By Bruce Smith
The Christmas season has passed and, for whatever reason, I found the enforced cheer of the season more grating than usual. I’ll pass on the saccharine description of a sweet baby sleeping on hay. From my farmboy experience, hay is a lousy, scratchy, and prickly mattress. Poor kid!! And Santa. Too much of him!
During the season, however, I found myself awed by thoughts about the wondrous mystery of the Incarnation that it celebrates. At the foundation of all those songs and traditions is an act that defies rationality but, at the same time, offers the basis of amazing grace. God Himself came into our world as that baby. That is truly something to sing about!! It’s summed up in the words of my Christmas favorite, “Mary Did You Know” - “That sleeping child you’re holding, is the Great I AM.”
Christmas is the story of God, the Creator of the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, the multiplicity of the microscopic world, the amazing biochemistry that sustains life on this special planet, the giver of the spark of life that led to you, me, and the billions of our compatriots taking an outlandish step. It’s the story of that God choosing to take on the full humanity to reach you and me. Can we really fathom what that means? No wonder the angels sang!!
But what a way to enter the world. With omnipotent power, He did this not as one of the Julio-Claudian ruling family in Rome but as a baby born under dubious circumstances in a despised backwater of a great empire to an unwed mother who was not welcome in any decent hostelry. There is little more humiliating than being born in a cow pen!
And then there’s those who were informed of this peculiar birth. It was not the religious leaders of a devout nation. It was not those rich, in control or respected. No, it was fellows stuck out on a cold night with a bunch of sheep. In the pecking order of first century Palestine, these were close to the bottom of the barrel. These are the ones who receive the stunning announcement God’s coming into the world. And, bless their hearts, they pen their sheep and make their way to this humble birth where, we’d expect, an exhausted Mary is trying to keep the newborn warm while a nervous Joseph hovers nearby puzzling about the whole thing.
Later, of course, there is another chapter when some mysterious scholars, astronomers, and/or leaders from far away are informed and pay homage to this poorly born babe. Oddly, again, it is not the religious leaders, those in power, or even those of the Jewish religion that are informed. Instead, it is outsiders from another people with different traditions and, possibly, a different religion who come bearing precious gifts whose selections seem to foreshadow the baby’s later life.
What happens when, via second-hand information, those in power are finally informed? They consult with the religious leaders make an inhuman decision and send the military in to murder innocent children. So, this newborn and his parents then become refugees, uprooted from their family, their community and Joseph’s work to somehow survive in Egypt. This is hardly the script one might imagine for the incarnation of our Creator God into this world.
Despite this remarkably inauspicious beginning we find ourselves the beneficiaries of that birth. Through mysteries that we can never fully understand this baby becomes a man, teaches, suffers, dies, and rises again to provide us with a template for fully living. That mystery continues as the Holy Spirit with which He blessed us can infuse and guide our lives.
While I don’t know as these thoughts fit into any new Christmas carol, these are what came to me this past Christmas as I shied away from Jingle Bells, Santa’s Coming to Town and the other cheery songs. Here, in this strange and wondrous Incarnation was something offering us a road to greater happiness than any of those.