In Advent and during Christmas time it is pretty typical to see lots of pictures of baby Jesus calming laying in a manger (of course sleeping and not crying), to see animals attentively looking on instead of the donkey taking a giant dump in the corner, or the Ox trying to eat the hay/straw that Jesus was laying on, or to see Mary sweetly standing there and not at all in pain or disturbed that she just gave birth to the Lord where her family stores their animals at night. My point is we often attempt to sanitize the nativity scene of all uncomfortableness, pain, or frustration.
What I think would be more beneficial for us is to view the nativity scene in all its ordinariness and messiness. That God loved his creation so much that he was willing to come down in this way, being humbly born in a stable. Jesus didn’t enter with pomp and circumstance, with trumpets blaring, with the most comfortable bed, silk sheets, and room controlled temperature, instead, he was born in a crowded area with animals that I am sure did not smell the most pleasant. From the very beginning, we are shown that God has first shown us, love, before we ever contemplated turning to God. I believe the way Jesus was born also shows us from the start of his birth that he is the suffering servant, who came to serve and not be served.
Even after Christmas, we face the temptation to take the “sanitized Jesus” into the new year, instead of Jesus who came down to our world in the flesh in the midst of pain, darkness, and brokenness. As British Poet Philip Britts said, “It was never Christ’s purpose to bring about self-improvement. He became poor not to offer us a moral toning up, however good this may be. The Word became flesh so that the same amazing life that broke into the world when Jesus Christ was born actually becomes realized in our own lives here and now.” (Philip Britts, Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Walden: Plough Publishing House, 2001), 112.)
This love of Christ, the Son of God being born is not about giving us “warm fuzzies” during the Holiday season; instead this revolutionary love seeks to transform our hearts, our lives, and the world!
