There is an old Rabbinic story about a poor man who left the village of his birth, and set out to find the city of his dreams, where all was bright and perfect. After a day's walk he lay down to rest the night in a forest. Before going to sleep he removed his shoes and placed them carefully in the path, pointing them in the direction of his journey toward the magical city.

While he slept, a practical joker came along and turned his shoes around so that they pointed in the direction of the village he had left behind. The next morning, when the traveler awoke, he put on his shoes and headed down the path in the direction his shoes pointed. He walked all day and at dusk saw the city of his dreams in the distance. It looked strangely familiar and much smaller than he had imagined it would be. As he entered the village, so the story goes, he discovered a street very much like his own, knocked on the door of a house exactly like the one he had left, and was warmly received by his family inside -- his family, of course. With that the man lived happily ever after in the magical city of his dreams!

The point of that is, rather than transporting us from the problems of this life into some spiritual Eden, the favor of God is likely to turn our shoes around and send us back toward the familiar, with all its frustration and difficulty. We're not blessed with an escape from the harsh realities of life but are favored with a potential for a faith that can transform us in the midst of these realities. (D. Wayne Burkette, "What Sort of Greeting?", Pulpit Digest, November - December, 1987, p. 73).

This is the message of the Christmas story for us this Christmas Eve. During the Advent Season, I have preached sermons focusing on seven of the nine short stories Luke told to tell the big story of Jesus' arrival. Tonight we come to the climax of that drama -- so we focus not on Jesus' actual birth, but two little stories that are tied to the act of Jesus' purification. We read the story a moment ago. Following the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took the baby to Jerusalem for the act of purification, and to present him to the Lord. It's a beautiful, beautiful idea -- it's what we do in Christian baptism -- we present our children to the Lord, and announce to the world that they belong to God. The Law of Moses had said, "Every child that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. So they were there to dedicate the child to God and to offer a sacrifice as a sign of their thanksgiving.

Can you imagine all that was going on in Mary's heart and mind? When the angel first appeared to her, announcing that she was going to conceive a child of the Holy Spirit, she was much troubled. The Angel assured her that she had found favor with the Lord. But, in retrospect, as Mary kept all those things and pondered them in her heart, that didn't necessarily bring her peace. If she knew her Jewish history well, she might have realized that being the object of God's favor could be a rather dubious honor from the human point of view. "Few of her spiritual ancestors who were counted among God's favored ones found that distinction to be very rewarding in terms of pleasure, popularity, or prosperity. God's favor as described in the scriptures Mary knew was never a guarantee of smooth sailing through life. In fact, it frequently promised just the opposite!

Perhaps Mary was troubled at the Angel's saying, because she remembered some forebearers who also had found favor in God's sight. There was Noah, judged crazy by his neighbors, heckled and jeered while he gathered materials for the Ark and rounded up the animals. Or, Moses -- he also found favor in the Lord's sight, and what was his reward? -- 40 years of leadership of a people who were continually complaining and grumbling and wondering whether they wouldn't have been better off as slaves in the mud pits of Egypt. Or, Jeremiah the Prophet -- he was another of God's favored. He was also hated and rejected by his own people until finally they tossed him into a well just to get him out of their sight! Or perhaps Mary considered the history of Israel itself, the whole of God's favorite people, enjoying a few years of glory and greatness, but more often a mere pawn in the struggle for power among the empires from Babylon to Rome." (D. Wayne Burkett, "What Sort of Greeting?", Pulpit Digest, November - December, 1987, pp. 71-72).

So, we wonder what was going on in Mary's heart as she made this sacrifice and dedicated her son to God. Whatever was going on, her feelings were intensified, maybe exploded, when the old man Simeon, a devout and righteous man, who for many years had been praying and looking for the consolation of Israel, saw the fulfillment of his prayers in this little baby. And he took Jesus in his arms and blessed God and began to pray – what a beautiful way he prays: "Lord, now lettest thy servant depart in peace according to thy word -- for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.

But that was not all -- when he had prayed and praised God, Mary and Joseph marveled at what was said about Jesus. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary -- "Behold this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against -- and a sword will pierce through your own soul as well – that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.

What might that have done for Mary's thinking -- her thoughts were confused enough -- no doubt her mind was contorting in anguish. Her head was spinning -- what is all this about -- and now this word of this man of God -- that a sword will pierce through my own soul as well.

But there was even more -- the other little story that Luke tells. Anna, an old prophetess, a widow -- and now 84 years -- living in the temple really, fasting and praying day and night. She came up at that very hour to give thanks to God -- isn't it amazing how God works in the lives of people -- in your life and mine when we are committed and sensitive to Him. Dear old Anna came up at the very hour when the act of purification was taking place and Mary and Joseph were making their sacrifice -- so she had the opportunity to be a part of the ultimate drama of history. There is a sense in which dear old Anna became the first evangelist to proclaim the Messiah's birth. Scripture says she spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. Parenthetically, friends, God can do, with anyone of us, great things if we are open to him -- if we seek to put ourselves in his will through our worship and prayer.

But that's another story -- Mary heard all this -- and what must have been going on in her heart and in her mind. And that brings us to the focus of our reflection tonight. Listen to verse 39: "And when they had performed everything according to the law of the land, they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth."

William H. Willimon, Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, preached a sermon once with a marvelous title, "The Great Resumption After the Grand Intrusion." And this was his theme – Mary and Joseph's return to Nazareth. Isn't that a suggestive notion -- and isn't that the way it always has to happen. That's the reason we began our sermon with the story of the old man who returned home to find the house of his dreams.

"The holy family's going back to business as usual with all the great passages in Luke about the birth of Jesus, particularly in this second chapter. This one is not well known or loved. After we have had angels singing, Mary singing, Elizabeth singing, everybody singing, such strange, wonderful goings-on in Bethlehem -- it's a bit of a letdown, this account of the baby Jesus and his parents running into old Simeon at the temple where they had gone to offer two turtle doves in thanks for their new baby, then going back home to Nazareth.

Let's face it, Nazareth wasn't much of a place to go back to -- a dusty, out of the way sort of place. "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?", one of the disciples later asked when he first heard about Jesus.

"The heavenly hosts are gone. Their songs filling the air are heard no more (do I hear someone say beneath his breath, you can't really get an angel when you really need one).

Now, Mary and Joseph have a son to raise. Religious obligations to keep, and a long, dusty trip back to Nazareth, and what could be more ordinary and less inspiring than that?...

"On their way back to Nazareth, silently walking along the road, I expected Mary and Joseph wondered to themselves, what does all this mean? Will this go the way of other short-lived,momentary religious outbursts? In the midst of the everyday life back in Nazareth, will all of this joy, the promise of this child, be engulfed, drowned by the ordinary? Will we come to a time when we look back wistfully and say, "Oh, to be back at Bethlehem. Ah, yes, those were the days."

(I can imagine that on Monday) "Mary was standing over her sink, washing baby bottles, looking out on a gray, end of December morning as the baby took his morning nap. Joseph was back in his carpenter's shop. All in all, it was a typical, and an ordinary day back in Nazareth. Everyday life had resumed. Nothing, it seems, had changed. Everything was normal, routine, business as usual. There was work to be done, a child to be raised, an uncertain future to be prepared for.

"But listen, as Mary works, she's humming a tune. Haven't we heard it before? It's a Christmas carol. Is it something she had picked up from the angels? No, it's an old, ancient song, but one given new meaning by the events of past days, a tune taught her by an old man she met when she and Joseph and the baby were at the temple last month. Listen to the song, intruding into the great resumption of our everydayness with its promise of grand divine intrusion: "Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for my eyes have seen thy salvation..." (William H. Willimon, "The Great Resumption After the Grand Intrusion", Pulpit Digest, November - December, 1988, pp. 12 and 14.)

That's the test of this night -- friends -- whether when we go back to our workaday worlds beyond Christmas, the Christmas song is still ours.

Long ago a young man was starting out as a minister in London. He approached an aged pastor who had spent his lifetime preaching the Gospel.

"You have had a great deal of experience," he said to the old man. "You know how many things that I ought to learn. Can't you give me some advice to carry with me in my duties?" "Yes I can", was the answer. "I will give you a piece of advice. You know that in every town in England, no matter how small, in every village or hamlet, though it be hidden in the folds of the mountain or wrapped around by the far-off sea, in every clump of farmhouses, you can find a road that, if you follow it, will take you to London. Just so, every text that you choose to preach from the Bible will have a road that leads to Jesus. Be sure you find that road and follow it."

Good advice for preaching -- but excellent advice for living. It doesn't matter where we live, who we are, our professions, our level of learning, our achievement -- our house -- no matter what house it is -- can be the house of our dreams -- because of Christmas. And it doesn't matter where we go, looking for that house of our dreams -- we find that house only as we find Jesus.

To an open house in the evening, home shall all men come To an older town than Eden and a taller town than Rome...