It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere you go, and we all know what that means. It means Christmas parties, Christmas cards, Christmas decorations, Christmas carols, and Christmas presents. You might think that these sorts of things are what make up a modern Christmas, but I also believe that they were part of the very first Christmas, in a unique kind of way. And so, for this Advent season we are going to look at what some of the elements of our modern celebration of Christmas have to do with the ancient story of Jesus’ birth. Today, we’ll start with Christmas parties.

Many of us throw parties at Christmas and many more of us go to parties at Christmas, and so all of us are quite knowledgeable of what they entail. Fancy invitations, special food, festive clothes, entertaining activities, holiday music, and lavishly decorated homes are all part of the mix. For those who give parties one of the big questions is always this one: Who do you invite? Sometimes the list is predetermined by the kind of party it is. The Baca household this year will host the Elder and Deacon Christmas Party, the Church Staff Christmas Party, and the Choir and Friends Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve. But a generic party always forces the host to make like Santa Claus and come up with a list of who is in and who is out, and it doesn’t always help just to know who has been naughty and who has been nice. In the case of the first Christmas, God had to decide who he was going to invite to come to the party that he was throwing for his newly-born Son in Bethlehem. Matthew tells us that God invited a group of Gentile holy men and Luke tells us that God invited a group of Jewish herdsmen. And therein lay a tale.

The Magi, as they were termed in the Greek of the New Testament, were fascinating figures. The Magi were a special group in the Persian Empire who served as instructors and advisors to Persian royalty. Over several centuries, they had become expert in astrology, astronomy, fortune telling, dream interpreting, magic, philosophy, medicine, and natural science. They tended to be wealthy and influential and as a result, highly respected in the Persian culture. Other nations, Israel among them, had people called by the same name, but they were generally somewhat disreputable characters who focused mostly on astrology and magic as a trade, but Matthew’s wording and obvious respect for the Magi who came to see Jesus indicate that they were of the respected Persian group.

It was not unknown in Jesus’ time for foreign dignitaries to make official visits to other countries for high political purposes. That the Magi appear at the manger in Bethlehem is, of course, highly significant in several ways. Here we have honored religious figures coming to honor a little baby born to peasant Jews. Here we have Gentiles coming to worship a Jewish Messiah. And part of the irony is that the Jews themselves, chief among them the Jewish King Herod, do not try to worship the new messiah but they try to kill him. If anyone would be welcome at God’s party in Bethlehem, it would be the Chosen People. But they chose, by and large, not to come. Instead, some of the most memorable guests are people who one would expect could care less about a Jewish Messiah.

Luke tells us about an entirely different set of people on the invitation list. Our modern imagination sees the shepherds as warm and fuzzy types from the blue-collar class. But shepherds in Jesus’ day were generally not regarded as gentle or noble. By the standards of the religious elite in Jewish society, shepherds were considered to be outside the Law and therefore on very shaky ground when it came to righteousness and respectability. They could not and usually would not adhere to the many rituals of holiness required of religious people in Jewish society. Many were thought to be thieves, and most were guilty of grazing their sheep on someone else’s land now and then. Shepherds were not accepted as credible witnesses in courts of law. They had the level of respect in their society that in our society we give to telemarketers and fly-by-night contractors.

It may be the case, given their proximity to Bethlehem, that these particular shepherds were in charge of the flocks from which were taken the sacrificial sheep for the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. That they would be included in the guest list for the party at the birth scene of the new Messiah was totally unexpected, however. At the very most they were insignificant working-class rubes, and at the very least they were more or less minor criminals. In either case, they had no standing from a religious point of view. They did have the fact that they were Jews going for them, something the Magi couldn’t claim, but that was about all. So with the shepherds we have social and religious outcasts who are invited—by angels, no less—to the most important party in history. That they appear at the manger in Bethlehem is no less remarkable than the appearance of the Magi.

But why should you and I care? For several reasons. The best and the brightest come to worship Jesus. The best and the brightest still need to worship Jesus. Some of us are of the best and brightest category, and perhaps some of us think that we are above any need for God. The visit of the Magi says otherwise. The least and the worst come to worship Jesus. They still need to, too. Some of us are in the least and worst category, and perhaps we think that we are unworthy to come to God’s party. The visit of the shepherds says otherwise. God invited people to his party that the rules of the day said were not eligible to come, in the one case because they were not from the right religious and racial group and in the other case because they were not from the right social and economic group. You and I sometimes do not invite people into our church, or our friendship, or our town, because they are not from the right group. God went out of his way, in one case sending a star and in the other sending angels, to welcome everyone to his party. You and I sometimes go out of our way to avoid people whom we consider to be unlike or unworthy of us. Our world would be a happier place if more of us spent more of our energy reaching out to people who are not exactly like us.

By the expectations and systems of their day, the Magi were not supposed to have access to the Jews’ God, but God himself demolished those expectations and systems. Are there any groups of people in your world and in mine that we tend to think are categorically excluded from having a relationship with God? By the standards and customs of their day, the Jewish high leadership were supposed to be in tight with God, but their dismissal and attempted destruction of God’s Son proved the lie in that belief. Are there people in our church, perhaps here, perhaps elsewhere, whose relationship with God might be nothing more than pretense? These are the hard questions we have to ask ourselves because of whom God chose to put on his guest list for the party in Bethlehem.

The brief stories of the first Christmas tell us about a God who invites everyone—and I mean literally everyone—to welcome his Son into the world. The rest of the stories in the New Testament tell us the same thing. But we cannot think that we can welcome the Messiah only at Christmas. No, the party started in Bethlehem never ended. It goes on today. And it will continue for eternity. Some of us come to the party only once or twice a year, but God wants us to be there every day, every night, in the presence of the Messiah. Some of us leave the party for a long time, but then we come back, and God welcomes us with open arms.

Once, after the baby Jesus had grown to be a man, he was in Capernaum. A centurion there—a Roman, a Gentile, an officer of an occupying army—asked Jesus to heal his servant. The centurion believed in Jesus. And Jesus healed the servant. And then Jesus said, “Many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). The kingdom of heaven begins here and now whenever and wherever people come to Jesus. The kingdom of heaven stretches into eternity, where the party continues in heaven, around the throne of God. You and I may be surprised to see some of the people who will be at that party. And they may be surprised to see us! Just be sure that you accept God’s invitation, no matter who or what you are. God’s party is the one party that you do not want to miss.

Amen.