There’s an awful lot of clutter around the
Christmas story, a lot of it generated over the
years by the church, and most of it is hard to
believe!
Take some of the carols:
- In the bleak midwinter,
- frosty wind made moan,
- Earth stood hard as iron,
- water like a stone,
- Snow had fallen, snow on snow.
A lovely midwinter feel, but have we really
got to believe it was a freak snowstorm in
Bethlehem?
Or this favourite:
- Away in a manger,
- no crib for a bed,
- The little Lord Jesus lay
- down his sweet head.
- The cattle are lowing,
- the Baby awakes,
- but little Lord Jesus
- no crying he makes.
…and every parent thinks ‘That doesn’t sound
very real!’
Add in the traditional nativity scene – with
lots of animals, but never any dung! All
beautifully clean, the hay with a fluorescent
glow, and we say ‘It’s a fairy story’. Yes,
because all that clutter does belong to the
land of make-believe!
We’re conditioned into thinking that a 9-
month pregnant Mary was riding for
hundreds of miles on a donkey, with Joseph
frantically knocking on every door in
Bethlehem, and any responsible parent
thinks ‘Surely not!’ But the original writer
(Luke) simply says Mary ‘was expecting a
child’ (2: 5) so she could have been in
Bethlehem for months. Nor is there any
mention of a big, bad innkeeper – the word
that Luke uses for inn (katalina) can mean
inn, but it could also simply mean ‘guest
room’. If the guest room was already full then
Mary and Joseph shared the room typical of
any peasant family of the time – with the
animals in the lower half, brought in for the
night. No stable, no inn, no innkeeper, no
donkey, no panic – and it all begins to seem a
bit more real!
Certainly, the original historians (Luke and
Matthew) know they are recording
extraordinary events – a virgin birth,
announced by angels, visited by astrologers –
and you and I have never seen anything like
it, but we can’t for that reason alone dismiss it.
Those gospel writers are careful to record
only what people heard and saw. And if it
sounds unbelievable to us, it was for them as
well! It took an angel showing up to convince
both Mary and Joseph that a virgin could
have a baby – he assumed she had cheated
on him, and was going to break off the
engagement.
Extraordinary events yes, but if there is a God,
then believing that Jesus was born of a virgin
birth is not irrational. In fact, believing that
God made the universe but then not
believing he could make one baby without a
human father – that would be irrational! It
would be like saying to someone ‘I know
you’re an Olympic figure skater, but I bet you
can’t do a figure of eight!!’
Is it so surprising that he reaches out to the
world he has made, that he even stoops
down to our level? Clear away the clutter and
the original story becomes surprisingly real!