Christmas Monologue

Abigail's Christmas Story

-                Good evening- I am Abigail and I thank you for inviting me to your Christmas gathering.  I greet you with the wonderful words found in Jeremiah 29:11:

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" For I know the thought that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." 

Yes - God has a plan and a future and a hope for each of us - as well as for us corporately…as a group of believers in a local congregation!

-                I look around your beautiful church and sense the history of this place - the people that built and founded this work for God in your area so many years ago.  You can feel the sweet spirit of devotion and awe and peace in this place…

I know - I am good at sensing the aura of a place…I always have been.  Maybe it comes from years of running our inn in Bethlehem.  My husband and I, that is…spent our lives reading people and situations and applying ourselves to turn them into pleasantness and profit for all concerned.

I know what to expect in certain places with certain people.

You know what I mean, don't you?

In the market place I know that old friends become wary hagglers over the price of fish and the measure of a bolt of weave from Syria.  I know the smells of the place - hot with needs and hurrying bodies…the noise and laughter and scurrying.

I know what to expect in the market place.

I know what the stable holds for me when I go out to tend the animals - get some eggs or milk or feed the little beasties.  The warm, earthy smell - pungent with life and holding peeks of furry cuteness. 

I have long been drawn to the holiness, awe and inspiration of a trip to the Temple - whether in the women’s court of the great Temple in Jerusalem on our yearly journey to Passover - or gathered around our local Rabbi at home in Bethlehem…I know what I will sense - what I will find when I get there.  The people at their best outwardly - their clothes pressed and frocked out - the sense of history and mystery in the presence of the One God…I know what to expect there. The crying out in repentance of the sinner rebuked by the elders - the sing song of the holy Word of God spoken by the priests - the incense and majesty and hope and glory of worship by the chosen people for their Sovereign Lord and King.  Yaweh - King of the Universe…

I have long known what to expect in our home with my husband, Levi and the children bustling about my feet - growing up with their heartaches and joys and temper tantrums and the love.  O the love that a good man brings to his family…the joy of children and grandchildren - beautiful babies laid in the arms of doting mothers and proud papas…I know what will happen when I walk down the steps and across the hall into our business - our inn (called the Wanderers' Rest by Levi's fathers father).  The inn we have kept these 27 years.  I know to expect a variety of weary travelers, visiting relatives, and tradesmen.  And some coming from, who knows where - going to, they know not where.  The rowdy regulars for a hot meal and some mulled wine.  The shepherds - my husband’s unruly brothers and cousins from the country - messing up my clean floors and shouting and laughing and singing late into the night…

I have learned how to handle them all - all the people - all the ever-changing scenes and situations…to flow from the daily nitty-gritty, to the give and take of barter, to the quiet meditation of things eternal. And back again.

Down through the years, with my share of hopes and dreams all laid before my God with thanks. Accepting from His hand, the ordinariness of the days He gives me to live out before Him.

But

I did not know what to make of that one starry night - so long ago

and yet it is seems but yesterday.

You know the night I speak of - you are gathered here to celebrate it,

same as me!

But you know the whole story - you know Jesus' legend from beginning to end…the way He turned everything upside down with His practice and teaching of the Right Side Up Kingdom - the Kingdom of God, His Father.

But back then - we knew nothing.

O - the prophesies we knew.  And thought the Lord had been silent - so terribly silent - for hundreds of years then…we recounted the promises to each other.  The priests did - sure - it was their job - and pompous and proud they were to tell it in their fancy robes and tall miters on their heads…parading around with tales of the coming of the great king who would one day lead Israel out of the hand of the Romans and into the Day of their own glory…

But also kowtowing to those very Romans - in their private conversations…making their compromises of peace so they could retain some semblance of their own earthly power.

But we - the plain folk – recited those prophecies over and over to ourselves:  the prophesies that were our promises. There was not a baby boy born to a local ruler, prominent tradesman or rabbi that the midwife did not hold the child up and ask - could this be the One? Could this be our Messiah?

And we in Bethlehem - little sweet Bethlehem - the city of the House of God…we have our local holy ones. There was old Simeon – who was told by God's Holy Spirit that he would not taste of death until he saw with his own eyes the “Consolation of Israel” - the Lord's Christ. 

And our dear Anna - widowed when still a young thing - now in her nineties - serving in the Temple night and day with prayers and fasting…she was there to behold the little One who was given on that precious night.

But though we rehearsed the promise

and though we had those among us who were waiting patiently for His coming,

still how could we understand the way of it when He appeared there in our midst?

I was not at the door when Joseph stepped in and asked my husband for a room. He was desperate to bring his beloved Mary in out of the weather, after his long journey with her from Nazareth.  But we were flowing over already! We had some paying just to sleep at the tables when our other guests had gone up to their rooms. Whole families had traveled to their hometown of Bethlehem for the census that Rome required of Israel for tax purposes.  As though they had not squeezed the life out of us before that!

There was no room for them - you know that…

but my Levi is a wise and compassionate man.  Instead of sending the very pregnant Mary back into the streets to search for a place to lay down…he took Joseph and helped him make a place in our stable - carved out of the rock in the side of the hill behind our Inn. 

Levi told me in passing that there was a man & his wife staying out in the stable - and had me send some of our serving girls out with a bit of bread and cheese - some clean water to slake their thirst and wash a bit of the road away.

But it was not until Sharon came running in breathless – asking for clean cloths and more water and her eyes wide with wonder that I understood that a babe had come into the world on that busy night. 

I finished with the last of the cleaning up - handing out blankets to those slumped over the tables. I took myself out into the yard for a stretch and to visit the new parents and see that there were enough sticks of wood to keep them warm for the night…

But I was not prepared for what I found out there in the dark.

First off

it wasn't all that dark…

up over my head sparkled the most extraordinary sight I had seen - a star so bright and golden that it seemed it would fall down on my head and end us all!  It looked as though it was almost day - and outshone the moon!!!

As I stood with my mouth hung open, I was stirred to action by the running and jumping about of men near the door to the stable.  They appeared to be shepherds by their clothing

and by their smell, if you will excuse me…

but their manner was not at all what I knew to expect from shepherds, young or old.  They were jabbering on and on about miracles and angels and singing - of God and man and peace on earth…

they were either laying out full on their faces there before our little cave - or wringing their hands and jumping about  - running back out into the streets and shouting things about the Messiah having come to Israel at long last.

What were they saying?  I saw my husband walk past me as though in a dream - our serving girls pulling him forward - pushing him into the soft glow that came from the manger.

I seemed to glide forward - not of my own will - but as though I was pulled along like a child on a cart.  And what was this that I was sensing? What was this atmosphere that smote my heart and mind and eyes as I drew near and focused on the scene inside our stable?

The father - this Joseph - stood gazing down on the child - but not as a new father. You know: proud and nervous and hopeful and scared…that is what I should have seen on his face.  But it was not.

What I beheld was the look I had seen when a slave had paid off his debt - and the ring was taken from his ear - and some coins were put into his hand.  And his once-master proclaimed him a free man!  Yes - it was just like that look.  Amazed - joyous - Free!

And the little Mary…as I saw her above the backs of the prostrate shepherds and my now-kneeling husband and maids.  I saw her - not as a new mother appears (had I not seen hundreds in my time?): not weary and smiling and doting in motherly love…that was there a bit - but overshadowed by a look I have only witnessed in those lost in meditation and prayer and praise.

Yes!  That was it!

There in the stable, surrounding that humble manger - was the aura of the Shekinah glory of God witnessed only at high and holy days in Jerusalem.  What we have recorded in our holy book when God would come down and sit between the cherubim on the holy of holies…

That is what I witnessed that long ago night in Bethlehem, as I gazed down for the first time at Jesus.

And though I followed years later, the news of his doings in Nazareth and Jerusalem and all of Galilee…Yes - I heard of his acts - his followers leaving all, his miracles and healings and the teaching - as though He wrote the very Words He quoted from the scriptures. And His death. How could it be?

His resurrection – with what wonder did we greet that news? The truth of His coming again – we held it to our hearts.  Though I heard all of that, yet I was never able to shake the feeling that was born in my heart that wonderful, mysterious night. 

The feeling that now I was whole - that now life had truly begun - that questions I didn't know I was asking were all answered.  A sense of peace so deep there is no words for it.  And a thankfulness that has caused me to come - like all people down through the centuries have come - like you yourself have come tonight - and bow before the Christ child and stretch out empty hands and full hearts - and offer him the only gift He has ever desired.

May God unite us all tonight and enable us to give to Jesus freely what His precious heart desires.