Perspective: The Christmas Scandal

Merry Christmas from the Wayside!

The Christmas Scandal

Scripture:

For He grew up before Him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him,
nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
He was despised, and we held Him of no account.

Surely He has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted Him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon Him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by His bruises we are healed.

Isaiah 53:2-5 (NRSV)

He came down to earth from heaven
Who is God and Lord of all
And His shelter was a stable
And His cradle was a stall
With the poor, the scorned, the lowly
Lived on earth our Savior holy

From "Once in Royal David's City" by Cecil Frances Alexander

An evangelical university in my town has set up a very elaborate nativity scene at the main entrance to the campus. At night, the entire scene is illuminated for all passersby to see. Nativity scenes are familiar sights at Christmas: a glowing infant Jesus lying in a manger surrounded by the Virgin Mary, Joseph, some shepherds, and three elderly wise men, all looking very serene and pious. Some nativity scenes even include a few well-behaved animals. As familiar and iconic as this scene is, I am beginning to wonder if it really captures the true nature of the Christmas story.

The story begins when a young teenager named Mary is visited by an angel. This angel, Gabriel, tells her that she will soon give birth to a child. This child would not be just any child: this child would one day be the King of Israel and would even be called the "Son of God." This would be surprising news for any woman, more so for a woman like Mary who hadn't even lost her virginity. The news was not only surprising but also troubling. Mary was not yet married, so what would the townspeople think? What would her fiance Joseph think? Would anyone even believe her story?

People in town begin to gossip. Mary's story isn't very convincing: "I'm pregnant, but I'm still a virgin. Oh, by the way, the baby is God's." Nobody in his right mind would believe a story like that, so there are only two logical explanations. Either Mary and her fiance have been fooling around, or Mary had been unfaithful. Word reaches her fiance Joseph. Obviously, he knows that the baby is not his, so that leaves only one conclusion: Mary has cheated on him. Naturally, he decides to break off the engagement. Even though Joseph is disappointed, hurt, and angry, he is kind-natured, so he decides to handle things discreetly to spare Mary what little dignity she had left.¹

Just after Joseph had made up his mind about breaking his engagement to Mary, an angel appears to him in a dream and tells him that Mary has not been unfaithful to him and that the baby is indeed from God. Joseph wakes up and decides not to break the engagement. Of course this is going to make Joseph look bad as well. By not breaking the engagement, he is basically confirming to the townspeople that he and Mary have conceived a baby out of wedlock, something that is a lot less acceptable in their culture than it is in ours. Mary and Joseph know the truth, but, to everyone else, they are just another young couple who couldn't control themselves and messed up.

To complicate matters, the government decides to take a census, requiring that all people go to their ancestors' hometowns to register. This means that Mary and Joseph have to travel all the way to Bethlehem because they are descendants of King David. When they arrive, Mary goes into labor. Unfortunately, the two cannot find anyone who will take them in, so they end up having the baby in a stable - a dirty, smelly cave - like a couple of teenage runaways. With no bed for the baby, they lay Him in a feeding trough.

If things weren't bad enough, a bunch of anxious shepherds show up to see the baby. In our heads we have a lot of warm, fuzzy images of shepherds, but, at that time, shepherds were notorious for being thieves and were considered among the scum of the earth.² Shepherds would be the last people that Mary and Joseph wanted to see, especially at that time.

I imagine that the mental portrait I am painting of the Christmas story is far different from the peaceful, pious nativity scenes we usually see. Nativity scenes typically make the story seem much more dignified, when, in reality, it was a holy mess. The young couple are usually depicted so serene and prayerful, but with all the conflicting emotions - the excitement of having a baby, the joy of doing God's will, the frustrations of lives turned upside-down and reputations ruined, and the panic of having everything to go wrong in one evening - who knows what the two were really feeling at the time? A passerby would most likely look on this scene, see the child, and think, "That kid doesn't have a chance." God did not pick a very auspicious way to bring His Son, our Savior, into the world.

Things did not get much better afterward. This child Jesus grew up to become a rabbi - a poor, homeless rabbi. He and his friends would travel the region, completely dependent on the grace of God and on the hospitality of others. He would associate with prostitutes, tax-collectors, beggars, and other disreputable types. Jesus repeatedly ticked off the religious authorities. Eventually He was put on trial, executed in a public spectacle, and buried in a borrowed grave.

The people of Israel had waited generations for a messiah to show up and set things right. This messiah was supposed to be a great political leader, a heroic warrior king who would liberate the Israelites from their Roman oppressors. The person called Jesus was nothing like the messiah that everyone had imagined. Instead, He was the exact opposite: he was born under sketchy circumstances and lived his life at the bottom rungs of the societal ladder.

So why did God choose for things to be this way? Why did Christ have to be born under such questionable circumstances? Why did God have to drag Mary and Joseph's names through the mud? Could He not have been born to married parents? Could he not have been the great warrior king everyone was expecting, or could he not have been more reputable rabbi? Could He not have brought salvation to humanity without being executed like a common criminal?

I believe that the Christmas story, like the entire life of Christ, should affect how we look at each and every person on this planet. The Christmas story is scandalous because God's love is scandalous. God loves unwed mothers, teenage runaways, and young couples who mess up their lives. God loves people who have bad reputations and people who live on the other side of the tracks. God loves embezzlers, prostitutes, sex offenders, people with substance-abuse problems, and even inmates on death row. God loves the unlovable and the people on whom society has already given up. The Christmas story reminds us of this scandalous love.

Regarding acts of kindness, Christ once said, "I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you have done it for Me."³ There is something very literal about what He said because, in many ways, Jesus was the "least of these." The Christmas story reminds us that God invited "the least of these" into the story of our salvation. It reminds us that God even placed His own Son, sometimes called Emmanuel meaning "God with us," to live among them.

I hope that as we celebrate Christmas in the next few days, we will see the Christmas story for what it really is: not just a story of a baby born in a stable but a story of God's scandalous love and a story of God identifying with us. I hope that this story affects how we look at other people as we worship the one who was both fully God and fully human, the one who was both the least of these and the greatest of these.


Notes:
1 - Rulebreaker: A Christmas Story. 2010 Wayfarer. Master Teacher Guide p. 12
2 - McKinley, Seay, and Holder. Advent Conspiracy. 2009 Zondervan. p. 41-42
3 - Matthew 25:40 (CEB)


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