One of the churches I served before coming on active duty had a tradition of holding a live nativity for a few nights in the weeks prior to Christmas. We had a small lean-to barn at the edge of our parking lot that would be stacked with hay; some of our neighbors, friends of some congregants would always bring some livestock, a sheep, a goat, a donkey; and members of the church would sign up to pose as magi, shepherds, angels, and Mary and Joseph. We just posed in 30 minute shifts and people from the community would drive by, watch the live nativity, and get some cider, cocoa, and homemade cookies. As I was kneeling in the gravel, holding my best shepherd pose and trying to reflect on the moment of the birth of Christ, I watched the sheep go the bathroom a couple of times, and the goat attempting to climb over from his stall into the stall with Mary and Joseph, trying to chew on her hair in frustration. And the donkey was the most anxiety filled creature I’d ever met, so very stressed out by the whole ordeal. He would bray and chew on the back of the stable, grabbing the wooden planks with his teeth and pulling and letting go, and they would pop really loudly, and then it would bray again and chew and pull at the wood and the goat was still trying to get Mary’s hair and the sheep, good lord, where is all that coming from? And I remember thinking: “How can I meditate on the birth of Jesus with all this chaos?!?!”
And that’s when it hit me—not the donkey or the goat or anything from the sheep—but the reality of this thing.
In the messy, chaotic moments of life, Christ is born.
Luke says that, besides Mary and Joseph, the first people to know of the birth of Jesus were shepherds. People living on the margins, with barely any resources, people who were maybe trusted with someone’s sheep, but more than likely were simply thought of as expendable should any bandits come to steal them or nighttime predators come to eat them. They were day laborers working the night shift. These are the people the angels come to with the message of the birth of Jesus.
They tell these people who guard sheep that the Messiah is born in the city of David, but the extraordinary part of this proclamation is that the Messiah is wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger—in a feeding trough. This newborn King is not in the Temple or in the home of a ruler, resting in a comfortable bed, but in a manger, in “mean estate” as the old hymn goes.
Imagine being told that a baby was born who was going to change the world and that the sign of proof would be finding that baby wrapped in a borrowed shelter blanket, resting in tent city on Imperial Avenue over I-5. It would be a greater challenge to hear and accept that message on Rodeo Drive than it would be if that message was given to the migrant farmers, or to the day laborers at Home Depot, or to the Garnet Avenue transients, it would be more believable to them.
One author says, “It makes no sense to us that the immutable God of the universe would be born in the bowels of our world in order to be with us.” And what vivid words to describe where this birth is said to have happened: bowels of our world. But if the birth of Jesus is good news, it must come to those in need of good news, it must come to those moments of messiness and chaos where it seems nothing good can emerge. It must come to the least of these: to the disposable, to the expendable, to the overlooked, the ignored, the marginalized and the ostracized.
And then there is with the angel, an explosion of light and sound, as a multitude of heavenly host erupt in song: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
And there’s that word again: “favor,” eudoxia in the Greek, meaning a state or condition of being kindly disposed, that is people of goodwill, or a state or condition of being favored. It’s rendered in English the same as the word charis from Gabriel’s announcement to Mary. Both the ordinary young woman from the small town of Nazareth and the shepherds left to protect sheep from predators are somehow favored by the same God, they’re both extended the same grace from God. One is ordinary the others are less than ordinary, but the God to whom the angels sing will redeem them all.
Where does this put us on Christmas day. I guess it depends on how we view ourselves and how we view others. Maybe we should all tremble that immutable God of the universe would come to us and offer peace to us all. Isn’t it true that no matter where we are on a given spectrum that we are right and they are wrong? And yet this God would stand in the breach between Us and Them and say we are both favored, that Rodeo Drive and Skid Row are both welcome at the table and no matter which street we may find ourselves on we are invited to receive and to offer the bread of life across the border wall that divides us.
“Do not be afraid for I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day…a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” The news is brought to the margins and yet is for everyone: good news for the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, peace for the brokenhearted, a proclamation of the season of God’s favor.
“Nora Gallagher writes, “What if those words are about something real? What if they are a hint about the kingdom? A hint about God? What if this religion I’ve been practicing and this Gospel… I’ve heard” … “every Sunday, is not a metaphor but a description of reality?”1 To ask this question is to take a deep look into the meaning of the birth of Christ, the possibility that gospel truth is found today in the lives and witness of people we would not see as strong or powerful.”
The birth of Christ is the in-breaking of God into this world, into this life (even when it’s messy and chaotic) and to flip it all upside down—or maybe right side up—to start something in the here and now that can continue for eternity.
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