Christmas is not so much about Jesus as it is about God. It is our story about what God is like. It’s a story about "God-with-us" not "God-above-us." The prophet Isaiah proclaimed that the Messiah would be called Immanuel which literally means God with us.

When we tell the Christmas story, we are telling what God is like. God is not distant, far away, aloof, powerful and judging. No, God is with us near, intimate, involved, gentle and loving. God pours out the divine life into a helpless infant. And so God is revealed as being poured out into the life of every infant, of every human being.

This special child is not born as the prince of a royal family. The child’s parents are peasants, the father a common laborer; the mother unexpectedly pregnant with a hint of scandal. Subjected to the whims of an oppressive government, they’ve been forced to leave their homes to cooperate with the occupier’s taxation. They are refugees, homeless like so many other desperate families through history. Without a suitable place for the birth of a child, they find shelter with the animals. That’s not the stuff of majesty. That’s the stuff of common, hard life.

And the grand announcement of God’s good news of great joy for all the people doesn’t come to the priests of Jerusalem, or to Caesar or the governor, it comes to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.

After so many centuries of beautiful artistic renderings and lovely children’s pageants with cute bathrobe-clad shepherds wearing towels on their heads, we may not understand the significance of shepherds; of God’s announcement coming to this particular audience. Shepherds were at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. They were all believed to be thieves because so many were. They were the unreligious, those who could not and did not practice their religion. They did not go to church. Or, I should say synagogue. They were called sinners because they could not observe the law. And they were dirty, smelly, and poor. That’s who God chose to receive the great announcement of good news of great joy for all the people.

This is our story about God. God reaches down into the depths of human life and is with us. With the nasty shepherds, the mangy cattle, the displaced refugee family, the common worker. Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a laborer. (from Max Lucado, God Came Near)

So that’s the way Christians are invited to think of God. How does that fit with your images of God? Too often the church has pictured God as distant, aloof, a perfect pure far-away being who is not at all pleased with our less-than-perfect ways. That is not the Christian God. That is not the God of Jesus Christ. That is not the message of Christmas.

The message of Christmas, given to the unreligious shepherds, is a message of blessing and joy for all people. The first word is "Do not be afraid." God does not want us afraid. Generations of people have been afraid of God. No more! It’s not about fear. It’s about love. The angels sing forth in the name of this nearby compassionate God, saying. "Do not be afraid! For see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people." All the people. God loves everyone. Not just the Jews. Not just the Christians. God loves everybody.

How could anyone take this gracious, inclusive story and turn it into a condemning religion consigning most of humanity to everlasting damnation for not passing some arbitrary belief test? That’s not the kind of God we see reflected in the life of Jesus.

In Jesus we see someone who reached across the artificial divides of religion, race, culture and belief to heal, to bless, and to love with unqualified compassion. He says "Love your neighbors" even when some of them are trying to kill him. He said "Pray for those who persecute you" long before he asked forgiveness for his own murderers. Imagine what this means when we look at Jesus and we say "This is what God is like."

This is the mystery we come to rejoice in tonight. The mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of a God so in love with us that he comes to be one of us, one with us. If we were to open ourselves fully to this wonder, we would probably behave more like Sharon, a five year old girl quoted by storyteller John Shea, who wound up her own version of the Christmas story by asking her listeners this question: "Then the baby was borned," she said. "And do you know who he was?"

"The baby was God," she whispered and leaped into the air, twirled around, and dove into the sofa, where she covered her head with pillows. It was, Shea says, the only proper response to the good news of the incarnation, and those of us without pillows over our heads may wonder if we have really heard it yet. (Barbara Brown Taylor, Mixed Blessings, p. 51)

So the message of Christmas is this. Forget about the old ways of thinking about God. God is not some distant, aloof, purity creating and judging from a throne in some far-off heaven. God is right here, right now. In an unwed teenager’s unexpected pregnancy, with a refugee family wandering in a strange place, with cast off workers and thieves, with cattle and sheep and donkeys and asses, with regular folks just trying to get by when life is hard. God is with us; God is among us; God is in us. God is right here, right now, living with and in you and me.

Dive for the couch! Hide in the pillows! God will do anything to be with you, including entering your very life. God has erased the distance to zero; there is no distance between the holy and the ordinarily human. God has chosen to enter life at the lowest common denominator therefore leaving us no escape from God’s presence.

"Do not be afraid" – of anything. Behold God is with us. Bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. Gloria in excelsis deo. Glory to God in the highest heaven. But more than that. Glory to God in the person sitting in the pew next to you! Glory to God in the person in your mirror. Glory to God so gently, humbly, compassionately given to us, right here, right now, always.