12-18-23<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Tis the season to be jolly, but there are some things about Christmas that manage to rankle us. It is not the fault of the little baby Jesus but let\u2019s be honest, a lot of us register annoyance about a lot of things a lot of times around Christmas. I\u2019m making a list and checking it twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChristmas is just getting too commercial.\u201d \u201cWhy do the stores start putting Christmas stuff out earlier and earlier?\u201d \u201cWe have to fight the crowds again?\u201d \u201cOh, gosh, half the lights are out!\u201d \u201cWhere did we pack the decorations?\u201d \u201cWasn\u2019t it our turn last<\/em> year?\u201d \u201cOh! I forgot to get her a present!\u201d \u201cThose dumb songs on the radio again!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 and so on. Notice that none of these familiar complaints is about God becoming incarnate to live among humankind, to offer us a means of salvation, eventually to die for our sins. No recorded complaints from Mary and Joseph, who found no place to stay, no clean or comfortable place to give birth. We know that story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have a version of that story, not in the Bible but plausible \u2013 that there was \u201cno room in the inn,\u201d or any inns in Bethlehem, not because the town was crowded during tax-season. Perhaps the innkeepers did not want a girl who was pregnant before she was married staying in their establishments. If that is the case, we can add that such indignity to Mary, the virgin miraculously bearing the Son of God Almighty, brought forth no complaints from her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A manger is something unknown to most contemporary folk. It was not a place where animals lay, as this Baby would, which would be humble enough. It was where animals ate; so in the straw where Jesus was placed there was spittle, chunks of old food, and bugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet that familiar scene is abstract to people today; or at least it is sanitized. Our mangers are neat folding cribs in displays. The stable is an organized cr\u00e8che in paintings. The animals are now depicted as Disney-like four-legged witnesses; but at the time they were smelly creatures that left their droppings on the nearby ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it all seems abstract, despite the best efforts of Hallmark cards and inflated-plastic front-yard arrangements. The abstractions are seductive: 2000 years ago; a faraway land; donkeys as transportation. Not to mention the history and theology: how would most of us react if a poor couple showed up at our<\/em> doors, the young unmarried girl about to give birth; perhaps even claiming to bear the Savior of humankind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I invite you to think of this familiar-but-abstract story in another way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women can imagine, but scarcely identify, with Mary. We know from her prayer called the Magnificat (\u201cMy soul doth magnify the Lord\u201d) that she could hardly comprehend the miracle. Some men might be able to identify with the surprising news that confronted Joseph, that his girlfriend was already pregnant. However, he and Mary both knew what the angel shared; and they knew Scripture (as recorded later in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mary and Joseph had separate bloodlines, of course, but each fulfilled ancient prophesies about the ancestry of the coming Messiah).<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I suggest that the easiest member of that young family with whom we can identify is not Mary, not Joseph, but\u2026 Jesus Himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The birth of Jesus was foretold. God planned for that Son to be born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God knew each of us, too \u2013 before we were formed in our mothers\u2019 wombs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus was the Son of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We, as Christians, are the Children of God.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus came to earth with a Holy Mission to fulfill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each one of us has a calling, too; God has a will for our lives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite coming from Glory, Jesus was a Man of Sorrows, destined to suffer and die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As followers of Christ, our lot is to endure persecution for His Name\u2019s sake.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus\u2019s Kingdom is not of this world; He prepares a place for you in Glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis world is not our home\u201d; we trust in life eternal, in Paradise with the Savior.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We might not have been born in mangers, yet during this Christmas season let us more closely identify with \u201cour elder brother Jesus.\u201d He came to earth, after all, to identify with us\u2026<\/em> to know temptation and pain and suffering and sorrow. Being without sin Himself, that Holy Child would eventually reach out and take our sins upon Himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marys can\u2019t do that. Josephs can\u2019t do that. Even angels can\u2019t do that. Jesus did. Jesus does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine the Savior of your soul in the virtual manger next to you. The only difference? He is the Son of God. But imagine at the same time something not<\/em> so abstract: We have the opportunity to have Jesus live within our hearts. The Messiah came to earth, born a humble Babe, in order to reconcile you in that<\/em> matter too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n Click: Jesus At the Mall<\/p>\n\n\n\n