Unexpected Joy (Christmas Eve Message)

Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Matthew 1:18-25

I once lived in one of the coldest places I’ve ever been, Chicago, Illinois. It was a cold, windy Sunday in December and the lights and sounds of Christmas filled the air. I went to church that day downtown on North Michigan Avenue. After church, I braved the bone-chilling cold and did some shopping for Christmas. After a cold and crisp afternoon going in and out of stores, I had enough. 

So I walked to the subway station to head uptown. As I sat on one of the benches, tired and exhausted from my mighty shopping expedition, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a man; a simple, tired man whose wrinkled face did not accurately reflect his true age. He was standing on the platform with a paper coffee cup on the ground at his feet. He was wearing old, dirty sneakers with a couple of layers of socks on each foot. His pants were black, worn and faded. Under an old army camouflage jacket, this man wore several layers of tattered shirts and sweaters. Upon his head was a beat up Chicago Bulls wool hat, on his hands were a pair of finger-less gloves, and wrapped around his neck was a long, old wool scarf. He was not a beautiful sight to behold. But just when I was about to write him off in my mind as another bum on the street, he began to sing. His voice was magnificent! His voice carried beautifully through the entire subway station as he sang “Little Drummer Boy”. He was stomping his foot on the station floor and clapping his hands together to the rhythm of the song. “I have no gift to bring, Ra ba ba ba ba”. The music was so joyful and so amazing. I was overwhelmed. Here was a man, down and out, a beggar by society’s standards, singing in the subway station that he has no gift to give; no gift to bring, as thousands of people come and go with bags and boxes of gifts for Christmas. The irony of it all is that this man did have a gift, a gift of joyful praise, sent by God to be shared with all who heard him that afternoon. The joy I felt was not from having gone to church that morning or from all the Christmas hoopla or from spending money on Christmas gifts. The joy I felt came from a most unexpected source and at a most unexpected time and place: from a poor man singing on a subway platform.

The baby Jesus was born at an unexpected time and place, in an unexpected way; catching the world off-guard and unprepared. This joyous gift from God began to turn the world upside down. Amazing, isn’t it? The world turned upside down by the birth of a child. The joy of God comes through this simple birth; this joy seizes the mind, body and soul of a person and having taken hold, it spreads, it grows, it breaks down barriers and opens closed doors shining the light of life into the deep darkness of our lives.

May you come to expect the unexpected. May you come to see this simple, humble birth as the way God chooses to know us, relate to us and ultimately redeem us. The Christ child is the greatest of gifts available to all who believe and trust in Him.