I was looking forward to the carol service and nativity play. I knew it would be a real feel-good event, with proud parents (and grandparents) watching their children dressed up as shepherds, some slightly wobbly angels with tinsel wings and an incredibly sweet Mary, clutching a doll. There would be carols; beautiful words and tunes that we had all known since childhood. And there would be friends and neighbours there – people I hadn’t seen for ages. It would be a great community event.
But this year I felt uncomfortable. I was asking myself: If I knew nothing about the Christmas story, would this tableau convince me that the Christmas story has anything to do with the world we are living in right now?
Please don’t misunderstand me! I have nothing against carol services, especially children’s ones. I still love them. But I do think that we have a real problem with presenting the Christmas story in a way that is all sentimental; in a way that makes us think that the Christmas message is the ultimate feel-good narrative. As such, when we compare it to the realities around us, it is bound to disappoint.
If we readjust our lenses a little, the Christmas story comes into a focus in a different way. Mary, heavily pregnant, riding on a donkey to Bethlehem changes from the cute to the excruciating and the exhausted. The cozy warm stable changes to a cold, muddy cave – the last place anyone would want to give birth. The appearance of angels in the night sky is a terrifying, if unspeakably wonderful event. And it goes on, though the flight into Egypt and the appalling murder of the children in Bethlehem by Herod’s soldiers…
So why do Christians keep telling the Christmas story, even though we have made it so saccharine that it is barely recognizable? Of course, we do need a winter festival - time when we can celebrate warmth, light, comforting food and good company at a time when it’s cold and unfriendly outside. But we could do that without any reference to the birth of Jesus. In fact, most of the world is doing just that.
But the Christmas story, with the lenses adjusted so we can see the cold, the pain, the rejection and the wickedness, is surely more relevant now than ever. Here we see clearly the message that God has been revealing through the prophets for hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth: God’s weak spot for the weak. Try looking up how many times the Hebrew scriptures tell us about God’s concern for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. It’s a major theme in the prophets. God’s weak spot for the weak comes to fulfilment in his own weakness, his dependence, his vulnerability. It comes to fulfilment in sharing all these things with us – humbly asking us to change our ways and become like him; humbly asking us to accept him, his life and his love. Do we have the humility to ask Christ to be born in our hearts this Christmas?
Mother Sarah
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