Silver Star or Stone Manger?

When I knelt in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity for a photo at the very spot where Jesus is believed to have been born, I didn't experience a moving encounter with God. The scene seemed strange to me. After the passing of more than 2,000 years, the little cave that is venerated as the site of Christ's birth now has a marble floor. There's a 14-point silver star inscribed in Latin to mark the location of the holy birth. Fifteen silver lamps hang above the star from an altar, and the altar area is festooned with an elaborate gold tapestry. The pomp of the place borders on pomposity. It's as if the Church's caretakers tried too hard over the centuries to make pilgrims feel the importance of what they were seeing. They wanted it to be extraordinary, but in the end it didn't seem real.

Phil and Dorry at the Grotto of the Nativity  

I wonder what my father thought of this ornate and unreal place when he visited it thirty years before I did. He once wrote that folks tend to misuse the celebration of Christ's birth to escape from reality. "As we gather in the beauty of this Christmas Eve night, to sing familiar carols, to hear again the ancient story of the nativity, and then to bathe ourselves and our house of worship in the warm glow of candles, we must be careful not to let this night or this season become a mere escape.

The pagan side of Christmas - and I'm sure we all recognize there is a pagan side - is primarily an escape from the cares and tensions and frustrations of daily living. The lights, the revelry, and the frantic activity can create, for a brief time, a world apart. Christmas as a winter festival, as a celebration of the astronomical Winter Solstice, is much older than the birth of Christ. At first, Christmas was a pagan holiday, a welcome relief from the strain and boredom of ancient life in the dead of winter. Only later did the Christian Church take over this holiday, baptize it as it were, and turn it into a celebration of the birth of Christ. And so Christmas, even before it was Christmas, had this atmosphere of escapism about it.

But designating this holiday as the anniversary of the birth of Christ changed its whole direction from escapism to a new confrontation with reality. Christian believers know that in the birth of Christ - in the Incarnation of God in human form -  we see our Heavenly Father taking the world and earthly human life very seriously, seriously enough to become one of us and share our life completely. Christmas is not the story of a spectacular divine pageant in the glorious chambers of Heaven. Christmas is the story of how God's saving love got itself born into stark, cold reality - to a peasant couple, citizens of an occupied land, in a cattle stall, with only humble shepherds to witness the event.

The story of Christmas is so real and everyday in its human pathos that we can identify with it completely. It's like the crazy, stressful, frustrating situations we get stuck in so often. A young girl finds herself pregnant out of wedlock. Her fiance wrestles with the question of whether he can trust her. A forced trip to a distant town to register for taxes comes at just the wrong time for them. There are 'no vacancy' signs everywhere at the end of their long, hard journey. There is the pain of childbirth and the discomfort of a cold stable. There is the hurried flight to a safe country because of a volatile political situation."

Days after visiting Bethlehem, I unexpectedly came upon a very real reminder of the Christmas story that impacted me far more than the silver star on the floor of the Grotto of the Nativity. Dorry and I were touring the ruins of the ancient city of Megiddo (better known by its Greek name, Armageddon). As we walked through the excavated site of a stable from the Old Testament era of Israel's King Ahab, I asked the tour guide about a large, hollowed stone I saw there. He replied, "Oh, that's a just manger for feeding horses." A manger, eh? It was cool to the touch, even in the afternoon sun. It was literally rock-hard. It's edges were rough and unforgiving. It was no place to lay a newborn baby. Yet a manger like this was pressed into service as a make-shift cradle for the baby Jesus. I lingered over the ancient manger, struck by the cold, hard reality of it.

Manger at the South Stables of Megiddo

"From the very first breath he drew, Jesus experienced the brutal reality of the broken world he came to save. He felt the sharp edges of life from the very beginning. And just because this is true, when you or I speak to Him in heartfelt prayer, we can call him not only our Lord and Savior, but also our friend and our brother. Here is a Savior who knows what it is he saves us from, because he's been there. Yes, Christmas is the story of how God infiltrated the real world to save it from the inside out.

What is the reality of your personal situation this Christmas? Where are you hurting? How have you been disappointed? What are you afraid of? Be assured that the God who would stoop to an ordinary birth in an ordinary barn knows the ordinary problems and griefs of all his children. He's been there. He knows and feels it with you. This is the deepest meaning of the name we use for him this time of year: Emmanuel -- God With Us. 

In the mix of this cold, hard reality where he is with us, Jesus turns to us this Christmas and says, 'Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.'  As John puts it at the beginning of his gospel, 'The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.'"            

Thank you, Jesus, for being Emmanuel - God with us - this Christmas and every day. Amen.

From: "Christmas: Confrontation with Reality"   

The Nativity In The Living Room

Do you have a crèche or nativity scene somewhere in your home this Advent? In the Newcomer house, we have manger scenes in several rooms to celebrate Jesus’ birth.

On Christmas Eve of 1984, my father preached a sermon at Paoli United Methodist Church that challenged the traditional picture of Christ’s lowly birth in a stable. It turns out that if you place a manger scene in your living room, you may be closer to the truth than you might think:

“The story of the first Christmas is fraught with so much tradition that sometimes it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate what we actually know from the Scriptures about the event, from what has been added over the years by the collective imagination of believers in order to fill in the missing pieces. Christmas pageants over the years have conditioned us to imagine Mary and Joseph arriving late in Bethlehem, perhaps her labor pains already beginning. We've seen countless pictures of Joseph knocking on the door of the crowded inn, and we've heard all kinds of condemnations heaped on the innkeeper for not finding them a room. But all of this is supposition; none of it is in the Scripture itself. The text from the Second Chapter of Luke actually reads this way: “And while they were there the days were accomplished when she was to be delivered.” It really sounds as though Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem days ahead of Jesus’ birth.

The tradition about Jesus being born in a stable also may not fit the facts. In Luke, we read these precious words: “Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” We have always supposed that a stable was his birthplace because they were turned away from the inn, and when he was born they laid him in a manger, a feeding trough for domestic animals. Where else would a manger be than in a stable?

Actually, there is another explanation. The Greek word kataluma – which is translated as “inn” – really means “guest room,” not “inn.” In the parable of the Good Samaritan, when the Samaritan takes the wounded traveler to an inn to recuperate, Luke uses an entirely different Greek word for inn. In Luke’s account of the preparations for the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples to find a “guest room” for the Passover meal. Here, the word is kataluma – the same word used in Luke 2’s story of Jesus’ birth. In short, a better translation of Luke’s account might go something like this: “She gave birth to her firstborn son and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the guest room.” Since Bethlehem was Joseph’s ancestral town, one might suppose that he had relatives there with whom they were supposed to stay, but by the time they arrived, the guest room was already full of kin-folk because of the census, so Mary and Joseph had to stay in the main part of the house – the living room, so to speak. But what about the manger? This doesn't explain the manger.

It is important to understand how a First Century Jewish house was arranged. It was usually one large room, and if the family could afford it, a kataluma, or guest room, was attached because of the Jewish emphasis on hospitality to strangers. The main room of the house was itself divided into two parts. The back part was a platform raised about one or two feet above ground level. Here, the family lived, cooked, ate and slept. The lower, front part of the main room was at ground level, and into this area the livestock was often brought to spend cold nights with the family. Naturally, a manger was there with fresh straw for the animals, and often it doubled as a cradle for the babies.

Is Luke telling us that when Mary and Joseph arrived at the house where they planned to stay, the guest room was already full, and so they had to stay in the main room of the house with all the family and the animals, and there the newborn child was laid in a manger?

Of course, there is much supposition in this theory, but if it is true it makes an important point. Luke seems to want us to know that Jesus – the Son of God – was born, not off in the guest room, but right in the midst of smelly hay, snorting animals, anxious onlookers, and the tenderness and love of the family circle. Jesus, our Savior, was born like all of the other children of that day. He was tenderly placed precisely where all other babies of that day were cradled.

If we experience the birth of Christ this Christmas, it will not be in the guest rooms of our lives – not off to the side in those special compartments of our lives that we've reserved for him – but right in the middle of it all, right in the middle of everyday living. … Jesus was born where we work and live and love and where we hurt. He is Emmanuel, God with us. … He goes to any lengths to meet us in the real stuff of life. … He is always where we are, concerned about what’s going on now in our lives. His salvation is not an other-worldly experience; it is for the here and now. God’s favorite place is the commonplace.”

Merry Christmas, my friends!

From: "The Nativity in the Living Room"

Scripture: Luke 2:1-7

Preached at Paoli UM Church

December 24, 1984