"A Christmas Story"

A Radical Retelling of the Christmas Story?

Let me be so bold as to begin by suggesting that the story we are so use to telling this time of year may not reflect an accurate reading of the scripture. We remake Jesus in our own image so that we often end up with a “blond blue-eyed baby boy.” We are not alone in this every culture recast Jesus into their own image. Rather than being transformed into his image humans tend to recreate Jesus in their own image. Is it possible that we are guilty of reading scripture our cultural and sociological “rose colored glasses?”

The Christmas story has become so sanitized and purified that one must wonder it those who first heard it would even recognize it as the same story they heard and retold repeatedly. It is a magnificent story, which is from its earliest days orally handed down from one believer to another. However, what if we have become familiar with the story that we have missed something? What if the story has become so commercialized, culturalized and categorized that it has lost something in the retelling? Could it be that the story has lost its edge? Is it possible that most people fail to see the relevance of this story to their all too real life?

Have we scrubbed squeaky clean the story and sanitized it to the point that we have removed the scandal? For it is the scandal, I would suggest, that was and is at the heart of the story. The Nativity scenes, so popular everywhere today, presents Mary with an angelic look, a serene smile and an appearance seemingly completely at peace. How real is that? She just gave birth to a full term baby without anesthesia. To say nothing of the journey she has just undertaken under the most primitive of circumstances. The hay that is the baby’s mattress looks more like tinsel just bought in modern Christmas store. It looks nothing like the hay that was soaked in urine, mud and manure from the stable in which he was born. His bed was a feed trough not a cradle or something that looks more like a child’s safety seat than something that animals would have been eating from only a short time before his birth.

They may have been ancient people but they knew where babies came from. Joseph knew this and he knew that the child was not his. Matthew tells us that because he was a righteous man he had decided to put her away. He was within his rights as the fiancé of Mary to do this. However, he was a good man so he wanted to do it privately in order not to shame her. He is the only one who is privy to the words of the angel, “the child is from the Holy Spirit.” If that is going to be your story, you had better have tough skin and be prepared for most people to not believe your story. We need to remember that only a few people in this entire story are privy to the message of the angels.

Not only could Joseph count but also so could all his neighbors. How many of us have smiled to ourselves at the nine-pound babies born two months or more early. We snicker to ourselves and at least think, “that’s a good story.” One can only imagine how many times Jesus must have heard the insults hurled at him, or spoken to his back. Words such as, “there he goes that b……. son of the carpenter.” Could this be implied in the local people's statement, "is this not the carpenter's son?" We dare not remove the scandal from the retelling. He was born in Scandal.

Joseph was a carpenter. He had a trade. He was skilled as an artisan. He was probably what we would consider lower middle class. However, one must remember that the baby was not born in his hometown but in a strange town considerable distance from family and friends. The census required Joseph and his nine months pregnant wife to travel to a place far from hearth and home. Luke records for us this and includes this one line that speaks volumes about his life, “there was no room in the Inn.” He was born in a stable not an Inn or a house. He was born into abject poverty. His birth announced and welcomed by the lowing of cattle, bleating of sheep and clucking of chickens not by the palace full of servants or heralds of the king. Again, we must remember that only a select few and those of us who read the story today know the words the angels spoke. It is in Poverty and not in a Palace that the newborn King is welcomed.

Not long after his birth, the angel tells Joseph and Mary to flee to Egypt because Herod wants to kill the child. The volatile and vindictive ruler is angry and he strikes out at the helpless children. All males two years and under are killed in Herod’s feeble attempt to hold on to his power. In a cruel and violent exercise of power as Matthew records for us the quotation from the Old Testament, that tells us “Rachael is weeping for her children….” In addition, the fulfillment of the scripture that says, “out of Egypt I have called my son.” One can only imagine what that next Christmas must have been like for the mothers weeping for their children. Jesus was born into a world of Violence and a Violent world.

One must wonder if the story might not have a broader appeal and impact if we shared with the world this story of Scandal, Poverty and Violence. To a world filled with Scandal, Poverty and Violence, this could be a truly transforming story. This is no sanitized, sterilized story for a perfect world. This is a story that must be told in all of its brutal realism. Real people must come to know the real love of the Savior. “For unto us today a Savior is born, Christ the Lord.”

1. Born in Midst of Scandal.
2. Born in Abject Poverty.
3. Born in a World and Time of Violence.

This does not sound much like "Joy to the World!" "Silent Night!' or "Peace on Earth." But, then those are just lines from Christmas songs that present an idyllic view of the Christmas story.

Just some things to think about along the way. I will see you on down the road.

Bob