Christmas Perspective: No Holly, No Jolly, No Problem

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No Holly, No Jolly, No Problem

And [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7 (NRSV)

It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold

From "Labor of Love" by Andrew Peterson

Do you find yourself having trouble getting into "the Christmas spirit"?  Are you not so sure that you agree with the assertion that Christmas is "the most wonderful time of the year"?  Does the hustle and bustle of this season give you more anxiety than joy?  Do you hate the congested traffic and the long checkout lines which are so common this time of year?  Are your circumstances casting a dark shadow over your holiday festivities, or is the state of the world making it difficult for you to celebrate Christmas this year?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, dear reader, I would like to suggest that Christmas is still a holiday for you.  It turns out that the first Christmas would not have been described as "merry."

St. Luke writes in his Gospel,
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered...  All went to their own towns to be registered.  Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.  He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.¹
A lot is going on in this familiar passage of Scripture.

The circumstances surrounding Mary's pregnancy are already strange enough.  Nine months earlier, a messenger of God told her that she would become pregnant - even though she hadn't done anything to become pregnant - and that her Son will be her people's long awaited Messiah.²  Her fiance Joseph, knowing that her child isn't biologically his, has decided to marry her anyway and to raise her child with her as if He was his own.³  Now, because the leader of the evil occupying empire wants to take a census, Mary has to make the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem with her fiance.  This is probably not a journey she would want to make under normal circumstances, much less in the ninth month of her pregnancy.

Luke continues, "While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."  Again, a lot is going on in this passage.⁴

While Mary and Joseph are still in Bethlehem, Mary goes into labor.  Because nobody shows them any hospitality and takes them in, they have to take refuge in, of all places, a stable.  Mary expected that she would be delivering her Child at home, surrounded by family and a trusted midwife.⁵  Instead, she ends up delivering her child far from home, in a dirty, smelly cave, surrounded by dirty, smelly animals.  For lack of a proper crib, she has to lay her newborn Son in, of all things, a feeding trough.

I think it is safe to assume that Mary and Joseph did not "have a holly, jolly Christmas."

The Son of God and the true Lord of this world did not come into the world in a very auspicious way.  Brian Zahnd recently said,
The world as it is, with it's hopes, and fears, and contradicitions, and conflicts, is precisely where the Word enters the world.  Jesus was not born in a romantic, sentimental nativity snow globe.  Jesus was born in a livestock cave among an oppressed, occupied people suffering under the boot of the Roman Empire.⁶

Maybe this Christmas season has not been what you hoped it would be.  Maybe you do not feel like you think you ought to feel during Christmas.  Maybe your life doesn't look very much like a Hallmark movie or a Norman Rockwell painting.  Celebrate and rejoice anyway!  The first Christmas was a holy mess, and Jesus Christ, who was born that day, came into this mess of a world to save messes like us.  At one point, after Jesus grew up, He announced that people who are poor, people who are grieving, people who are too meek to get what they want in life, people who long for justice, and people who do the right thing and end up getting the raw deal anyway are actually the ones who are blessed.⁷

If you are struggling to get into "the Christmas spirit," dear reader, don't feel discouraged.  Celebrate anyway, remembering that Jesus Christ came into the world to be Emmanuel, "God with us."


Notes:

1. Luke 2:1, 3-5 (NRSV)
2. Luke 1:26-38
3. Matthew 1:18-25
4. Luke 2:6-7 (NRSV)
5. Adam Hamilton.  The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem.  2011, Abingdon Press.  pp. 87-89
6. Brian Zahnd.  "Where the Word Enters the World."  Word of Life Church, 12/19/2021.
7. Matthew 5:3-6, 10

Joseph and Mary Arrive in Bethlehem was painted by William Hole in the early 1900s.