In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

There are many players in this Christmas Eve pageant, but you can follow the story best by paying close attention to the angels. Remember, the angels are God’s agents, God’s messengers. Their words narrate the first part of the drama. If we pay attention to their words we are more apt to find God in this story. Their first words to the shepherds were: FEAR NOT.

I’m not sure what fear the angels sensed in the shepherds, but as the story reports, The shepherds "were filled with fear." The angels assured them they were not in the bad news business, but they came to bring "Good news of a great joy."

We often fear what we don’t understand. Nearly every story in scripture where God or an angel meets a human face to face, tell us that the human is full of fear. God is the totally other. We don’t understand God. The light of his glory was too bright. We fear the divine. But we need not. The angels came to assure us.

We need not fear because the distance between us and the divine has been diminished. We need not fear because God has chosen to live as one of us. As St. John says, "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." God has pitched his tent in our neighborhood.

Perhaps your great fear is not of the divine. There are still plenty of fears that affect all of us. The list of fears and phobias seem endless. We fear heights (acrophobia); we fear open spaces (agoraphobia) and its counterpart, closed spaces (claustrophobia). Some of us fear certain animals – mice, snakes, spiders.

At first glance some of our fears appear to be comical, unless they are your fears. There is the fear of feet –podophobia. The fear of clouds – Nephobphobia.

The angels announce that earth is a fear proof zone. The hymn writer says: Proclaim the birth of Christ and peace, that fear and sorrow cease. God has taken the first step to address our fears by sharing in our world, by forgiving our sins, by walking alongside us. Perhaps the psalmist says it best: I fear no evil for thou art with me. That is our answer to fear: God, the Immanuel, is with us. Tonight we know that more than any other night of the year.

My dear friends, we gather tonight quietly, contemplating our place in this world under God. This is the most humbling of nights. The universe expands, and though we are small, our place is not insignificant. This is the night that God paid us the ultimate compliment, and became one of us.

The next word of the angels embraces everyone. This is not just an event for Christians. I bring you good news of a great joy for all people. This message wraps its arms around the world. This night we realize that we are connected to everyone else on the planet. I suppose we know this great truth on other nights, but tonight it becomes alive to us.

And yet we need to be reminded. All of us, even the most brilliant among us need reminding. This past year the noted English scientist James Watson, who has done amazing things in his study of DNA lost sight of what he knew. He suggested in a public forum that Africans are intellectually inferior to Europeans. When he tried to explain he made another error. He said that Black people are gaining, but they are certainly behind White folks. The punch line, and you know there is a punch line, is that it was later revealed that way back somewhere in his past James Watson had black ancestry.

Barack Obama, who leans a bit to the left politically, has a white mother, and a Kenyan father, was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia. We learned this year, that he is a very distant cousin of Dick Cheney, who leans to the right politically. We are all related.

Perhaps we are all related to Tiger Woods. His father was 50% African-American, 25% Chinese and 25% Native American. His Mother is 50% Thai, 25% Chinese and 25% Dutch which makes Tiger (if you are doing the math in your head): ½ Thai; ¼ African American, 1/8 Native American; 1/8 Dutch and 100% American.

Luke and Matthew tell us that in addition to the angels the Christmas drama includes Jewish Shepherds and Persian Wise Men. I marvel at the great diversity of God’s attention but, it is no big deal to God. This is how he intended things from the beginning – custodians and tenured professors, doctors and scrub nurses, lawyers and litigants, CEOs and gas station attendants, kneeling before the same manger, worshiping at the same altar.

Scripture announces that in the heart of God we are one. This is the vision of God, and the reason that our time and energy is so heavily focused on caring for the poorest in our midst because they are indeed our brothers and sisters. This is the reason we look for ways to welcome the immigrants, to help prevent people from being evicted, hand out thousands of dollars of food through our pantry. We do mercy, and love kindness around the calendar. Would you expect any less from people who know they are related to everyone else?

Look around you dear friends. The people sitting near you – those with whom you think you have nothing in common – are your cousins. I’m not sure if they are your first cousins or your 51^st cousin, but you are related. What we know in our heads we experience fully tonight.

The angels are not finished until they tell you who was born. Unto You is born A SAVIOR. That is the key, isn’t it? We are people in need of saving, and this night we come to remember that God has met that need. We need help. We may think that we can battle on our own but it is not true. We can’t fight our sickness alone, nor our addictions. We can’t battle our pride or our prejudices alone. It is true that it takes a village to raise a child but it is also true that it takes a community for one person to walk straight and true. The good news is: Unto you is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord. He is our leader. He alone is dependable. He alone in a world of asterisks lives without an asterisk. I’ll explain.

Recently they released the Mitchell report, a report on the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball. Though there are miles to go before everything is clear, it appears that some very famous athletes, some record setting athletes, gained an edge by the use of chemicals. One of the first questions raised is: What are we going to do with all of the baseball records set by people who were using performance enhancing drugs? One suggestion is, if there is proof, to put an asterisk behind their names. People have suggested that an asterisk may need to go along side some of the home run and even pitching records.

Baseball is not the only area where people rely on drugs. Recently a host of young women have been arrested for strange behavior associated with the abuse of substances. Have you seen "Walk The Line," the motion pictures based on the life of Johnny Cash or "Ray," regarding Ray Charles? They both used an immense amount of drugs. Their performances were enhanced by chemicals. Do we need to put an asterisk alongside their names or records. If so what percentage of jazz musicians and rock bands deserve an asterisk?

This past year I’ve read several biographies. Though they didn’t abuse drugs, each story included a sordid chapter or two. Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein and Bill Clinton all need an asterisk. And if the truth be told, so do I. How about you? Haven’t we all messed up in some way? To your credit, many of you come here on Sunday mornings and announce that you need an asterisk. "Dear God, I have sinned against you by thought and deed, by what I have done and what I have left undone." We live our lives with an asterisk.

On this night we remember that only one life needs no asterisk. Jesus Christ. He is our Savior and Lord. He is the man for others. He is the one who was totally submissive to the will of God. He alone could forgive our sins because he alone did not need to die for his own sins. The sign over this altar could read: Jesus Christ…no asterisks. On this night He came to save us; He came to love us. Mission accomplished.

Here is his gift to us. He has come to remove the asterisks from our names. He has come to save us.

There is an internet story making the rounds about the Christmas pageant where the kids held up signs that were suppose to read: Christmas Love. Only one little boy inverted his M…so that the words now spelled C H R I S T W A S L O V E. It is a message where no asterisk is needed.

Another Christmas pageant, another story. A little girl was in a Christmas pageant. She looked in the manger and saw a doll in the crib. She was baffled and approached her father and said, "The Manger is empty...isn’t it dad?"

Tonight, over 2000 years removed from the birth of Jesus we know the manger is empty. And while we are at it, we note that the cross is empty, but that is ok, because though the manger is empty and the cross is empty the world is not empty. Tonight we know that the whole world is full of God. Amen. © 2007