For four weeks I’ve been looking for Christmas. We put up a tree and filled it with ornaments. We play Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God album while preparing dinner. Amazon delivers packages to our door almost every afternoon. We braved the cold on a run from the parking lot to visit the lights at Opryland Hotel. Starbucks allowed me to drink Christmas with a Peppermint Mocha in a red cup. My family fights over who gets to light the candles as I read an Advent devotion each night. And we drive through the neighborhood to enjoy houses and yards bedecked with lights. If Mary only knew that her likeness would one day sit inflated as a lawn ornament along with balloons of Joseph, Jesus, and stable animals.
This festivity only carries the soul so far. Eventually, I end up where it all started, with the simplicity of the story.
The Christmas story is about a journey. Actually it is a story of journeys- one long passage by two young and scared parents-to-be, another longer course by three gentiles bearing gifts, and yet an even further journey by Emmanuel. As I stare at the cast of characters in our nativity scene, Joseph and Mary gaze at Jesus. I see the animals my children continue to reposition so as to get a better look at their Maker. The Magi currently stand in the other room as they travel from afar. But there is one more character present yet often forgotten as I behold the manger scene: Me. This story of journeys invites us to consider our own, and in fact we miss Christmas when we neglect to bring the truth of our own story into the light.
How does your own journey intersect with Christmas? You can take this question as an invitation to consider the hustle and bustle of December, or you can look even further back into your life. While many celebrate Christmas and many do not, all paths intersect in Bethlehem. In the depths of our heart, all of us must decide what to do with this baby. Whether your path winds toward the manger or instead follows the easier road around town lies with you.
If we let it, the serious business of Christmas confronts us all. As Buechner says, “at Christmastime, the one who confronts us with ourselves and with this truth is…God who is a child”.
As the Christmas story tells us, Joseph and Mary responded to the intervention into their stories with fearful yet trusting hearts. God disrupted their lives, and they surrendered to his process. The Magi, too, uprooted themselves from their normal routine to desire, seek, and worship.
Of course, the Christmas story also has everything to do with a man who wanted to make the journey for all the wrong reasons: Herod. Some scholars suggest Revelation 12:4 uses a dragon to represent the heart and actions of Herod as he trembled upon hearing “It’s a King!” His rage, induced by fear of losing his throne and power, made him the first anno domini enemy of God. Herod used the Romans to secure his power, killed family members and associates in attempt to keep that control, and finally committed infanticide to ensure his throne. Easy, we say, to call him an enemy of God. We know of no one driven by such selfishness, can’t even imagine it outside of perhaps terrorists. Surely no one that sits on your pew or lives in your neighborhood or stares back in your bathroom mirror. But when we look closely at Herod we see a familiar reflection. His eyes look eerily similar to the ones we possess that covet our friend’s wife. His hands take the same contours of our children that swipe the last cookie on the family plate. Surely our complacent indifference to the world’s least of these isn’t quite as bad as his binge of control, right?
A friend texted me and a few others on Thanksgiving to let us know he appreciated us. Another friend replied all, “I could care less about you guys. Yet I love you more than I could ever imagine.” He wasn’t joking. The latter half I expected. The first part however revealed truth in the depths of you and me that rarely surfaces. Deep down, our initial instincts always center on ourselves. In dark and common moments, I care only for me and myself. I sail in Herod’s boat, a ship with “Enemies of God” painted boldly across the stern. My alliance with Herod keeps me on the lookout for ways God may interfere with my story. I, too, want the Magi to return and warn me when and where God lurks so I may thwart Him and protect myself.
Yet God does not sink my boat. And by that grace I journey toward the manger.
Wherever we journey from, it is this baby who deserves to be our destination. And when we find Him, He confronts us with the reality that, in our brokenness we are far worse off than we could ever imagine, and yet at the same time far more loved than we ever dreamed. This is the Christmas story if we stop long enough to take it seriously. It is a story we cannot tell enough, a story that welcomes us even when we struggle to believe, a story which intersects our own, and a story which invites us to the truth of ourselves, always.
So we travel toward Bethlehem. In the dark of night and in the even darker soul, we listen for the cry of a baby, and we journey to behold the Truth and the Light.
