Photo by Gareth Harper on Unsplash
Another lunchtime, another trip to Sainsbury’s to pick up a few bits. But shortly on entering an aisle filled with dazzling Christmas decorations led me astray. What particularly caught my eye was a wooden star that lights up when switched on. At a not unreasonable price of £13 I took the plunge and bought it, figuring it would sit rather snug in my otherwise Christmas-less looking room.
Later on over dinner I replayed this minor episode to my family. It prompted a comment from my Dad which quickly felt significant in light of the dawning Christmas season. It was this: “It’s amazing the things you sometimes find when you’re out and about looking around. You just never know what you might come across.”
True of a trip to the shops, true more so of the Christmas story, a narrative familiar to most of us: busy angels, worshiping shepherds, curious wise folk, an unexpected and bizarre pregnancy, the inn, the stable, a guiding star, a baby. It’s the story of endless nativity plays, the picture of a thousand Christmas cards, the song of all those familiar, countlessly covered carols. We know the story by heart, even if the details are sometimes taken for granted. Three wise men and a donkey? Don’t be so sure.
But what I’ve found more and more over recent times is that by taking time to look at the stable story with a little more attentiveness and curiosity, it’s amazing what we might just come across.
It still astounds me to think that Mary was a teenager when the angel appeared to her (believed to be somewhere between age 12 and 16). Not only that, she was from Nazareth (‘Can anything good come from there?’ someone in the Bible asks). Think about all of this for a moment: this young peasant girl, just taking in another normal day, and an angel drops in for a chat. That in itself is big news. But then there is the news the angel brings: she will give birth to Jesus, “Son of the Most High”. How did she feel in the moments after the angel departed? What did she do? Probably took a long lie down before doing anything else! Whilst she knew that Jesus would fulfil a big role, did she understand the extent to which he would radically shake the whole world? They’re the kind of questions that can, if we allow it, unleash a wave of awesome reflection.
Or what about faithful old Joseph? He looks to be a bystander on all of this, seemingly on the fringes, ready to quietly divorce Mary because of how people may perceive her unexpected pregnancy. But then an angel appears and tells him to halt his plan. Joseph’s got a role to play — and a big one at that. I can’t but be inspired by Joseph’s gentle, understated loyalty. And for him to be told that he is not to be peripheral in the unfolding drama but pivotal to it is a thought soaked in encouragement for anyone feeling as though they are on the sidelines of life.
Then there are the shepherds. Oh, to have been a fly-on-the-wall in the moments leading up to the angelic arrival! They were out there at night. It was dark, quiet, probably a bit dull and boring. But then a bright, brilliant light, the landscape changed in a thunderous instant, and with it news that something big is going down. Wow! I mean, what is going through their minds? How did they feel to be one of a select, privileged few to be told of this monumental happening? What looks did they exchange with each other? A baby? Wrapped in swaddling clothes and in a manger? A saviour? “Say what now?!” Before the news can sink in the angel is joined by “a multitude of the heavenly host praising God”. They must have pinched themselves to check they weren’t dreaming. Even on the most routine of days God can show up rather unexpectedly.
Advent is traditionally known as a time of waiting. There’s waiting 10 minutes in the queue at the supermarket (annoying, right?) and there is waiting 400 years. That’s effectively the amount of time between the last prophecy about the coming Messiah in the Old Testament and the birth of Jesus. I like to reflect on Simeon and Anna, two people mentioned in Luke’s gospel. Simeon was a devout man who had long waited for the promised Messiah. God had even told him that he would not see death before Jesus came. As for Anna, she was an 84-year-old widow who fasted and prayed day and night in the temple as she waited for Jesus. Their place in the pages of Scripture — and the opportunity they had to see Jesus face to face — is a beautiful reminder of the way God honours devotion to Him. If only a camera was available to capture the moment when the worn and worked hands of these two faithful saints touched the smooth, infant skin of the young Jesus…
This year it’s the magi (or wise men or kings) who’ve struck a particular chord with me. I’ve gotten so familiar with how they are portrayed in modern, western culture that I’ve failed to take a look around their story. One of many stories within the story. Some people regard the magi as astrologers or astronomers, people who studied the distant, glorious skies. Why did God bring them to the stable? Why did God use a star? I’m still working on all of this, but the sheer mystery of it all just astounds me. Next time you see me, do ask how I’m getting on.
The point of all of this is that it is amazing — amazing! — what we will come across when we see beyond tradition and familiarity and filter, to spend time taking a closer look into the heart of this significant, magnificent first Christmas. In doing so you just never know what you might find. This has been my discovery each Christmas in recent times, with something new always emerging from the old, well-rehearsed story. And it’s never just head knowledge. The detail, the revelation, goes deep into my heart. It speaks to my world, our world, and unfailingly it lifts me. It’s endlessly, tremendously alive. An eternal wonder.
But should we be surprised by this? After all, this is an event, I believe, that actually happened. And it happened because of a God who is love. In the person of Jesus Christ God humbly descended to the mud and mirth of our broken world to become Emmanuel, God with us. Let that settle deep: God with us, God with you. Some 33 years after his arrival, Jesus died and rose again, for the whole world. This means he is still alive today. He is still Emmanuel, still God with us.
So of course the first Christmas can never be regarded as a mere happening. It was earth-shatteringly unique. The life of that first helpless cry from the baby Jesus lives on today. Everything about the nativity story is soaked in weighty, majestic love. There is nothing about the shepherds and young couple and gifts and Bethlehem and the star — and every other aspect of the story — that is incidental. Each was part of a beautiful tapestry of moments each carefully, thoughtfully considered by God. We can never plumb the depths of God’s being. We can only ever know so much. He is God, after all. Can we then ever plumb the depths of the Christmas story? I don’t think we can, which means there is always something to find, always something to speak into life’s seasons and questions. We simply must be curious enough to look for it — a bit like the wandering magi.
This Christmastime I’ve again enjoyed walking the odd shop or two to see what gifts and goodies I will unexpectedly find. But much more exciting than that is the invitation to again take a closer look at the story and stories of that first Christmas. No matter how many times I come, and no matter how familiar the broader narrative feels, there always remains something wonderful to discover…
“But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)
Happy Christmas!
xxx