A determined seven year old lifted the three red wooden ornaments
out of a drawer and declared that these would take their place on the
mantelpiece despite the fact that it was still only mid-November. Perfectly
aware of the general household rule that all things Christmas do not make an
appearance until the month of December, he announced this with a fair amount of
rebelliousness and attitude, no doubt expecting an argument. I hesitated only briefly
before allowing him victory. The garish and gaudy colours of commercial
Christmas have been filling our peripheral vision since October, reminding us in
the usual not so subtle way, that the end of year season is just around the
corner and after all, it takes very little to stoke the fires of festive excitement
in our little people.
So there the wooden figures sit, waiting to be joined by
cards and candles, a look of stoic resignation on their painted faces. Three
wise men bearing gifts yet all dressed as Santa in red, with white fur trim and
long white beards. One holds a wrapped present with a bow, one a star and one a
Christmas tree. A strange and curious mixture of traditional fable and Bible
story. It occurred to me that these funny wooden Christmas mantel decorations
are quite emblematic of what we see around us. Myth and truth intertwined, all
the elements of what Christmas is to us mixed together in an incongruous
collection.
Sometimes it almost seems as if we pull up outside the stable
in Bethlehem having caught a ride on a sleigh. As we raced along we didn’t
notice the guiding star fall out of the sky and land atop an elegant spruce
tree, covered with tinsel and twinkling fairy lights. We weren’t paying any
attention, being preoccupied by our to-do and to-get lists but somehow we still
arrive at a nativity scene albeit one where reindeer feed on hay alongside the
donkeys and cattle.
As John Betjeman says in his poem, ‘Advent 1955’,
‘Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.'
In through the doorway of the stable we duck, bringing the
whole fused jumble in with us. As we stand in the stable, we might suddenly remember where we are, feel
guilty, mumble sorry and then try to shove all the unchristian stuff back out the door
as if we can successfully segregate the godly from the worldly but before we
set out on a self-righteous campaign to purge Christmas of all those ‘odd ways’
and put the three wise Santa’s back in the drawer, are we ourselves really much
different? Maybe those ornaments are not just symbolic of the world around us
but of our own inner worlds too. Each of us a more intricate, complicated blend of reality
and fantasy, truth and falsehood.
In the stable, we become aware of our unworthiness for here
lies God himself. Religion may tell us to leave all our messy, confused, mixed
up stuff in the porch but belief walks in with it all and does what seems like
the least appropriate thing to do – hands it over to a new born baby boy. The stable
is the place where eternity and time touch, the place where divinity and humanity
are fused. This is a place full of apparent contradiction that doesn’t make sense
unless seen through the lens of faith. Immanuel, God with us, holiness living
in the midst of sin. We ask the same question as Mary did, how can this be? The
answer? Love.
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his
one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by
believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to
all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling
the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone
who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since
been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that
person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to
him.”
John 3:16 The Message
And so we behold the One in the manger. Come, let us adore him. Christ the Lord.
