(Luke 2:1-14 ­ 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!"

The fancy name for this evening is the "Feast of the Incarnation." And the bodacious thing we Christians say is that God becomes "incarnate" in Jesus. You know the word "carnal." It means "flesh." It's an earthy word. We say that God becomes in-fleshed in the life of Jesus. I like to say that Jesus is the "Human Face of God." Jesus shows us in a human life what the heart of God is like. So if you want to know what Christians think God is like, just look at Jesus.

And what do we see? First, let's talk about what we don't see.

We don't see a kingly triumphal entrance with pageantry and honor. In fact, there was a potential public scandal about his mother's pregnancy, averted when Joseph heeded a message in a dream and married her anyway. There was no suitable place for Jesus' birth, so he was born in a stable with animals. His first visitation was from shepherds, in those days regarded as unclean people with an almost criminal reputation. At his birth, the only important ones who seemed to recognize him were magi from another land and another religion altogether. Their friendship was welcome. Such a modest and humble approach describes a subtle God, doesn't it? One who works somewhat below the radar.

Also, Jesus did not come as a mighty judge presiding over the good or bad deeds of human beings. He did not come rewarding the good and punishing the wicked, even though that was a Biblical expectation of the Messiah. That's not the kind of person that we see in Jesus, so Christians shouldn't image God as a fierce judge who rewards the good and punishes the wicked.

What do we see in Jesus? Actually healing was Jesus' most characteristic activity. He healed people with physical infirmities, even the outcast and untouchable lepers. He also extended a kind of forgiveness and integrating spiritual power that brought healing to people with all kinds of mental, spiritual and emotional troubles.

The other most frequent activity reported in the Gospels was Jesus' teaching. He brought a message of love and compassion, clothed in the language and stories of earthy, everyday life. Compassion and love are the core values of his teaching.

So, this is what God looks like, we Christians say. God is love -- compassionate love. Healing, forgiving, integrating, and doing all of that in a rather gentle way, like Jesus.

Jesus could have come as a powerful military leader to throw out the Roman occupiers from his home. In fact, that was what was expected from the Messiah -- political triumph and the punishment of enemies. He didn't do that. Instead he healed the slave of a Roman officer. He refused to let his followers take up arms to defend him at his arrest, and when one of his disciples took a sword and struck the ear of an enemy, Jesus healed the enemy, and scolded his follower with the words, "No more of this!" We call him the Prince of Peace. So, Christians shouldn't carry an anticipation that God will defeat oppression with the force of arms. That's not God's way according to the life of the incarnation of Jesus.

One of the most striking things about Jesus was how willing he was to extend his kindness to people outside the borders. He healed a Canaanite woman's child and a man living in an unclean cemetery in Geresene; one of his stories has a Samaritan heretic as a hero. In a tribal culture he was universally available. So Christians should never claim a territorial monopoly on God. Instead, we intend to seek and serve God's image in every human being, like Jesus did.

Jesus seemed remarkably unconcerned about the kind of sins that tend to trouble some religious leaders today. You don't see him spending much energy about sexual sins. Once when a group brought him a woman caught in the act of adultery, he refused to join the accusation, and he gave her another chance. In a culture where talking in public with a woman who was not of your family was scandalous, he had a marvelous and compassionate conversation with a woman drawing water at a well, a woman with a checkered and public sexual history. He welcomed the generous attention of a another woman who anointed his feet with costly spices even though she was a sinner. His proper guests thought his behavior was unseemly. But Jesus was egalitarian. He even expanded the context of family, leaving his traditional first-son role as head of the household and embracing all who were with him as his brothers and sisters.

Isn't it odd that some of his followers have made sexual morality and narrow family values the focus of their representation of his interests? That's not consistent with the Biblical record of his life. That's probably not what God is most interested in either.

Jesus was particularly interested in the things that happen to us in everyday life, especially things that happen to those he called "the least of these." It is obvious that he understood the economic realities of his day. So many of his stories are about economic relationships and work issues, farming and fishing. We see as familiar characters in his parables the elite absentee landowners (comparable to today's multinational corporations), the stewards and managers who operated businesses on behalf of the owners, peasant farmers, debtors and beggars. Part of his popularity was because he addressed with compassion the plight of the poor. Part of the hostility toward him was because he challenged the entrenched economic interests like the money changers in the Temple and the oppressive system of land ownership.

He made the need for daily bread central to his signature prayer. All four Gospels tell stories of his feeding of multitudes. He made the open fellowship of the table a central symbol of relationship at a time when the righteous were careful not to eat with sinners. He urged us to be extravagantly generous and to lend without expectation of return. His economic vision was motivated by whatever the need of one's neighbor might be. And the forgiveness of debts was a central petition of his most cherished prayer.

His most famous sermon blessed the poor, the meek, those who mourn or hunger for the way things should be, the merciful and pure in heart, and those who work to create peace. The only people he really seemed to be rough on were the morality police and those who tried to put others in the shadow of their own rightness.

So we who are Christian look at Jesus and we say, "That's what God looks like." Loving, forgiving, compassionate healer. Advocate for the poor. Peacemaking. Egalitarian. Universally available, not tribal or exclusive to one people or religion. Generous. Nurturing. That's the character of Jesus, who reveals the heart of God.

Is that the way you think of God? I sure hope so. That's the God that Jesus points us to. If you've got a different picture of God, maybe an angry righteous God who's out to punish sinners and mostly interested in sex and right belief, then you've been listening to the wrong preachers. You know, the ones who seem so frustrated at the way Jesus handled his first incarnation that they can't wait for him to come back to clean up the mess he left behind. So they imagine him returning, wreaking Armageddon, annihilating every non-Christian and even some of us moderate Christians, destroying the world in fiery judgement. It's like it never crossed their minds that the Jesus who returns will be the same Jesus as the one born in Bethlehem -- loving, compassionate, merciful, kind, peaceful, nurturing, healing, encouraging, reconciling.

If that's the kind of God you've longed for, if that's the kind of love you've always desired, if that's the kind of reality you've wanted to live for, well then, Merry Christmas! For behold I bring you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign unto you. He will not be an angry God sitting on a throne of judgment. No, you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.

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