On the Road Again: A Homily for the Early Christmas Eve Service of the Word

On the Road Again

Thoughts on Luke 2.1-20

 

RCL Christmas Eve

24 December 2021

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

         Early in November our younger son’s car had to go into the shop for significant repairs after a car accident caused by a careless bicyclist.  So, Paula’s car went to Owen, my car to Paula and I, as the primary insurance holder, got the rental.  Due to COVID, the floods and the subsequent supply chain problems, Owen’s car was in the shop for a very long time.  It was only in the second week of December that everyone got their cars  back.

 

         Now we all have our favourite radio stations.  I am a CBC Music fan, while my wife and Owen are fans of FM 93.7, JR Country.  So, as I settled into my car the first day it was returned to my use, I was greeted by the sounds of Willie Nelson’s 1980 #1 single, ‘On the Road Again’, rather than Julie Nasrallah’s program, ‘Tempo’.  But Willie’s voice brought such great memories flooding into the car that I couldn’t help but listen.  The year 1980 was a year that began with the relief of finishing a very difficult year in seminary, continued with a difficult but enriching internship in Indiana and ended with the completion of next-to-last semester as a theological student.

 

 

         And here we are, my friends, on the road again with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.  Nine months earlier an archangel had invited Mary to do something extraordinary, even dangerous and possibly fatal.  Joseph had faced the agonizing decision about what to do with his pregnant fiancée and had his own encounter with an angelic message that called him to risk ridicule in a status-conscious society.  And as if this was not enough, the emperor in far-off Rome decided that he needed better information regarding the ability of the region to pay its taxes.  So, Augustus ordered all the residents to return to their ancestral villages so an accurate assessment of the potential tax income could be made.  

 

         On the road to Bethlehem was not a pleasure trip.  The whole country was on the move.  Weary travellers were easy pickings for the many bands of bandits who had been left wandering the country after various uprisings left numbers of  unemployed soldiers and rebels seeking food and booty.   For poor folk like Joseph and Mary there would be no wealthy friends with whom to stay and no comfortable means of transportation.  The distance between Nazareth to Bethlehem is about 160 kilometres, so the journey may have taken ten to fourteen days depending upon each day’s progress.

 

         But Joseph and Mary persevered.  Jesus was born.  And an even more difficult ‘road trip’ began, one that led to Jerusalem, the cross and resurrection.

 

         From the day of our baptism we embarked on a life-long ‘road trip’ in the company of Jesus and the many and various companions who follow the same road.  If we are honest with ourselves, then we have to admit that it’s never been an easy journey.  For those who began their journey in the heady post-war years when churches were full, every Sunday, not just festival days, and the church was a centre of family and community life, things may seem to us to be a bit tattered these days.  For those who began their journey in the 60’s and 70’s, we look around and wonder where our contemporaries are.  For those who have begun their journey later when being a member of a religious community comes across as quaint to some and unnecessary to others, we keep calling the church to its roots by being a community of reconciliation, compassion and loving service.

 

         If our road were not difficult enough, we now are entering our third winter of the COVID pandemic with restrictions that follow the roller-coaster statistics of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.  One of my friends, a tremendously capable, wise and faithful minister of the Gospel, posted on Facebook a lament about ‘pivotting’:  ‘If I have to pivot one more time . . . . !’

 

         My friends, once more we are on the road to Bethlehem, just as we have done for almost two thousand years.  We travel this road because we know the destination will bring us to the joy of that Child whose coming kindles in us faith, hope and love.  We travel this road in the company of friends and strangers whose companionship enables us to face all the road’s hazards with confidence that we shall surely arrive at our destination.