Ruining the Christmas Story

This is the time of year when people start getting mad at me for ruining the Christmas story for them and their families. I’ve found when I began preaching through the Christmas narratives, I would inadvertently pop somebody’s bubble and leave out their favorite part of the story. Worse, I would tell them their favorite part of the story was never in the story at all.

No, the Little Drummer Boy wasn’t at the manger. Think about it. What mother is going to insist another child bang on a drum while her newborn is trying to sleep.

There was no innkeeper. The innkeeper is never mentioned in Luke. We’re just told there was no room in the inn for Mary and Joseph. We’ve made up the whole story. Remember how mean the innkeeper was? How cruel do you have to be to make a pregnant woman sleep out in the barn? This seems to cause a lot of existential crises for a lot of my church members. After all, some of them played the innkeeper in their church’s Christmas pageant and now, they’ve found out they were never part of the story at all.

And it probably wasn’t a barn. We have a lot of evidence that indicates it most likely was a cave where animals were kept and the lamb, donkey and cow were probably not at the scene. Makes a good story, but probably didn’t happen.

The wise men didn’t arrive until much later. The family was living in a house and Jesus, according to Matthew, was a toddler. That’s why Herod issued the order to kill every child in Bethlehem under the age of two. He wanted to be sure Jesus was killed. Joseph’s sensitivity to the Spirit and his courage to act saved their lives.

This means every nativity scene you’ve ever seen is wrong. Mary and Joseph kneeling serenely close to the manger where Baby Jesus was lying in his manger, surrounded by adoring shepherds and worshipping wise men who had parked their camels on the other side of the sheep and cows. This one seemed to draw the most ire. I’ve found out that people go to great lengths to display their Nativity scenes. In fact, some people have expensive sets from all over the world and when you visit their homes during the holidays, you have to go on a tour of all the nativity scenes your friends have collected from all over the world.

And now, they’ve come to church to find out they’re all wrong.

One other part of my Christmas work was to remind the younger pastors I worked with not to feel an inordinate pressure to say something creative or insightful during their Advent and Christmas sermons. The church has been preaching the story of Jesus’ birth for over 2000 years and the chances of any of us saying something that hasn’t been said by some preacher is almost zero. Relax, I will tell them, the story is creative and wonderful enough all by itself.

Most preachers assume their congregations have heard the story before. They haven’t. Sure, they know a little about Jesus and a little about His birth, but that story is often woven into the stories of Santa, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snow Man. Few in our congregation understand why the birth of a baby in Bethlehem would shake up the world like it did. For all of our trying, we can’t make the story any better.

A long time ago, the Father made a promise to Abraham that through his and Sarah’s blood line would come a Savior who would save the people from their sins. Not only would this Promised One save His people from their enemies, He would save them from themselves. This Savior would not be some God sent, but instead, would be God Himself coming into our world. Not only that, but he would come in weakness and in need. He would be born helpless.

He would be born a child to parents no one had ever thought about in a place most people had forgotten about to a people who didn’t understand how badly they needed saving.

God had moved his salvation plan across history and time to this moment and this time. His mother was a teen-ager who totally surrendered to God’s will in her life. Joseph, his father, would believe God was up to something in this moment even though all he had was a baby he knew wasn’t his and a dream that God was working out in plan in Mary.

There’s Elizabeth and Zachariah, shepherds in a field, wise men from across the desert, Simeon and Anna …and a star that told the world there had never been a night like this in the history of the world.

What a story.

It’s the greatest story that has ever been told.

We don’t have to add anything to it. Just tell it again.

Just believe it again.

Merry Christmas.

This essay was first posted in Scot McKnight’s newsletter.