It’s quiet now. Remnants of the day are spread over the floor and the noise of the day has been swallowed up by the steady breathing of sleep.
In the living room, light from the Christmas tree catches the nativity scene. I’m struck by how normal it seems. A baby. Donkeys. Sheep. All fixtures of the season.
The absurdity of a baby in a manger can become numbingly familiar. Bethlehem can grow stale in a season full of nativity scenes and Silent Nights.
Beautiful.
Serene.
Incomplete.
Mary is cradling her baby, depicted without the violence of labour. Her face is free from dirt and sweat. She is silent, without the screams of delivery; tidy, without the mess of birth. And I wonder whether the perfection of the moment has blurred the face of God.
Between the angels and wisemen and shepherds, I can forget that Jesus came as He died: in agony and blood and water. Jesus did not avoid the curse when He entered our world.
Instead, God entrusted his child to a mother who did not know what she was doing. He gave Jesus to a girl who would have to learn to nurse and swaddle and discipline. God gave his son to parents who would fail and raise their voices and get it wrong. Who would need to ask forgiveness of their son.
Jesus was born into complicated family dynamics.
Misunderstood by the people who were closest.
Bethlehem meant a childhood full of boredom and excitement and stomach flus. It meant a life marked by hurt and belly laughs and betrayal. Bethlehem meant sweat and blisters and work.
Bethlehem meant being alone in the darkness.
It meant knowing heaven and hell.
Which means that Bethlehem’s promise is not only salvation for an aching world.
The manger means that God knows what it is to live this side of heaven.
The manger means that God knows what it is to be helpless, naked and crying in the dirt.
The manger means that God is not waiting for us to get ourselves together before He comes in.
It means that glory still comes in the dirt.
Bethlehem’s promise is that God is with us, as we are. He is still running into the mess.
He is in the perfect Christmas and the broken one.
He is still Emmanuel.
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