some where in the trailer, amidst shots of explosions and gunfire, the narrator says, “this time, it’s personal.” And if that’s the case, then maybe a movie like that has more to do with Christmas than we might imagine. 

Because as we just heard, none of the things that we often associate with our Christmas traditions: candy canes and beautiful greenery, candles and decorated trees, ugly sweaters and Santa Claus, have anything to do with this story. But it is personal. It is nothing if not personal. When the empire wants a count that sends a pregnant girl at full term to walk for a week to go with her fiancé to his hometown, that’s personal. When strangers are turned away or told there’s no room for them. That’s personal. A mother giving birth in less than ideal circumstances because of all that is personal. There are any number of things in this world that we like to excuse by saying, “Well, it’s not personal.”  You know, it’s just the price of doing business, or making policy, or protecting our own. But if it impacts human lives and upends them. It IS personal. It’s happening to those people.  

When Charlie Brown cries out in exasperation, “can’t anyone tell me what Christmas is really about,” and his friend Linus VanPelt takes center stage and recites this passage from in the old King James Bible, that’s the story, but it isn’t what Christmas is all about. What the story points to is a God who makes it personal. Who enters into history. Who takes a place alongside us in our very personal lives. When the shepherds get surprised by a divine messenger, the announcement contains a small, but important word. See, says the angel, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” This isn’t some random general announcement about the state of the world, it is a specific announcement for a particular set of people. The good news that is announced is for everyone, but it comes to these shepherds personally. That is what Christmas is all about. It’s about a God who very deliberately comes to us in person, a God who shows us what love looks like in person. It is a love that saves us in person. This is a love that knows our name just as certainly as we know his, Jesus born of Mary from Nazareth in Galilee. 

It's been said that historically, Christmas is the celebration of something that took place in one way or another some two-thousand years ago in Bethlehem. But theologically, Christmas takes place here and now, tonight in this place with the people who are gathered here, or are watching online, or gathered in communities the world over. It is the mystery of God choosing humankind as God’s dwelling place, in and among us, as one of us transcending all of time. 

This is personal. To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is God’s chosen, God’s anointed, God’s own self. We can and should take this personally. Because love knows your name.