He Came

A bit of frank honesty about this time of the year....

Christmas time is full of many conflicting emotions for me. To varying degrees, neither Chris nor I grew up in families that made a big deal out of Christmas time. In the years since we've been married, we've juggled differences in opinions and there's needed to be a lot of give and take from both of us. Every year I think I will somehow sort things out and come to a better place with it all, but I end up just "making it through" December and leaving it all behind until next year.

I'm not sure that I'm really ready to delve into a full blown discussion on the origin of Christmas and what a person should choose to do with all of that. Maybe your insights would be helpful, I don't know.  I've struggled with all of that for years but that's not what I came here to talk about. I came here to talk about the actual story of Jesus birth. 

Do me a favor and go read this article about the story of Jesus birth, then come back and think about this with me....

How do you feel? Maybe you are skeptical of the writer; maybe you already successfully scoffed at the new ideas and held on to what you've always believed. I get it. I can't say with authority that the information in that article is one hundred percent accurate but I must admit, it does make a lot more sense than the story I've believed for years. 

Forget the fact that celebrating Christmas began with pagan roots and Jesus' birth did not take place on December 25th. What if the actual story we've portrayed for years has been a completely skewed version of the truth? What if every Christmas song you've sung, every nativity you've set up or acted out, every program you've watched or been a part of was based on the figment of western imagination? Does that kind of throw you for a loop, like it did me? Does it almost take the "magic" out of Christmas and leave you feeling confused and slightly sad and a tad cynical?

I confess that I still am not really sure what to do with it all. I do know this, it's made me realize that the miracle and wonder of Jesus' birth is not in the story. I think I've tied the meaning of it all to the picture of rejection and loneliness and abandonment we've created with our smelly stable and grouchy innkeeper. If I take away those things, it almost feels like I have nothing left and that is so far from the truth!

This article reminded me of the truth: "The incarnation is the miracle: it's not Jesus' otherness but his us-ness, his human-ness, his full experience as fully human and fully God together that is the miracle."

It doesn't have to be scary to realize I've been wrong. It doesn't have to throw me for a loop and put me into a helpless despair of wondering what to even do with it all. I still don't know how Christmas should look or how exactly we should tell our children the old, old story. I do think truth matters and that we should embrace learning, even when it makes us uncomfortable and pushes us outside of what we've always known and loved. But mostly, I want to remember that it's the incarnation that is the miracle. It's not so much how and when and where He came, but the fact that He Did.