THE MIRACLE OF CHRISTMAS
The other day, I found myself in my pajamas in front of the TV being a complete and utter slug. I've had this never-ending cold that just keeps coming back for one more round. It has left me exhausted ... the sort of exhausted that requires so much work just putting one foot in front of the other. So, there I was, a slug on my sofa, flipping channels on my TV until even that took too much work . So, I landed on some TV movie about the birth of Christ.
Gonna be honest here. I don't usually watch such things. I find them cheesy and theologically incorrect. But I was being a slug. Have I mentioned that? And for whatever reason, I got sucked into it.
Perhaps it was all the actors (all of whom appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent) or perhaps it the setting (looked like they shot the movie on location), but about 30 minutes into the movie I felt this sudden, overwhelming feeling or burden or something ... it occurred to me in such a thick, heavy way just how miraculous this first Christmas was.
I mean, yes, Jesus' birth WAS a miracle. This fact has not escaped me. I've heard it my entire life. But the magnitude of the miracle ... the realization was overwhelming!
Let's face it, during the time of His birth, Romans were in power. Lots of stuff have been written about the Romans, but one thing I think we can all agree upon is that they were into conquering and ruling the whole world, which likely meant a certain degree of brutality. So, political climates being what they are, this climate wasn't necessarily pleasant, shall we say.
Now, if you were a Jew, I can't imagine that this time in history was a fun one. I imagine that Jews were faced with much discrimination due to their religious faith, apart from the fact that they were deemed as the chosen ones of God.
On top of that, God chose a young virgin who just so happened to be a Jew to carry His son. And here's the thing, He sends an angel to this girl, Mary, to fill her in on all the details. Listen, carrying a child before marriage was tantamount to one of the seven deadly sins, I've got to assume. In this particular film, it was grounds for stoning. I am not sure of the validity of the stoning, but even still, Mary had to have known how this was going to affect her social standing and that of her family's. So, she gets a visit from an angel, who gives her the low down on the next nine months, and instead of throwing an unholy fit, which, I must admit, I might have, Mary accepts the task ... just like that.
Mary, of course, was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter, and I am wondering if Joseph flipped his crap when he found out. I mean, who wouldn't, right? But Joseph's a stand up dude, we find out, mainly because when he finds out Mary is pregnant and is all, "DUDE! That ain't my kid!" rather than public ridicule, he decides to divorce her on the down low because he doesn't want to further run her name through the mud.
Remember, Mary's little "situation" flies in the face of every thing that is held sacred in the Jewish world of marriage.
This is where things get interesting because an angel comes to Joseph too. The angel lays it all out for Joseph ... how Mary is carrying the Messiah, and He will be the Savior of the world and Joseph and Mary get the honor and privilege of raising Him and somehow, in the midst of that message, Joseph is all, "Okay, I will marry Mary and will raise this kid as my own." Just like that.
Now, if that weren't miraculous enough, Caesar Augustus orders everyone to their homelands so they can register to be taxed. That means, Joseph has to pack up his now pretty pregnant wife, and haul butt across the desert to Bethlehem. I get the impression that everybody and their brother is traveling for this Roman decree. Thus the reason that when Mary goes into labor in Bethlehem, there isn't any room for them anywhere. So, they've got to cop a squat in a barn, essentially, which is where Mary gives birth.
Christ's birth had been prophesied for centuries! He was the Savior, Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords....this kid was going to be the Royalest of the Royals. People had spent centuries imagining how He would come. I'm guessing no one landed on being born in a barn amongst livestock and their poop. I mean, Mary had to lay the kid in a manager with hay. It doesn't get much lowlier than that. So, the Royalest of the Royals was born in a barn, surrounded by animals and hay and no one rolled out one inch of red carpet. No one called the paparazzi. No one made a royal decree.
Okay, I might not have been completely accurate. An announcement was made, but the invitation to go and visit this new baby was given to the lowliest of lows in the society at that time. Shepherds. Ewww, these guys lived a lonely existence out among some of the dumbest animals that walk the Earth, and yet, God saw fit to send a host of angels to the shepherds that night and announce the Savior's birth.
And they came. They came to see the Christ child and to worship at his tiny bed filled with hay. And I imagine they were in awe of being some of the first and most honored guests to lay eyes on the Messiah. I can't even imagine.
About a week later, some fancier guests showed up. Wise men or astrologers from the East. They'd been studying this star and decided to follow it, knowing something important was tied to it. These guys came with fancy pants gifts: Frankincense, gold, and Myrrh. Now, I'm not really sure what Joseph and Mary did with all that stuff. I mean, it would seem more appropriate to bring a package of diapers, but these men also knew that they were laying eyes upon someone special. This child was no ordinary child. He was the Son of God born of flesh.
As I sit here at my computer, just hours away from the dawning of Christmas morning, I can look out my window and see the nativity scene my neighbor has out on his front lawn. It's festooned in lights, and it looks so pretty in the quiet of the night. And it is so easy, sitting here in my warm house, cozy in my fuzzy pajamas, to sanitize that night ... to soften it up just a bit...to make it fit some sort of romanticized version of a little baby coming to Earth.
Truth be told, the months leading up to Jesus' birth were gritty and hard, and Mary and Joseph were forced to navigate some pretty heavy, weighty waters. He was born to be the Savior to all ... not a select few, and God perfectly orchestrated the coming of this Messiah to show in living color that He was, indeed, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.
It was a miraculous miracle, redundancy aside, and I, for one, will never look at it in the same way again.
Gonna be honest here. I don't usually watch such things. I find them cheesy and theologically incorrect. But I was being a slug. Have I mentioned that? And for whatever reason, I got sucked into it.
Perhaps it was all the actors (all of whom appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent) or perhaps it the setting (looked like they shot the movie on location), but about 30 minutes into the movie I felt this sudden, overwhelming feeling or burden or something ... it occurred to me in such a thick, heavy way just how miraculous this first Christmas was.
I mean, yes, Jesus' birth WAS a miracle. This fact has not escaped me. I've heard it my entire life. But the magnitude of the miracle ... the realization was overwhelming!
Let's face it, during the time of His birth, Romans were in power. Lots of stuff have been written about the Romans, but one thing I think we can all agree upon is that they were into conquering and ruling the whole world, which likely meant a certain degree of brutality. So, political climates being what they are, this climate wasn't necessarily pleasant, shall we say.
Now, if you were a Jew, I can't imagine that this time in history was a fun one. I imagine that Jews were faced with much discrimination due to their religious faith, apart from the fact that they were deemed as the chosen ones of God.
On top of that, God chose a young virgin who just so happened to be a Jew to carry His son. And here's the thing, He sends an angel to this girl, Mary, to fill her in on all the details. Listen, carrying a child before marriage was tantamount to one of the seven deadly sins, I've got to assume. In this particular film, it was grounds for stoning. I am not sure of the validity of the stoning, but even still, Mary had to have known how this was going to affect her social standing and that of her family's. So, she gets a visit from an angel, who gives her the low down on the next nine months, and instead of throwing an unholy fit, which, I must admit, I might have, Mary accepts the task ... just like that.
Mary, of course, was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter, and I am wondering if Joseph flipped his crap when he found out. I mean, who wouldn't, right? But Joseph's a stand up dude, we find out, mainly because when he finds out Mary is pregnant and is all, "DUDE! That ain't my kid!" rather than public ridicule, he decides to divorce her on the down low because he doesn't want to further run her name through the mud.
Remember, Mary's little "situation" flies in the face of every thing that is held sacred in the Jewish world of marriage.
This is where things get interesting because an angel comes to Joseph too. The angel lays it all out for Joseph ... how Mary is carrying the Messiah, and He will be the Savior of the world and Joseph and Mary get the honor and privilege of raising Him and somehow, in the midst of that message, Joseph is all, "Okay, I will marry Mary and will raise this kid as my own." Just like that.
Now, if that weren't miraculous enough, Caesar Augustus orders everyone to their homelands so they can register to be taxed. That means, Joseph has to pack up his now pretty pregnant wife, and haul butt across the desert to Bethlehem. I get the impression that everybody and their brother is traveling for this Roman decree. Thus the reason that when Mary goes into labor in Bethlehem, there isn't any room for them anywhere. So, they've got to cop a squat in a barn, essentially, which is where Mary gives birth.
Christ's birth had been prophesied for centuries! He was the Savior, Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords....this kid was going to be the Royalest of the Royals. People had spent centuries imagining how He would come. I'm guessing no one landed on being born in a barn amongst livestock and their poop. I mean, Mary had to lay the kid in a manager with hay. It doesn't get much lowlier than that. So, the Royalest of the Royals was born in a barn, surrounded by animals and hay and no one rolled out one inch of red carpet. No one called the paparazzi. No one made a royal decree.
Okay, I might not have been completely accurate. An announcement was made, but the invitation to go and visit this new baby was given to the lowliest of lows in the society at that time. Shepherds. Ewww, these guys lived a lonely existence out among some of the dumbest animals that walk the Earth, and yet, God saw fit to send a host of angels to the shepherds that night and announce the Savior's birth.
And they came. They came to see the Christ child and to worship at his tiny bed filled with hay. And I imagine they were in awe of being some of the first and most honored guests to lay eyes on the Messiah. I can't even imagine.
About a week later, some fancier guests showed up. Wise men or astrologers from the East. They'd been studying this star and decided to follow it, knowing something important was tied to it. These guys came with fancy pants gifts: Frankincense, gold, and Myrrh. Now, I'm not really sure what Joseph and Mary did with all that stuff. I mean, it would seem more appropriate to bring a package of diapers, but these men also knew that they were laying eyes upon someone special. This child was no ordinary child. He was the Son of God born of flesh.
As I sit here at my computer, just hours away from the dawning of Christmas morning, I can look out my window and see the nativity scene my neighbor has out on his front lawn. It's festooned in lights, and it looks so pretty in the quiet of the night. And it is so easy, sitting here in my warm house, cozy in my fuzzy pajamas, to sanitize that night ... to soften it up just a bit...to make it fit some sort of romanticized version of a little baby coming to Earth.
Truth be told, the months leading up to Jesus' birth were gritty and hard, and Mary and Joseph were forced to navigate some pretty heavy, weighty waters. He was born to be the Savior to all ... not a select few, and God perfectly orchestrated the coming of this Messiah to show in living color that He was, indeed, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings.
It was a miraculous miracle, redundancy aside, and I, for one, will never look at it in the same way again.
Comments