“Will that be for here, or to go?”

These are not unfamiliar words to many of us.

We step up to the counter, we place our order.

A burger, fries. Medium drink.

And we await the expected question:

“Will that be for here or to go?”
 
But it was not the question I wanted to hear just the other Sunday morning a week or two ago when I stopped by Krispy Kremes for a dozen donuts. A dozen! 12 of them.
“Will that be for here or to go?”

Really?!

I burst into laughter & think I embarrassed the clerk.

I didn’t know that a dozen Krispy Kremes could be for here.

But that morning I learned. They could be.  Mystery!
 
If this night is about anything, it is about mystery. The mystery of “for here or to go.”

The mystery that God in the highest heaven sneaks into the world under the radar and is born in a barn.  The Creator becomes creature. The Eternal enters the finite human world of the here and now — redeeming it — taking it back — from the power of evil.

The Transcendent becomes imminent.  For here.

God comes down and is with us mortals.  For here.

And even more mysterious, God assumes/ takes on human mortality. Enters the world through the birth canal of a human mother. Is birthed in the dusty Palestinian outback.  Lives for 33 years. Suffers and dies by execution.
 
South Dakota poet and retired Lutheran pastor, and my pastor growing up, Gary Westgard puts it this way in his pithy poem entitled Christmas, from his book of poetry entitled, “The Journey and the Grace”:
 
     Pain.
     A cry.
     Tears.
     A slippery weight of flesh
     and God appears.
     Strange this night.
     © 2007, Pine Hill Press
 
Strange this night indeed. It is Prince William of the House of Windsor sleeping in a London alley multiplied by infinity. Perhaps you heard the news yesterday.  In Britain it’s called “sleeping rough” — spending the night on the streets.  The Associated Press article almost sounds like a parallel verse of a Christmas carol soon to be sung, “A cold alley in central London is a far cry from a palace — but it was the spot Prince William chose to sleep to highlight the plight of homeless British teenagers.”
 
Strange this night. God comes and “sleeps rough” among us. God enters and “sleeps rough” in the cold alleys of our hearts. God comes and sleeps rough in the bloody streets of Earth’s war-ravaged cities. God comes and sleeps rough with the homeless and hungry poor of the world. God comes and sleeps rough among us, despite the hate and fear of prejudice, bigotry, and exclusion.
 
 
Sometimes the words of children best capture the hope and wonder and mystery of this holy night. From a Christmas book entitled Children’s Letters to God, comes this snippet:
 
“Dear God, are you real? Some people don’t believe it. If you are, you’d better do something quick. Love, Harriet Anne”
 
It’s probably the oldest and most authentic prayer of all time. Are you for real, God? Where are you and why don’t you show up and do something?
 
The scriptures for this night assure us that, indeed, God has, God does, and God will show up. In the Hebrew scriptures, the prophet Isaiah declares that God shows up in times and places of deepest darkness, amid the burden of oppression and the blood baths of war. In the New Testament letter to Titus, the writer assures Titus that “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.”
 
And then, in the ancient story as told by St. Luke, God shows up once again in the dark of night, in the smallest of towns, under the oppression of occupied territory, to an unwed mother and her sheepish fiancé, amid an unplanned pregnancy, for whom there was no room anywhere else but in the barn surrounded by the steaming dung of livestock. The scriptures put it so very poetically, but the reality is harsh and crass. God shows up and “sleeps rough” — with the poorest of creatures and in the most unsanitary of human conditions.
 
And with that, with that cry of human birth in the stable comes the first words of the angel to a band of shepherds living in the outdoors, “Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
 
Good news! Great Joy! For all the people! The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all. Whether we know it or not, whether we want it or not, whether we believe it or not.  In Jesus Christ, born this holy night, crucified and risen, God comes and “sleeps rough” through your darkest days and nights, and will one day usher you and all this weary warring world into his everlasting light and life. Beloved that’s the good news of Christmas. So that will be it. And that will be for here, and to go.
 
Amen.