Deliveries are important this time of year.  We want to know, “Can the gift I’m ordering be delivered?”  And, if so, what will the delivery date be?  Will the gift be delivered on time? 

At my house, one day last week, we were blessed by four deliveries in one morning.  They happened in rapid succession, such that our home was awhirl in deliveries.  Within one single hour, the UPS man came, the U.S. Postal service arrived, the power-washers came to clean our house, and the florist visited us.  Each of them carried a delivery of something we wanted, or something that others wanted for us.

            At this time of deliveries, we might think of changing the seasonal color of Christmas.  Of course, for the Church, the color of Christmas is festal white; in honor of jolly St. Nick, the seasonal color is red.  But for many of us who rely on deliveries, the color of Christmas is brown, brown for the trucks driven by the friendly persons of the United Parcel Service – the UPS-man.

            Deliveries are important this time of year.

            But the delivery sung and spoken of tonight carries a different kind of parcel.  Picture now those shepherds on the hillside above the city of David, the city of Jerusalem.  The shepherds are cold; they’ve settled down for the night, keeping watch over their assets, otherwise known as sheep.  And suddenly, out of nowhere, an angel appears – a threat?  a danger?  Perhaps.  Certainly the shepherds were not expecting good news.  Good news does not come to shepherds on a dark hillside in the chill of night.  Yet, as the brightness of God’s glory lights up the hillside, they hear what is, indeed, good news – a message of delivery.  The angel says,

“to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

What a strange birth announcement.  One expects a birth announcement to be like the one given by Susan and Ken Moorman this week, on the birth of their granddaughter.  We give God thanks for the delivery of Elizabeth Ann Acrey.

But the delivery of a baby, who is not simply a baby, but is “the Messiah, the Lord.”  What should a delivery announcement of this magnitude sound like?  There’s no template for this kind of news.  So it might as well be an angel’s proclamation to frightened shepherds.

For this delivery announcement, made not by a knock on the door, or an e-mail notification, or a stork sign in front of the house, or an announcement in the church bulletin, this delivery announcement does nothing less than proclaim the arrival of a Deliverer – the Messiah.

But surely the shepherds, on this chilly night, had not been waiting for the Messiah to arrive.  In their time, in first century Palestine, those who wait for the Messiah are people who believe life could be different; people who believe the Roman army could be defeated; people who believe the Roman governors and their Hebrew lackeys could be sent away; people who believe what the old prophets said, that there would come a time when God would re-establish justice on the earth; that there would come a time when all the nations would come to God’s holy mountain and be content to leave behind there own ways; there would come a time when every person would live in peace – because each person would have his own olive tree, her own vineyard, her own shelter – a way of making home and feeding family.  Each person would have enough, so no one would envy his neighbor and scheme to take the neighbors’ goods.  Each person would have enough, such that the problems that cause wars – desire for land, desire for water, desire for influence, desire for conformity, desire for resources, desire for food – none of these problems would exist.  If the problems that led to the wars did not exist, well then, there wouldn’t be war any more.  So the old prophets said.

But these shepherds, these boys and men keeping their flocks, or the owner’s flocks, by night, they had likely long-ago given up hoping for a Messiah.  Perhaps we, long ago, gave up hoping that things would be different.  Aren’t we all tempted, at times, to think that things will never change?  That the obstacles that beset us are immovable?  That the system is wired against us?  That I’m only one person, and what good can only one person do?

And besides -- these shepherds, during their midnight watch, must have been thinking -- besides, after the old prophets, then came the judges who hoped for the “mighty man of valor,” the kind of person we all understood was strong enough to stand up to the power structure and buck it.  For, the shepherds knew, their people had struggled under the thumb of every power structure known to their world: the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and now the Romans. 

It was as if the fact that Father Abraham had been a wandering nomad, as if this origin had genetically determined them to have no permanent place in the world but always to be squatting on land owned by someone else.  Only when the “mighty man of valor” appeared, no matter whether it was a woman or man, only then was there stability and hope for a future.

And there had been these mighty folks of valor: Deborah and Gideon and Samson and David– strong and wily enough to elude enemies and crush those enemies when needed.  Warrior-leaders who knew how to lead an army, beat the odds, and establish peace – at least, for a little while.

But the shepherds knew there were no warrior-leaders now.  Herod made sure of that.  King Herod -- that despised Hebrew of Hebrews.  Herod, Hebrew by birth but made King by the Caesar who was his overlord.  Herod’s power came from Rome, not God, so there was no point in hoping for a mighty person of valor now.  What point was there is hoping for a Messiah, one to save, when the power structure was wired against anyone getting saved?

Saved.

Saved.

Saved.

And, as if the shepherds had been startled awake from a dream, here is that angel, dazzling the shepherds with the message of deliverance:

“to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

The Messiah!  Could it be?  A Messiah – after all this time?  A [Moshia], One to save them?  A Deliverer, sent straight from God?

Well, what had they got to lose? 

“[They] said to one another,

‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’

So they went with haste.”  They went, the old master-shepherd charging ahead first, with the junior shepherds following, as they whisked their flock of sheep along with them – after all, who would leave their assets unguarded on some Judean hillside?  So they went, the shepherds, and their flock with them, down the hillside, over the wadi that overflows in the rainy season, skirting the walls of Jerusalem, to Bethlehem.

At Bethlehem, they found their way to the cave, whose opening had a lean-to, marking it as a stable.  And as they approached, they smelled the animals, they heard the breath of the donkey as he slept standing, and, perhaps the sounds and smells reminded these shepherds of their grandmothers’ homes, where they had played in the dirt of the stable-yard and found peace among people who loved them without limit.

I suppose the shepherds weren’t so surprised to find a baby.  After all, the angel had said that the Savior had just been born.  But here is this baby, so fragile, so small against the darkness of the night.  And to think this is the Messiah, the Lord.

Well, how could they not share the news with this man and woman, who must be his parents – the woman suckling the baby and the man, quite a bit older, surely he must be her husband, as he was putting together something of a bed for them for the night.

So the shepherds, they who had had the good news delivered to them, delivered the same news to the child’s parents and those standing by:

“they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”

Well, who wouldn’t be amazed at the news that they are about to be delivered, saved?

Today is born a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

Your [Moshia] is born. 

Who wouldn’t be amazed ? … if this isn’t just a story.

What if this isn’t just a story? 

What if this baby Jesus is not just a reason for the season?  What if this baby is your [Moshia],, the One who saves you, the One who releases you from the shackles of whatever, whoever, binds you?  What if the Christ-child is your Deliverer?

On a daily basis, we may forget how much we are in need of a Deliverer, how we, like that baby, are flesh, vulnerable human flesh.

Who are you, as you peek inside the stable and gather around the babe, swaddled in strips of cloth?

Who are you, when you take off the identity that comes with what you do for a living, or what you’ve retired from?

Who are you, when you step aside from the network of family who esteem you as grandma, or son, or uncle or cousin?

Who are you, when you strip yourself of your achievements and accomplishments?

Who are you, if tomorrow, you were to lose your home, your income, your homes’ furnishings, your own wardrobe?

Who are you, if tomorrow you were to suffer a decline in health that robs you of the ability to do the most simple tasks?

Who are you, simply put, if you are who you are?  A person as naked and vulnerable as the babe born this night?

You – like me – need a Deliverer, a Messiah, the One who saves us from what binds us.

We need the Messiah who delivers the anxious parent from the trauma over the adult-child who suffers, despite every bit of help we provide.  We need the Messiah who delivers the veteran of war from the tyranny of memories of events that no human being should have to engage in or witness.  We need the Messiah who delivers the doctor, the social worker, the police officer, the mother who wonders if she has the strength to do what needs to be done in a frightening situation.  We need the Messiah who delivers the widower from the intensity of grief, into a moment when he can see a way forward, a future that is not just to be endured but enjoyed.  We need the Messiah who knows the thing that binds you, the thing that weighs you down, the thing that tempts you to despair.  We need the Messiah who is ready to deliver you.

Just in time.

Just in time that Messiah comes.

Just in time that Angel comes, rousing the shepherds, startling the sheep, proclaiming: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Just in time, that parcel you needed so badly has come right to your door, delivered not by the UPS-man, but delivered by a babe, who himself will deliver you.  Amen.