I don’t know what brought you here tonight, but the truth is, on Christmas Eve, you don’t really need a good reason. Maybe it was your neighbor’s Las Vegas-style light show that started the day before Thanksgiving, and you, like me, needed to escape seeing Santa and his 84 reindeer crashing into Frosty, all who were on their way to worship the Christ child, who was sleeping under a sago palm bush. Maybe you heard that the mall was finally closed. They never marked it down to free, like we had hoped, and now they, too, are off searching for the grace and peace that cannot be bought or sold, a love that has never been discounted. Whatever your reason, we are glad you are here. Perhaps you, like me, never get tired of hearing that old story of angels and stars and shepherds and a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. It is such an old story, and so much has changed in the world since that Bethlehem night. Despite all that, from where we are sitting, looking back those 2000 years, it still seems to make sense.

One Christmas, a year or so ago, a four-year old girl sat on her grandfather’s lap. They had just finished unwrapping presents, and amidst the piles of wrapping paper and boxes, carefully planned gifts and last minute deals, grandpa had an idea. He picked her up and carried her to the nativity scene neatly fashioned somewhere off to the side. “You know that Christmas is actually about the baby Jesus, and not about these presents.” “I know, but grandpa, he’s not a baby anymore. That guy grew up.”

We know that there was more to the story, but Christmas is always about looking back. It has to be. It didn’t make sense that first night. Even the central players whom we love must have seemed bewildered—stables, mangers, stars, angels, messiahs. It couldn’t have made sense. It wouldn’t make sense until much later.

The third evangelist, St. Luke, served as the photographer of the event. It was unplanned, like the local newspaper reporter sent to Bethlehem to cover the big story: “People Return for Caesar Augustus’ Census,” only to happen onto a bigger story. He wouldn’t know what to title the story for years, but when the time came (like any good photographers) he still had the pictures in hand. Those photographs, carefully crafted together years later into a photo album called “baby’s first Christmas,” have become a cherished treasure for us. It is a photo album of strangers, but of people we have grown to know and love, and of one boy who would come to change us and the world forever.

The first picture is of a quiet, scared, young couple. They look like out-of-towners, speaking with a strange strum that was not common in Bethlehem, and they have been lost in the chaos. And there they stand, she in tears and he with growing panic, with a scene of rush and chaos in the background. And the caption reads: there was no room for them in the inn.

It is a lament. Like so many plans that fall apart just when it starts to count. Like Eden’s fruit, a promise of glory and life, that would lead only to shame and humiliation and death. Theirs was a sad story, but we don’t really see the picture that way. We know that there is a stable nearby, and that we didn’t want our Jesus to be born in a hotel room. There is something lovely about the cold stable. Sometimes our Christmas plans and dreams do not come together like we wanted, sometimes military objectives separate us from the ones we need for Christmas to come, sometimes death’s unkind embrace finds us when we wanted to be left alone, but there is hope and comfort in knowing we are in good company. The savior was born into such a story, and was born for such a story. We didn’t realize until much later, but in looking back, it starts to make sense.

Some of you may have heard about the strange situation at a Starbucks in Pompano Beach, where coffee drinkers have been buying coffee for the person behind them. It is a beautiful expression of holiday joy, but it was born into a different world. A gentleman sat in his car, waiting at the window, and his own complicated order had slowed things down. The person behind him grew impatient and began honking and yelling out his window. The customer who sat there waiting, on edge because of the rudeness behind him, found an opportunity to bring goodness into this sad story. He paid for the person’s order. As he would later say, “I chose not to pay it forward, but to pay it backwards. ” He had no idea what he was starting, and admittedly just wanted to appease the anger of his fellow grande latte-drinker. It sparked a spirit of charity that would gain nationwide notice. People drove out of their way in order to become a part of this spirit of giving, a love that was born into a moment of discomfort and despair.

The second photo is of the new baby, beautiful and dirty and crying and wrapped in swaddling clothes, and the caption reads: lying in a manger. This was not the risen messiah, Lord of Heaven and earth, at least not yet. It was a baby, and in him, God had come to us. It is perhaps the great statement of Christianity, the gracious incarnation of God, sleeping where animals were fed. This baby would grow to feed us with his words, feed us with his body—the holy food and drink of new and unending life in him. St. Luke caught this image, not because it made sense then, but because it would later—perhaps after he sat at a communion table and ate the bread and wine of eternity, the picture of the baby in the manger made more sense.

The next photo is one of shepherds, dirty and scared and cold, surprised by a heavenly vision singing and praising God, and the caption reads: For unto you is born a savior, which is Christ the Lord. This was the first pronouncement of Christ’ Lordship during his short life. It is no surprise that the message came from heaven, but it is surprising that it was given to shepherds. I suppose when we see their picture today, we romanticize who they were, but they were not. They were on the bottom rung of society—dirty and poor—compatriots of prostitutes and tax collectors. They were not allowed to testify in court, nor could they offer sacrifice at the temple. And the message was not given at the temple in Jerusalem or to Caesar in Rome, but to dirty shepherds. As Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables claims, “for the wretched of the earth, there is a flame that never dies, even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” That hope came that night not with the sun, but with the son of God.

During World War II, a Jewish man in Romania had been hired to work as a gravedigger. He would often hide his friends in these graves so that they would not be picked up by NAZI forces. One day, as he hid a pregnant woman from the secret police, a baby was born in the grave. “I thought it must have been the Messiah,” he said. “Only he could be born in such a place of death and poverty. Only with the messiah would a gravedigger be the first to know.”

We would later learn that he came to heal the sick, become a friend of sinners, and preach good news to the poor, but it didn’t make sense that first night. Perhaps as Luke saw him heal the ten lepers, or as he complimented the faith of an old woman who gave her last coins—all that she had, as he helped tiny Zacchias down from the sycamore tree, or as he spoke those words, “blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God,” perhaps then those Bethlehem shepherds made sense.

The fourth photo is a beautiful one, an angel choir, a great chorus of heavenly hosts, and the caption reads, “glory to God, and peace on earth.” There in the night, the stars shining, and all of creation seems to rejoice. If only Christ had come to redeem our souls, our souls would have rejoiced. If this baby had only come for people, then people would have sung God’s praises. But Christ came for all of creation, and so it is no surprise that both heaven and earth rejoiced.

The final photo is of Mary. The shepherds are gone, Joseph is perhaps asleep in a chair, the baby Jesus has stopped crying, and there she sits—exhausted—but too tired to sleep. The beautiful mother of God sits looking, not just at the gracious incarnation, but at her own son, and the caption reads: Mary pondered all these things in her heart. It is true that it would take years to understand what had happened that night in Bethlehem, but I think she was the first to see that in this baby, in the holy nativity of Christ, the world was being restored. Like all things of God, it would not be apparent immediately; it would take time to see, but Mary had caught more than just a first glimpse.

The artist Rembrandt captured this scene so beautifully in a painting of the Holy Nativity. Joseph stands by the door seeing out the guests, and Mary sits regarding an apple on her lap. This masterpiece hangs today in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There is a Dutch legend that came from the Renaissance, nearly five hundred years ago, that inspired this painting. After the commotion of the night had ended, after the shepherds had returned to their fields, there was a knock at the door. It was two old people who asked to come in. Joseph was reluctant, but Mary overheard their conversation and invited them in. They were an old couple, bent over and weary from their labors and burdened with age. They sat and wept as they talked with Mary. They left soon after arriving, but left one small, red apple with her. In the painting, her eyes filled with tears, she ponders this small piece of fruit.

The legend claims that the couple in the legend was Adam and Eve. They had spent centuries wandering the earth, praying for a moment when God would find them again and they could return the apple. They had come to beg the child’s forgiveness. They had come to return the apple that they had taken so many years ago. The legend ends with Mary asking the couple how they found the courage to return so many years later. Quietly they responded, “we didn’t see it then, but we understand now. He would have given us the apple if we had only asked for it.”

On the back of the album that I have imagined in my mind, there is an inscription. It was not carved there by St. Luke, but by others—like you and I—who would come along years later, flip through this album, and find faith in this child. The inscription reads:

God from God
Light from Light
True God from true God
Begotten not made
Of one Being with the Father
Through Him all things were made
For us and for our salvation He came down from heaven
By the power of the Holy Spirit He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man