Slipping Silent Through the Back Door
I went to a Catholic school for my elementary school years that was staffed primarily by religious sisters. The year I was in second grade, I asked Sister Mary Helen why we celebrated Jesus’ birth in December since no one seemed to know his real birthday. (I’d asked another sister that one, and got shut down pretty quickly.) And I also wondered why Mary and Joseph were traveling without coats if it was wintertime, and why didn’t she put a good snowsuit on the Baby Jesus after he was born instead of “swaddling clothes”? In my mind, it made no sense. I had a baby brother, and he got bundled up within an inch of his life every time we so much as ventured between house and car! Sister Helen was annoyed with my questions, and with a pinched, sour-pickle mouth, told me it wasn’t my place to understand, to simply be a good girl and pray to Jesus to forgive my sins.
That didn’t help much, but it’s what I did... I stopped asking questions for many years.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to ask questions. I now ask lots of questions, about all kinds of things. And at this time of year, the same questions about the birth of Jesus rise forth; not the veracity of the event - I believe that with all my heart. My questions are a bit different.
How did the Christian church (as a whole) come to see the birth of Jesus as a time for pageantry, pomp, formal rites and rituals? Given the humble beginnings of Christianity - especially how Jesus was born, how did so many of our churches become places more comfortable for the well-heeled than for the destitute? How did we become institutions that value rules over love? Compliance over compassion? Exclusion over inclusion?
I ask such questions because it’s hard to connect Jesus’ simple birth in an animal’s feed trough with Christmas as it’s come to be celebrated. It seems to me we’ve gentrified the Christmas story, sanitized it for popular consumption, prettied it up with bows and tinsel, and forgotten the authentic and gritty reality of that first Christmas. We’ve glossed over the stark reality of Mary and Joseph’s predicament in Bethlehem, thus failing to appreciate the difficult circumstances of the actual event.
Mary and Joseph lived in an occupied land, under an imperialistic and oppressive power. The Romans were barely tolerant of the Jews, certainly not respectful of their beliefs and traditions. At the time Mary was due to deliver, Caesar Augustus decreed that the Jews in the Roman province of Judea were to return to their place of birth and register for tax purposes; there was no choice but to go and register - the “or else” was implicit and well understood. Mary and Joseph had no choice. Hit the road, no matter the inconvenience and danger, or face the consequences.
Mary was a young teen, pregnant before she even wed Joseph, about to deliver her first child. Joseph had refused to “divorce” her when he discovered her pregnancy, a legal requirement of his Jewish faith when his fiancé became pregnant, and he was not the father. He chose to marry her because of love but also because of that angel who’d visited him several months earlier. Mary and Joseph both had life-altering encounters with the Holy Spirit and angels: how would we see them today? Would we believe them? Think they were delusional? Accept their stories? Instead, it’s probable that these young people were seen as rebellious, rule-breakers, outcasts in their world, their culture. It was not an auspicious beginning to those looking on from the outside.
And then? I cannot imagine Mary’s anxiety as they reached Bethlehem, with the doors of every inn closed in their faces. What was she thinking as she started labor, with no place to lay down? As any mom will tell you, labor is difficult enough with soft sheets, warm water and experienced caretakers to help one along in the delivery; but to be stranded with no place to stay? No one to help? I shudder.
Did Joseph and Mary look like vagrants? Homeless young kids, dirty, scruffy, smelling of the dust and dung of the roads they’d been traveling for days? Were the inns really full-up? or perhaps the innkeepers simply didn’t like the looks of them--turning them away in disgust, wiping their hands free of the grime of two kids that didn’t look “good enough” for their fine establishments. Perhaps one of them took pity and sent them to the stables, more to get them away from the view of their other, better dressed and paying clientele. Maybe they simply stumbled into a stable out of desperation. And I wonder, would I accept two young scruffy strangers - with one about to give birth - into my home today? I’m ashamed to admit I just don’t know.
And we know Jesus was born in a stable, laid in a manger, and wrapped in cloths. Given the circumstances of Mary and Joseph on the night he was born, the “cloths” may have been whatever rags they could lay hold of, though I like to think that Mary thought ahead for her road trip, knowing she would likely give birth while they were away, and packed some swaddling clothes for her baby.
As the story goes, Mary and Joseph didn’t even get to return home after Jesus’ birth, fleeing instead to Egypt when they discovered Jesus was in danger of being murdered. They became refugees, fleeing the irrational temper and cruelty of the very one who had demanded they leave home to register as Jews in Bethlehem to begin with- not unlike today’s refugees that spill into camps world-wide, seeking refuge from their own caesars, from their own nightmare of imposed cruelty and destruction.
There was nothing glamorous about Jesus’ birth. His parents were poor, homeless, refugees - the very marginalized that many in today’s legalistic churches despise. Understanding the power of the Incarnation of Jesus is to also understand how he chose to come: born without fanfare to parents of humble means.. He chose to silently slip to earth through the back door, with precious few given the news of this Miracle-Gift: his mother and father, some shepherds herding sheep. Maybe the very animals who shared their straw with him knew the glory of the miracle they witnessed. I’d like to think so. That first night? It was these select few that God deemed worthy to welcome the birth of His Son.
Christmas is a beautiful time of year, but it should also be a time when we recognize the “upside-down-ness” of God’s universe. The low are made lofty; the humble are raised up. The King of all Creation was born in a stable. Shepherds were the first responders to the Good News. The poor young woman gave birth to the the greatest King; the three kings showed up late, worshiping a baby.
We need to learn that what we esteem as valuable is not what God deems valuable. God’s ways are almost always upside-down- His justice and compassion always trump what we might deem estimable, valuable, true. His gifts of salvation, redemption and love are intended for all men, all women - regardless of status, title, wealth, color, nationality, gender, ethnicity - or any other division we can come up with. He sent this Gift for everyone. That’s the Good News.
Late one cold night in a stable, a young girl of humble roots gave birth to God’s Son. The very Incarnation of the Father’s love slipped silently into the back door of humanity, and forever changed the course of humanity. Now that’s something worth celebrating, with loud shouts of joy, and deep love in our hearts. For all men. As the angel announced to the shepherds - peace and good will to ALL the earth.
Merry Christmas. May it be a blessed time of grace and love for you and your family.