How MERRY the First Christmas

It's like a scene from the story of The Little Match Girl. Standing in the black, white, and grays of the cold winter night, a waif-like girl, stands staring into the window of the wealthy as they celebrate a festive, color-rich, aroma-laden holiday celebration. It is Christmas for all, but that plate glass window might as well be a universe of separation between the two worlds.

The older I get, the more I realize how we religious folk,..in an attempt to preserve it's significance wonder,..have taken the most tender, fearful moment of God's intervention in human history, only to glamorize, trivialize, merchandize, and holy-fy it. Starting with religious education, then Americanization, the simple, insecure wonder of the first Christmas has been turned it into plastic figurines on front lawns in December or miniature crèches, the necessary part of most people holiday decorations.

I don't mean holy,...as in "God is holy",…but Western Christian's concept of the Nativity has made it "a sacred place of pilgrimage or worship." (Webster's Dictionary)

Over the years, as an artist I've used sound, color, and images to move church, theater, and television audiences at Christmas time. "Creating the right atmosphere" it's called. The costuming must be right: Dress Mary (ages 18-25) in blue and white. Use a live baby if possible…and pray he/she 1) doesn't cry during "Silent Night" or 2) that he/she move their arms so the audience can stop wondering if it is a real baby or not.

But, as a writer, historian, and storyteller, I am irresistibly drawn to the simplicity of the original events. As Luke (the author of the book named for him in the Bible) writes to his friend Theophilus, I can sense his struggle editing such a lengthy account of the life of Christ. I can also imagine him tucking away parchment notes to do a longer treatment on just the birth of Christ when he could get around too it.

The writer in me wants to compress the story to a one-hour telling, accurate, but competitive enough to hold the average American's overly video-stimulated mind.

The historian must get the setting, the background, the politics, the costuming, the architecture and the language precise.

The storyteller,..compromisor between the two,..walks the tightrope, piping his audience along though the sights, smells, feelings, and emotions of the characters. His time is of essence; he must guide you with speed AND accuracy.

So, "Touch my robe", as the Second Spirit told Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Journey with me before tinsel and the trimmings, ribbons and wrappings, carols and cards, Santa and sleigh bells. Travel to when holidays were scarce, life was hard, insecure, and often cruel.

Un-Holy Night -- After twenty-one centuries, choirs and soloists sing, "Oh, Holy Night." But that late summer or early autumn night Mary and Joseph the carpenter huddled in the cave below the Bethlehem Inn, it was not a Sabbath or holy (special, set apart) day in their culture; just another average night, after an average day, in an average week, in an average year. But that's how God interrupted human history--on an average day.

Un-Wanted -- Long before Mary was elevated by religious leaders to veneration, she was a simple, Jewish girl, scarcely out of puberty. It is with the naïveté of a teenager she says to the angel in Luke 1:38, "Let it be as you have said," then heads off to spend three months with her cousin miles from town.

Returning home, now in the full bloom of motherhood, Mary is met with skepticism and hostility. It is a small town, the rumor mill turns, and Mary is grist for the wheel. Her explanation is outrageous, her family shamed, her fiancé is wounded, her community disgraced. Their choices few, dictated by the Law of their Fathers: Banishment, Divorce, or Death.

Un-Comfortable -- Luke 2:19 says that, following the visit of the Bethlehem shepherds, Mary "treasured up all these things in her heart and pondered on them." But that concise statement is only the summation of more than nine months of turmoil and triumph. She had an angelic visit, but only her fiancé would believe her. Mary endured the gossip and ridicule of small town Nazareth.

One songwriter captured her heart in Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song),

I have traveled Many moonless night
Cold and Weary With a babe inside
And I wonder What I've done

Holy Father You have come
Chosen me now To carry your son
I am waiting in a silent prayer

I am frightened by the load I bear
In a world as cold as stone
Must I walk this path alone

Be with me now … Be with me now

Un-Recognied -- The Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament books in the Bible), written between 1450 BC and 430 BC, contain hundreds of prophecies about an “anointed one” or Meshach who would arrive in their future. This Messiah would “deliver” or “save” all the Jewish people, bringing them to paradise or heaven.

For 170 years, brutal Roman soldiers raped, pillaged, and murdered at will to keep their dominance an undisputed reality. Religion was the common man's solace, their hope, but its leaders untrustworthy. The prophecies were taught, but they were for future generations…the God of Abraham seemed impotent.

Thus, the problem of recognizing fulfilled prophecies on average days, through average people. The approval of prophecy fulfillment often falls to scholars and the sanctimonious who spend time jerking camels through the eyes of needles. Their opinion is colored by prejudice, experience, and doctrine. Fortunately, God seldom needs our approval or salvation of the human race would still be trapped in unending committee consults.

It was a handful of average people who recognized Jesus that week:

• peasant Jewish girl
• sawdust covered carpenter,
• ragtag bleary-eyed sheep-herders, and
• two elderly church goers who refused to accept more than shallow, token religious show. (See Luke 2)

Un-Accepted --After his humble birth, Jesus and his "kingdom teachings" were rejected by the religious hierarchy because this self-styled rabbi didn't match their desired Messiah-mold. Herod the Great feared Jesus because of complications an heir to the Throne of David would be to his Judean client-king relationship with Rome. Roman officials (Pilate) might tolerate miracle workers and healers, but kingdom builders had no place in the Empire.

Un-Embraced --Despite centuries of effort, few orchestras strike notes so desolate, painters choose oils so lonely, writers touch hearts with isolation, or singers probe the insecurity facing Mary, Joseph and the newborn child.

"No room!" ripped at the heart of Joseph and Mary. Ironically, it still echoes in streets of America where an enlightened, tolerant society has room for anything but the nativity in public buildings. (Not much has changed in 2000 years.)

No special lighting to add a magic glow to face of the infant in the cave.

No perfume overwhelmed the musk and manure of the animals that shared his birthing room.

No comfort was afforded the swaddled infant in the stone-carved manger other than broken straw and passed over grain. ... (A foreshadowing of another stone-carved ledge were his lifeless, swaddled body would lay thirty-three years later.)

No family surrounded the couple, providing them with the security of relativities and friends.

The future -- insecure.

Their hope -- in a God who lead one average day at a time.

So this Christmas, as you stand in your festive, color-rich, aroma-laden holiday, take a moment and pause at the Nativity. Look though the plate glass window of time and allow the music, bright lights and colors to fade. Tarry a moment and watch Mary, Joseph, and the baby of the crèche start to move. They once were more than carved figurines.

They were average people, just like you and me…when on one average night, a newborn's cry announced human history would be average no more.

(For a fairly accurate retelling of the familiar story of the first Christmas, watch The Nativity Story, released 2006.)