And if you think about it, that’s really quite appropriate given how prevalent angels are in the Scriptural readings for the Advent and Christmas seasons. While angels certainly appear in many different places in the Scriptures, they are constantly appearing in our Advent and Christmas stories.
They announce to Zechariah the coming of his son, John the Baptist. They announce to Mary that she will be the mother of God’s Son. They advise Joseph to take Mary as his wife, and then to escape Herod’s soldiers by fleeing into Egypt.
And of course, perhaps most famously, they appear in our Gospel reading this evening, announcing glad tidings to the shepherds who are keeping watch over their flocks by night.
There is an interesting pattern to all of these angelic appearances that we can sometimes overlook in our familiarity with these stories. In each account of an angel’s appearance, the person being visited is greeted with the words: “Fear not.”
Because we are so familiar with these stories, because they’re the stuff of grade school pageants and serene pieces of art, we imagine that the angels’ greeting is merely meant to calm the nerves that have been frazzled by the sudden appearance of a celestial being. After all, what else is there to fear – these stories are of peace and joy and good news, right?
But in reality, these stories are full of fearful difficulties . . . Joseph is uncertain if he should marry Mary now that she is mysteriously with child . . . Mary and Joseph are searching desperately for a suitable lodging even at the very moment she is about to give birth . . . then they are fleeing their homeland in the dark of night and living in exile in Egypt.
No, these stories are anything but simple children’s tales. From beginning to end the story of Jesus’ birth is not at all easy or safe – it is dangerous and precarious and yes, frightening. Only our familiarity and the distance of time sanitize these all-important details. What the real human beings living out these stories must have felt, however, was fear.
The angel’s greeting makes much more sense when we realize this: the people being visited had reason to be afraid. The Scripture stories of Advent and Christmas – the stories surrounding the birth of Christ – are thus profound stories about trust in the face of fearful adversity, about joyful good news in the midst of deep uncertainty and worry.
These may seem at first glance to be contradictions – and yet that is precisely what we celebrate at Christmas. Just as the Christmas lights on Peacock Lane are only truly enjoyed against the backdrop of a dark winter’s night . . .
just as our decorating of an evergreen tree only makes sense when compared to the barren trees outside,
so too our experience of true Christmas hope and joy relies upon our understanding that. . .
this infant in swaddling clothes will one day be wrapped in a shroud and laid in the tomb; this child who will one day wash His disciples feet and give His own Body and Blood as food and drink, has no one to show Him hospitality, and He must be laid in an animal’s feeding trough; this Prince of Peace is ruthlessly pursued by a violent despot.
It is only in grappling with the very real fear that must have gripped Mary and Joseph and the Zachariah and the shepherds that we can truly appreciate just how wonderful an event Jesus’ birth really is. Only in contrast with the darkness, the fear, the violence of our own world, of our own lives, can we appreciate just how miraculous it is that God is with us: He became flesh and entered into this world of darkness, fear and violence.
Perhaps your health or the health of a loved one is a source of worry for you right now. Maybe you’re concerned about the economy, fearful you might lose your job and worried about how to take care of your family. Maybe there are relationships in your lives that are marked by hurtful words and deeds and you feel on the outside.
Does this fear, or uncertainty, or brokenness or loneliness keep you from sharing in the joy and peace and hope that Christmas Day brings to the world? No, it is does not! In fact, it is precisely in contrast to the darkness of these things that we can appreciate the birth of the Light of the World and come to realize just how much we need this little child born of Mary.
And so the angel’s greeting is spoken to us this evening as surely as it was spoken to those shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem: “Fear not, I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
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