On the Road (Christmas Eve)

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I have been warned.  You have been warned!  In fact, we’ve all been warned repeatedly. Some years, the warnings are more dire than on other years.  But honestly, they’re so predictable that they’ve simply become part of the background noise.

They are the warnings from AAA and sometimes the Department of Transportation that traveling around Christmas is going to be horrible!  Everybody will be on the road! And if they’re not literally on the road, they’ll be at the airport.  And the roads to and from the airports will also be clogged. 

And so even if you’re at home, and you just want to run out to the store for a couple of things you forgot – or for a few last minute Christmas gifts – good luck!  Everybody will be on the road.

We’re not always sure what the weather will be like around Christmas, but even if the weather is great, we can be sure that everybody will be on the road.  And usually, that includes all of us at one point or another. 

Tonight, lots of people who are usually in church aren’t here because they’re on the road. You may be here because you’ve been on the road to get here from someplace far away.  You may be about to head out and get on the road tomorrow or the day after.  And even if none of those things are true for you, you had to get on the road to come to church tonight, and on Christmas Eve the road is not always an easy place to be!

Being on the road – even if you have to – is often one of the things we dread about holiday seasons.  It adds stress and complication to all the things we’re looking forward to around Christmas.  And when we come to church, we sing about silent nights and wish all of Christmas could be peaceful and calm like that!

But in fact, the story of Christmas is a story about being on the road.  In fact, everybody’s on the road!  This includes:

• Mary and Joseph – who clearly didn’t want to be on the road with Mary being 9 months pregnant. But, like a lot of us, sometimes you gotta be on the road even when you don’t want to be…

• The whole of Judea – in fact, as Luke tells the story – the whole world.  Everybody else had to be on the road at the same time, so that there wasn’t room in the Inn.  And while we focus on the fact that there wasn’t room for Mary and Joseph and Jesus, it surely wasn’t just them.  Like a lot of us, sometimes in busy travel seasons you get stuck sleeping at the airport and it’s not just you…

• Even the shepherds – the shepherds are the guys most like how we want to envision Christmas – peacefully enjoying a silent night!  But then, angels wake them up and tell them that great stuff is happening up the road in Bethlehem.  Get up, they say, and get on the road and go join the crowd!  And like many of us, who are willing to get on the road because of significant relationships in our lives, they leave what they’re doing (including probably sleeping!) and get on the road, too…

But while it may seem like being on the road is just a pain, it’s by getting on the road that they all experience the presence of Jesus in their lives.  Mary and Joseph probably didn’t want to travel.  But it was while they were on the road that Jesus was born and came into their lives.  Many of the other folks – who were sleeping in the Bethlehem airport – probably didn’t want to be on the road either.  But whether they knew it or not, they were present in the place on the road where God was beginning a new thing in life of the world through the birth of Jesus.  And the shepherds – who could have opted to just stay where they were – actually got to see Jesus because they were willing to get up and get on the road. And as the Gospel stories continue, it’s often the case that some of the most profound and life changing experiences people have with Jesus come when they’re on the road or when they meet Jesus on the road.

Sometimes we think that being on the road is one of the downsides to celebrating Christmas.  But in one sense, being on the road is what the Christmas Gospel is all about.

And that’s because God is also on the road with us. That is, God isn’t simply present in our carefully planned celebrations or the (hopefully) silent nights we get after we finally arrive at where we’re going.

Instead, the Christmas Gospel reminds us that God often meets us when we’re in the midst of our journeys – even the ones we find annoying.  The Christmas Gospel reminds us that God shows up in places along our journeys of life, even in places we weren’t expecting to find God.  And the Christmas Gospel reminds us that sometimes, when we’re willing to get on the road to a new place, instead of just sitting back in our silent nights, we’ll get to encounter Jesus in ways we hadn’t imagined.

I still don’t like being on the road at this time of year!  And I hope that each of you will have safe and stress-free experiences on the road this season, even if you’re just running errands.

But even if it’s not like that, keep in mind that if you’re on the road and irritated about it, you’re actually fully experiencing the first Christmas!  But even more than that – just as on that first Christmas – being on the road is often exactly where you need to be to experience the presence of Jesus in your life.

Amen.