A Nitty Gritty Christmas
A Nitty Gritty Christmas
By Bob Rognlien
Visiting the Real Bethlehem
When you visit Bethlehem today, it is not the little town with shining streets lying still beneath the starry sky that many of us are used to singing about on Christmas Eve. It is a large, crowded Palestinian city on disputed territory marked by tension, anxiety, injustice, and anger. To visit you are forced to clear a security checkpoint manned by heavily armed guards and pass through at a gate in the ugly concrete barrier that runs for over four hundred miles between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, a tragic symbol of the violence and hatred that still divides the people of the Holy Land today. Once inside you are faced with the crushing poverty and simmering resentment that these divisions and injustices inevitably produce.
In some ways this is more like the Bethlehem of Jesus’ day than our idealized preconceptions. We so easily forget Jesus was born into a land filled with heavily armed soldiers imposing the will of an occupying army; that tax collectors were exacting a crushing weight of unjust taxation; that resentment and even violent revolt constantly simmered just below the surface. It is important to remember that Jesus was not born at a candlelight Christmas Eve service with a choir singing softly in the background.
Yes, there was a choir of the heavenly hosts singing “Glory to God in the highest heaven,” but their audience was comprised of stinky shepherds sleeping outside with their sheep and goats. Yes, there was a loving couple experiencing this sacred moment together, but his mother was unwed when she became pregnant and there was shame and even the threat of capital punishment hanging over her head. Yes, a beautiful baby boy was born that night, but he came out crying in a flood of all the blood and mess a normal childbirth entails.
Visiting the ancient Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is a vivid reminder that we still celebrate this birth two thousand years later because it marks an epochal shift in the history of the world when the infinite and eternal God of heaven chose to enter into the real, broken world in which we live. Visiting the Cave of the Nativity is rarely a serene spiritual experience, at least not for me. If you are able to get in after waiting in line for a break between lengthy religious services, there tends to be a lot of pushing and shoving, a bewildering array of body odor, and an unsympathetic priest brusquely ordering you to “touch it and go, touch it and go!” Not exactly a warm and fuzzy spiritual experience.
When I am experiencing the inevitable contradictory feelings of wonder and offense this all produces, I try to imagine the mix of emotions Mary and Joseph were feeling, the body odor in that crowded house mixed with the mess of the animals sleeping nearby, and the disapproval of judgmental relatives. I try to recall the pain and joy of bringing a child into the world, the wonder and surprise of the shepherds’ testimony about the angelic announcement that night, and the shock of wealthy foreign dignitaries bearing gifts for the child months later.
This is the whole point of the Incarnation! God chose not to keep our mess at arm’s length but entered right into the middle of it by becoming fully human in that tiny baby boy. And still today, in the unholy pushing and the shoving and the body odor of the cave, we touch the stone walls, and it all becomes a little bit more real to us. Not because there is anything magical about touching that stone or the silver star which is supposed to mark the spot where Mary gave birth, but because the feel of that stone beneath our fingertips tells us in a way words can’t that God’s love, and presence, and power are even more real for us than this rock, because God became human in this place.
Inviting Jesus In
Contrary to the picture painted by our cherished nativity scenes and Christmas carols, the Gospel texts read rightly in their original cultural setting imply Jesus was born in the crowded house of Joseph’s extended family in Nazareth. This sets the stage for us to understand more accurately the context of Jesus’ entire life and the implications that has for our lives today. Modern western readers of the Gospels tend to picture Jesus primarily as an individual interacting with other individuals because this is the bias of our individualistic culture. Of course, there is some truth to this, but it is not the whole picture. From birth to death and resurrection, Jesus lived his life as part of a nuclear and extended family. We typically picture the baby Jesus lying in the manger with his mother and adoptive father looking on lovingly. What we often miss is the extended family of Joseph’s relatives surrounding this nuclear family, which readers from traditionally Middle Eastern cultures instinctively recognize.
Too often we have sought to follow Jesus only as individuals and not in the context of a family. Too often we have sought to live out our faith in the context of a nuclear family, but not with the support of an extended family. It is a helpful corrective to see that Mary and Joseph were invited into an extended family home for Jesus to be born. It raises the question of whether we have done the same thing. I love how Eugene Peterson captures the communal dimension of Jesus’ birth in his translation of John’s poetic description of the incarnation: The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. (John 1:14) Do we recognize that Jesus has moved into our neighborhood? Have we invited him into our home and into an extended family?
If Jesus is going to be incarnated in our lives today, we will not only open our hearts and minds to him, but our homes and our families as well. The relatives of Joseph had a very full house, but when Joseph knocked on the outer door they invited this couple in and made room for Jesus to be born in their extended family, even though the guest room was already full. Years later, on the barren island of Patmos, Jesus gave the Apostle John a vision of this very invitation he offers to each of us: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)
The more we recognize that Jesus has moved into our neighborhood, and the more we make space for him by welcoming him into the daily life of our family, the more our lives will be shaped by his. Pam and I have been learning this lesson over the past ten years, and it has made a huge impact on our marriage, our kids, and those closest to us. This happens best by intentionally inviting Jesus into the regular rhythms of our family life. If you are single, divorced, or have no children, the message is still the same. Jesus was a single man who built an amazing extended and nuclear spiritual family, so we can all learn to do the same regardless of our circumstances in life.
Do you regularly invite others from your neighborhood and networks who might not yet know Jesus to come into your home and family? Do you make it a point as a family to get out of the comfort zone of your home and into your neighborhood, your city, and places where you can connect with new people you might otherwise never meet? Tonight, Pam and I are welcoming some of our neighbors who don’t know Jesus to come into our home to share a meal and to experience a little bit more of what it means to be part of God’s great family. Jesus came into the neighborhood to be born in an extended family who welcomed those in need. Jesus is still looking for homes and families where he can be incarnated today. How will you celebrate the real meaning of Jesus’ birth this year?
Adapted from the new book Recovering the Way. For more information visit bobrognlien.com