154 days until Christmas… Ready?

The Hallmark Jingle in July Christmas movies have been a staple in my house this past month. I dug my Christmas CDs out and have been humming along to the classics and my favorite Christmas worship music. There is nothing quite like belting out Joy to World to lighten the heart and bring a smile to your face. Try it – you’ll see!

Christmas in July is free of all of the stress of the actual holiday we bring upon ourselves. So many messages of the hope inherent in Christmas get lost in the hustle and bustle of busy sidewalks. In this pandemic centric season we are all navigating, my favorite Christmas message is more relevant than ever.

Sidewalks are not busy, stress is still high for different reasons, but maybe, without all the competition, a little more space exists to absorb God’s Christmas message of love. Life is messy, but Jesus came anyway. Merry Christmas in July.

Mangers are Messy

All nativity scenes have one particular element in common. In the center, there is always a calm and serene Joseph and Mary looking down at their newborn in reverent awe.

Mary never looks like she just had a baby. Joseph doesn’t look like a harried husband trying to find someplace for his wife to give birth.

The image is pristine, calm, precious, tranquil – perfect.

It’s against the backdrop of this perfect image that we experience Christmas. We buy into the image that we have to create a perfect Christmas, that we have to be perfect at Christmas – in order for Christmas to come. For Jesus to come. Because Jesus comes into perfect. He doesn’t come into messy chaos.

And when our lives don’t resemble this perfect image, we find ourselves thinking, “I can’t wait for Christmas to be over.”

This, my friends, is a place that breaks the heart of God because harboring beliefs that Jesus will only come into perfect denies the message of the manger.

Christmas is God saying to us – I know your life is a mess. It’s why you need me. Why you need Jesus. Why I am sending my beloved son into your world. In the middle of whatever it is that you think is too messy for me to handle. Try me. I know messy.

Nothing about the birth of Jesus was an accident. God hand-picked everything, down to the smallest detail. If Jesus was laid in a manger, God had a reason for it.

Let’s take a short journey as we re-imagine that first Christmas and discover the treasure of the manger.

At that time, the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. Everyone returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem.

Under normal circumstances, Bethlehem had a population of roughly 1000 people. As hundreds, possibly thousands of additional people descended upon it for the census, the resources of this small village were quickly overrun. With no accommodations, no running water, no port-o-potties, and everyone with their donkeys or other beasts of burden, Bethlehem was chaotic.

Joseph lived in Nazareth, which is about 95 miles north of Jerusalem. Bethlehem is roughly another 6 miles south. This journey was usually made on foot. The average man could travel that distance in approximately three to four days if he walked at a pace of four miles an hour. Ya’ll a 15 minute mile is a jog for me. But even at four miles an hour, which is unlikely given the terrain, that would have been a hard eight hours a day.

Joseph is not making this trip by himself. He has a pregnant Mary with him who is most likely not keeping a four mile pace for 8 hours a day. She is probably on a donkey – but good grief – ladies, imagine being pregnant and crossing the rocky, arid, dusty desert, on a donkey, for days.

When they arrived in Bethlehem, dusty and tired from the long journey, they discovered there is no vacancy at the inn. When Mary goes into labor, Joseph frantically seeks shelter, a safe place for Mary to give birth.

We arrive at the image of a barn or stable because of the reference to a manger. In Israel, the location was far more likely a cave, or grotto, in a hillside. A typical place for shepherds to shelter their livestock.

In this cave, Mary gave birth and wrapped Jesus in strips of cloth they had carried with them on the journey. Then she laid him in a manger – a stone structure about 3 feet long, 18 inches wide with a 2 foot deep well that had been chiseled out to hold feed. The place where, earlier that day, sheep had circled eating their breakfast.  

When I imagine this nativity scene, I don’t see pristine, calm, and tranquil. I don’t even see reverent. I see chaotic, dusty, disheveled, weary, frantic, and making-do. It’s dark, dank, and stinky. Cold and uncomfortable.

This nativity scene isn’t likely to sell many Christmas cards. It isn’t warm and fuzzy.

But it IS how we will at some point describe some situation we are going through in life.

God chose a manger because he wants us to know that his saving grace through Jesus meets us in our hard and uncomfortable – even stinky – life circumstances. When you see the manger this year, don’t see pristine and perfect. See a love that promises never to leave you or forsake you. See a love that says you are never alone or forgotten. See a love that will sustain you through trials and comfort you through grief. See a love that invites you to come and know him.

Mary laid Jesus in a manger, and mangers are messy, messy places.

My friend, don’t wait for Christmas to ask Jesus to come into your messy. Do it now.