The Promise Arrives in the Mess

Throughout Advent, we have been telling the story that leads us to this night: a story about the tangled, messy, and surprising branches of Jesus’ family tree. Along the way, we discovered that Jesus’ family tree is not neat or polished. It is tangled, complicated, and deeply human.

 We met Abraham and Sarah, who remind us that God’s promises are not limited by doubt or delayed by uncertainty. We listened to Tamar and Rahab, women who refused to be forgotten, whose lives tell us that God’s grace breaks through injustice and crosses every boundary we try to draw. We walked with Naomi and Ruth, whose fierce love carried them from loss toward new life. 

We told the truth about Bathsheba, remembering that God does not ignore pain or silence those who have been harmed. Her story still matters. And we sat with Zechariah and Elizabeth, a faithful couple, weary from waiting, who discovered that even in disappointment, God still shows up. The good news is that God’s redemption has always moved through imperfect, overlooked, and hurting people.

Again and again, we have seen that Jesus’ story does not begin with perfection or power. It begins in longing, in trauma, and in hope that refuses to die. And tonight—on this holy night—we come to the heart of the story. The One we have been waiting for arrives not in a palace, not to the powerful, not with fanfare, but with the cry of a newborn in a borrowed manger, under the weight of imperial power.

Because that’s who our God is:  a God who keeps showing up. A God who enters into the realness of our lives, our fear, our exhaustion, our disappointment, our joy. A God who doesn’t wait for everything to be tidy before coming close. Tonight is not the end of the story, but it is the turning point. Because tonight, Love puts on flesh. Tonight, God is not only with us, but God is also one of us.

The prophet Isaiah writes, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” And, indeed, Jesus' family tree was shaped in a dark and messy time. Mary was young, unwed, and pregnant in a world where such circumstances carried real danger. Shame was public. Judgment was swift. A woman in her position faced social rejection, legal consequences, and even the threat of death. This was not a safe or simple beginning; it was a risky one.

We have all seen, heard, and experienced the whispers, the small-town gossip, the sideways glances, the quiet pressure society places on people to conform or to walk away. It’s not hard to imagine Joseph facing that pressure more than once, urged to protect his reputation, to choose the easier path, to leave Mary behind. This was no picture-perfect beginning. And then came the census. With a single decree, the empire shifted lives as easily as pieces on a board. Everyone was ordered to return to their ancestral home to be counted.  So, Mary and Joseph, weary and expecting, traveled nearly ninety miles to Bethlehem. The road was long. The journey was hard. 

And when they finally arrived, there was no room—only a manger, a space for animals, cramped and smelly and anything but clean. From personal pain to political upheaval, the darkness surrounded them. But here’s the miracle: Jesus wasn’t born after things got better. He didn’t wait for the mess to clear. He was born right in the middle of it. Right in the dark. Right in the dirt. Right, where the world hurts the most, in places pushed to the margins.

In the skit that accompanies this sermon series, when Jesus is born, Mary jokingly gives him the middle name “Sarah–Tamar–Rahab–Ruth–Bathsheba–Elizabeth–Joseph.” It’s exaggerated, yes—but it says something truthful. Each name in his lineage carries grief and courage, scandal and hope. Each one represents a promise kept. Jesus is not born into perfection. He is born into real lives—lives marked by struggle, faith, failure, and love. Every person we’ve met in this series had a story that didn’t seem “fit” for a Savior, and yet every one of those stories leads us here. That is the miracle of Christmas: God does not wait for a perfect family tree. God grows salvation right out of human history—messy, broken, and beloved.

This is good news, especially for those of us with messy, imperfect lives; for those of us who live under systems we did not create but must navigate every day. It is good news for people who are counted by forms and numbers, shaped by policies and deadlines, pressured by bills, taxes, and expectations that never seem to let up. It is good news for those whose lives are disrupted by decisions made far away, for those who feel unseen or expendable, and for those carrying grief, loss, or exhaustion. The Christmas story tells us that God knows these realities. God enters them. Jesus is born not outside systems of power, but under them. 

Beloved, in this messy Christmas story, we are reminded that Jesus is born not just for the powerful or the privileged—but for all of us. For the included and the excluded. For the ones the world notices and the ones it would rather forget. The kingdom of God is made up of a beautifully diverse family, full of people society often casts aside. Even in his birth, we see it: shepherds out in the fields, too low on society’s list to even be counted for tax purposes. Mary and Joseph, young, poor, uncertain, carrying shame not of their own making. The world would have ignored them. But heaven sings for them.

Despite all of this, Jesus is born. The darkness and messiness of the world can’t stop God’s work. Mary treasures these things in her heart, but the journey isn’t done. Jesus will grow up with the weight of these stories, and he will carry them all to the cross. And through him, the story that began with a wandering couple (Abraham & Sarah) becomes a promise for the whole world. Tonight, we don’t escape our messy lives. We discover that God has entered them. A people still living in darkness have seen a great light. Despite the messiness of the world around us, despite the dark times around us, the promise of John’s Gospel continues. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.”

John further reminds us that “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory.” I love the way Eugene Peterson’s The Message expresses this verse. He writes, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” Friends, if God has moved into the neighborhood, then God is here in the middle of our mess. God is in the middle of our story, shining light into the darkest parts of ourselves that we hold back. God is here saying “nothing is too messy for me to handle. I’m here in the neighborhood. I’m here to care for you. Come to me. I will give you rest.”

But it does not stop there. You see, as the church, we are the body of Christ. And if God has moved into the neighborhood, then we are called to be good neighbors. We are called to shine the light of Christ into the darkness, to make room in the inns of our hearts for the Savior to be born anew, and to surrender our lives so that we may carry God’s vision and participate in God’s kingdom-building work in the world. We must work alongside those the world has cast aside. We are not called only to receive the light. We are sent to bear it.

You may have noticed that the service has been different this year. Rather than beginning with light and ending with Silent Night and singing by Candlelight, we started the service in darkness. Throughout the service, it has gotten brighter. In just a little while, we will come to the table. This table doesn’t belong to the church. It doesn’t belong to the United Methodist Church. The table belongs to Jesus Christ, and all are invited. You see, we believe that at this table, the Light of the World comes down. The light shines from this place, and the darkness cannot overcome it. We believe that when we come to the table and meet the Light of the World, our flames burn brighter and we are strengthened to share this light with others. We are strengthened to make the messy family of God bigger. We are strengthened to go out and share what we’ve found. We are empowered to go and tell everyone God loves you, God meets you where you are, and you are a valuable part of the messy, imperfect family of God. 

This Christmas Eve, may we live in the light of Christ, not just tonight, but tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. May we be a messy, imperfect family that welcomes the stranger, embraces difference, and makes room at the table. Jesus—child of Sarah, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, Elizabeth, and Mary—is now the child of our stories too. He comes from our kind of people. He comes for our kind of world. And he brings God’s kind of love.

Go out. Love boldly. Shine brightly. Make room for others at the table. Be the light of Christ to a world that still walks in darkness.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.