“Could It Be YOU?”

Luke 2:1-14

 I don’t think I ever really understood Christmas until I heard Tom Bodett talk about Motel 6.

You know the radio commercials I’m talking about. With some homey country music playing in the background, Tom Bodett talks about how our lives will change for the better if the next time we travel we stay at a Motel 6. Why, they’ve got cheap prices, clean rooms, and even free HBO. And then Tom delivers the line everyone remembers.

“We’ll leave a light on for ya!”

There is a kind of friendly sense of welcome in those words, as though someone we haven’t met yet but who cares about us will be up waiting for us, no matter when we arrive. Maybe in the morning. Maybe in the afternoon. Maybe in the middle of the night.

“We’ll leave a light on for ya!”

And that is some of the best Christmas theology I’ve ever heard!

You know, it’s always puzzled me why, in almost every outdoor manger scene you see, there’s always a light on in the stable! The rest of Bethlehem is pitch black. The Inn is closed for the night. The Carpenter Shop is all locked up. The Farm is quiet as the farmer and his family rest for the coming day.

But there’s always a light left on in the stable!

Now, if I was Joseph – having traveled all the way to Bethlehem from Nazareth with my pregnant wife – I think I’d want to switch off that light and get a little shut-eye. And if I was Mary – having made the same journey, then delivered a baby – I think as soon as that little one was nursed and back asleep, I’d want the lights out just to rest for a short while.

But no, the light stays on in the stable. All night long it does.

Almost as if to say, “We’ll leave a light on for ya!”

And what a strange group of people that light draws to the Christ-child.

Shepherds. You know, if I was God and was writing the screenplay for the birth of my Son, I sure wouldn’t use shepherds. Shepherds were not very highly regarded in that society. Most were non-religious, and were shunned by the religious authorities as being pagan. They were sort of like the cowboys of the early American west. They make for great characters in movies. But you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one!

And there are wise men from the East. Probably from around Persia, which is very strange since Persia was a great historic enemy of the Jews. Even today, Persia – which is modern day Iran – is believed to sponsor groups like Hezbollah and Hamas in their fight against Israel. I mean, pick your least favorite members of Al-Quaeda or the Taliban, and invite them to your kid’s birthday party!

Even Mary and Joseph, you know, are not the kind of people you’d expect to be involved in the birth of the Savior. A little 13 or 14 year old girl with no distinction or status, hooked up with a guy tradition tells was probably two or three times her age, and whose first impulse when the pregnancy is discovered is to run for the hills.

Not the cast of characters we might expect in Bethlehem tonight! But there they are. Ordinary. Sinful. Full of doubt. Fearful. Hurting. Confused.

People just like us!

And how did they get there to the place where Christ was?

Someone left a light on for them!

And right there is the beauty of Christmas!

You know, sometimes you and I turn Christmas backwards. We see it as a time when shepherds and wise men and people like us go searching for Someone who is the Savior of the world! But I want you to know tonight, that’s not correct! That’s not really what Christmas is. No, Christmas is not a time when people are to go looking for GOD! Christmas is a time when God comes looking for PEOPLE!

Looking for people like us – who need a Savior in their lives. People like us – who’ve been hurt by life and need to be healed. People like us – who have many more questions about God than we have answers. People like us – trying to raise kids and grandkids in a really challenging world. People like us – trying to live fully even as we face up to the realities of aging. People like us – who’ve lost loved ones, and need to find a way to go on. People like us – who’ve sinned and need to be forgiven. People like us – who’ve lost our way through life, and need to be found.

That’s why the light in the stable is left on again tonight. Just as God did long ago with the likes of Mary and Joseph and shepherds and wise men, God once again is out in the world, searching for people who need him!!!

Not too far from here lives a couple who spent some time serving as missionaries in one of the former Soviet republics. They were caring for children in an orphanage and, like anyone who has been involved in ministry with such kids, were simply overwhelmed by the tragedy of so many children who’d been abandoned. My own brother is involved in a ministry in Belarus which provides summer camp experiences for orphaned children. He shares some very sad stories about these kids who not only live in very tough conditions, but many of whom were orphaned because their families were poisoned by the release of radiation from the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

Well, this missionary couple was teaching the children about Christmas. They told them all about Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and wise men, and about the baby Jesus. They told them all about the stable, and the manger, and the star in the sky. They told them all about God’s love for the world embodied in the birth of Jesus. And after teaching the children the Christmas story, this couple invited them to draw some pictures of the manger scene.

All of the pictures were wonderful! But one in particular caught their attention. It was drawn by a little boy named Misha. And what made Misha’s drawing distinctive was that there was not one, but two babies lying in the manger.

“Misha, what a wonderful picture!” said the woman missionary. “But who is the other baby in the manger with the baby Jesus?”

Misha looked up with a lovely expression on his face. “The other baby is Misha,” he smiled.

“Oh? How is it that you added yourself to the manger scene?” she asked.

And this is what Misha said.

“When I was drawing the picture of the baby Jesus, Jesus looked at me and said, ‘Misha, where is YOUR family?’ I said to Jesus, ‘I have no family.’ Then Jesus said to me, ‘Misha, where is your home?’ And I said to Jesus, ‘I have no home.’ And then Jesus said to me, ‘Misha, you can come and be in my family and live in my home.’”

And that, my friends, is Christmas! God is out in the world tonight looking for children like Misha, and like the children here tonight! God is out in the world tonight looking for mothers like Mary, and like the mothers and grandmothers here tonight! God is out in the world tonight, looking for fathers like Joseph, and like the fathers and grandfathers here tonight! God is out in the world tonight, looking for working people like the shepherds in the fields, and searching people like the magi in the east.

Oh, God is loose in the world tonight! And He’s seeking out and inviting to Christ those who hurt, those who doubt, those who need a friend.

Someone’s left a light on!

And it tells us God is here in our world tonight, searching for SOMEONE he loves!!!!

I wonder, could it be you?