A Christmas meditation

December 17th, 2006

We know well the events of Jesus’ final evening on Earth. Let us enter the upper room. Look around at the sparse accommodations. There is a low table, and thirteen men reclining around it on the floor. There is bread, and the men are dipping their bread in a bowl of oil and eating. There is wine, which they are drinking from a common cup. You get the feeling there is much more to this meal than just a bunch of men satiating their hunger. The leader is speaking. He speaks of this being his final meal until a kingdom arrives. He speaks of one who will betray him. He speaks of his friends doing this again in the future as a memorial to him. His friends look baffled. They exchange glances and murmur among themselves about which of them is the betrayer.

Jesus life ended in pain, shame, humiliation, and betrayal. It didn’t begin much better. Remember that in the eyes of local society, Jesus had been conceived out of wedlock. That was a very big deal in that society. Mary was no doubt scorned and ostracized by her family and acquaintances. Joseph fared no better. Although we don’t know this for sure, it is possible that one of the reasons the couple could not have a warm bed that night was the fact that all of Joseph’s family in Bethlehem knew about the scandal.

As we leave the dusty upper room in Jerusalem, and travel a few miles and thirty-three years backward in time, we go from the final night of Jesus’ earthly incarnation to his first night. But we will find things much the same.

Again, the surrounding are modest, to say the least. If anything, they are more so. Jesus’ earthly parents, peasants from the northern backwater, sit among the straw of farm animals. They are surrounded by the filth and stench of the animals. Joseph looks down with conflicting emotions as his young bride cradles the baby she had given birth to just moments ago. This is not a nativity scene — at least, not the kind you see in your neighbor’s front yard. Remember, this is not a hospital room. There is no medical staff, no anesthesia, no sterile gown and bed for the new mother. There is not even any clean water available. Can you imagine the mess after a baby is born in a barn? Mothers, you think you had it rough giving birth? Can you put yourself in Mary’s place?

And so we find the same elements present at the birth of the Messiah as at His death — pain, shame, humiliation, and betrayal.

You can’t make this stuff up, folks. No human being could ever conceive of such a story.

Who comes into a world in such as way as this? What kind of God chooses to be born amid scandal and shame? What kind of deity allows himself to be treated about as badly as any man ever has been by the people He comes to save? What kind of King would watch as His newborn son is laid in an animal’s feed trough by “fornicating” peasants?

I believe that our God is a God who identifies every bit as much with the homeless “trash” shivering under the freeway overpass on Christmas Eve as with the perfect suburbanite family gathered around the perfect Christmas tree exchanging gifts. His love extends as far into the heart of the teenager who at this moment is shooting more drugs into his body as with the one who is singing in a church choir. His compassion is shared equally by the baby in Sudan who was born dying from AIDS and by the baby just born to the most respected family in town.

God’s love knows no borders of nationality, class, language, religion, race, social status, age, gender, education, intelligence, physical beauty, or any other construct used by men to separate us from one another. Our God sees right past those things. I doubt that He would notice them at all if not for our insistence on calling attention to them.

Christmas is a time when we recognize the greatest gift anyone ever gave. We attempt to memorialize this awesome gift by giving one another trinkets wrapped in tinsel. And there is noting wrong with that, if kept in perspective. But the greatest gift we could possibly give this Christmas would be to try for just one moment to see each other as God sees us. If we could learn to obey Jesus’ greatest commandment, to figure out how to look at the crowded masses as He did, with great love and compassion.

If for even a fleeting moment, we could see past all the walls we have so carefully built to separate us and see one another as creatures of God worthy of the best that Heaven had to offer, then I think we will have given our Heavenly Father a Christmas gift worthy of the name of Christ.

Entry Filed under: Pete's Blog