Christmas…some years the joy and merry making come easy while others it feels like everything is happening in slow motion and nothing quite gets the wheels in motion. Like you’re bogged down, you know that feeling when your foot sticks in the wet ground. You’re stepping forward but held back at the same time. This year feels a little like that. I’m excited and enjoying my time with the boys but my shoes seem to keep sticking in the mud. That has me thinking about the Christmas story, all the characters, and what they were thinking and feeling when they experienced Christmas so long ago.
At times I identify with the inn keeper, the world going wild all around you, responsibilities abound, so many people and things to take care of and ensure are just right, people depending on you, needing something from you. And then you get that one more request…one more room is needed. You are all out. All out of rooms, all out of space, every inch of your heart and mind is occupied. What are you supposed to do? You feel like you’ve given all you can, done all you can. But still the request comes…do you have anywhere that can provide rest. It’s such a fitting picture of God and what he wants for us that he used the last and least effort the inn keeper could give. Here you can have this little corner of the barn. It’s all he wants, just a sliver, the tiniest piece and portion of what you have is where the miracle of Christmas happens. He will come down into the tiniest of space and the least of what you have to offer him. It isn’t even an offering really. The inn keeper was probably trying to get rid of Joseph and Mary to move on to other pressing needs around him. It’s what we do too, gifts to buy, meals to prepare, family to visit, till all we have left is just a corner of our lives, a stable, a barn, a manger. The miracle of Christmas is that even that is enough, that you and your heart, put together and organized or upkeep, dirty and dusty…it’s enough. You’re enough just as you are to house a King.
Sometimes I identify with the shepherds. They had a dirty job, were seen as outcasts to some or at minimum dirty, unclean and unfit to be front and center in any story. Yet here they are. They knew they didn’t belong. They knew the looks of others when they walked by. The dirt and filth of days of toil and work caked on them. They knew they were often smelled before they were seen. I’d say they were identified chiefly by their lack of belonging. I think that’s why the angels led with telling them not to be afraid. They knew if God showed up anywhere they should probably proceed elsewhere. Their profession had them labeled ceremonially unclean and they weren’t welcomed openly at the temple in their day. They had a real decision to make when they heard the news. A king has been born. Do they follow and go and see or continue with their work. The safe route would have had them staying in their fields, doing what they knew and that with which they took comfort. But safety never brings you into the presence of the king. They were the first to lay aside all their excuses, fears and doubts and choose to follow.
There are times in my life when I walk in the footsteps of the wisemen. While the shepherds weren’t looking and were taken by surprise, the wisemen were actively looking and searching for this new King. They had heard the stories, knew of prophecies, and they were digging deep into writings, searching the faintest stories of who this king would be and how he would come, to the point even of searching the stars overhead to see what they whispered as they twinkled. They were the second to follow.
Herod was a king. To him Jesus represented the end of the line, fear, uncertainty and the death of a dream. More than any other in the story I think Herod had the hardest path to follow. In the end he decided that he couldn’t. Herod represents those times when what the baby asks me to lay down and surrender is just too much of myself, too much of my own dreams for my life, too much of what I even dream to pass down to my family. Instead of releasing to follow, our grips tighten and we search for any way that we can serve and protect the life that we desire to preserve for ourselves. We dig in and fight to protect what is ours. One of the miracles of Christmas is that the babe in the manger invites us to surrender and follow, to be broken open so we can be poured out in worship to him, but when we dig in and refuse, we are instead broken apart by the circumstances and hardships of our lives.
Joseph didn’t know what the hell he was doing. I certainly identify with him at times. He’s finds himself in the position of ushering in the birth of the savior of the world, God himself, and he’s clueless. He starts out late for Bethlehem. He’s full of doubts about what to do with Mary who he’s supposed to marry that comes to him pregnant. He stumbles and fumbles and God uses each misstep because in the end he just surrenders and signs up to follow. I think Joseph shows us what abandon and surrender can look like.
Sometimes I feel like Anna and Simeon. They don’t make it into the nativity scenes we all know and love. They are bit players with a few lines. But I know them because I’ve found myself waiting as they have. Waiting for God to do what has been promised, to finally show up and right all the wrongs. Both had waiting so long to see God’s messiah that would save the world. Simeon to the point that he was waiting to be able to die in peace once he knew God’s plan was finally in the works. I think we all find ourselves there at times, just begging for any sign that something is going to change. We grasp for the faintest whisper of God doing something different in our lives. How long are we going to have to wait and we begin to doubt that we will ever see what we’ve been waiting for so long. But Christmas’ miracle is that sometimes when we least expect it and when we’ve given up all hope, He shows up. It’s usually dark and at night, but He is there.
Maybe it’s because she’s a female and a mother but Mary is often the hardest for me to recognize in the story. But she shows us what it truly means to follow and let the miracle of Christmas be born into our lives. It’s going to be joy and pain in spades. The highest highs and the lowest lows are what we are signing up for. It’s nothing short of complete wholeness, of taking in all things until it all belongs. Birthing anything takes pain, toil and hardship. And the joy she experienced that night was birthed in pain, fear and I’m sure doubt. It led to her heart being ripped open wide as she stood at the foot of a cross watching her baby be murdered. What must she have felt? I cannot fathom the hurt and heartache she experienced. But………..Mary also teaches us so much. She lets me know that there is space for joy and pain, for highs and lows, for birth and life, for death and resurrection. Life is going to bring it all to you. The miracle of Christmas is that God says I’m here in all of it, present with us. The only ask is that we don’t push anything aside but experience it all with Him.
In another day we’ll be unwrapping presents. Paper will be flying everywhere and all the preparation and toil over the last few weeks or months will be over in a flash. There will be a happiness that can be a bit fleeting. In a moment of stillness, my wish for you this Christmas is that you find him at the edge. That you see him wherever you find yourself, whether you’re an inn keeper struggling keeping all the plates spinning with not an ounce left to give, or an at your wit’s end Joseph fumbling with what to do next, or a shepherd who only knows that you don’t belong in this story, or a Herod tightening your grip on a life you feel slipping away, or a wiseman feeling lost in your search for a sign, or a Mary with your heart feeling torn apart by a future and a past wrapped in extreme joy and heartache. Know that no matter what you feel or think, no matter how closed and full you feel the inn is, there’s always room for one more in the stable. You don’t have to be perfect nor have everything put together right to tiptoe in the hay around the manger. You can be unsure, dirty, tired, full of doubt, broken, hurt, angry and uncertain. You can be merry, joyful, content and at peace. The miracle of Christmas is that God wanted to come with us exactly in al those things. It is why he wasn’t born in a palace fit the king that he was but in a dirty stable surrounded by imperfect people. I’m glad I’m one of those today and there’s room for all of us there.
From The Whale's Belly 