I went onto the Internet the other night looking to download a graphic to use on a Christmas e-mail to send to family and friends. I rather naively did a Google image search of the word “Christmas” thinking that there would be plenty of images of the child lying in a manger, with Mary and Joseph, shepherds and wise men looking on in wonder.
I was a bit surprised to realize that I had to scroll through six pages of images before I came to the very first picture that had anything at all to do with the birth of Jesus. There were pictures of Christmas trees, wrapped gifts, Santa Claus, ornaments, stockings, snowflakes, snowmen, reindeer, the Grinch, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Sponge Bob Square Pants, people dressed as Santa Claus on surfboards, Christmas lights, penguins in elf hats, the cast of Mickey Mouse, Angry Birds (whatever they are), a woman in a very skimpy red outfit wearing a Santa hat, gingerbread men, and toy soldiers.
I scrolled through 147 images in all before stumbling across the very first picture of the child in the manger.
What is unsettling about this is that Google is a mirror image of the culture we live in. There is no religious bias in deciding which images are displayed. They are simply the result of algorithms. Google’s search engine coldly calculates what we want to see and provides it. Clearly, our cultural image of Christmas is often one of fantasy, with very little connection to the story of Christ’s birth into this broken world.
But the true joy of the incarnation of God into this world is that it takes place in the midst of real life. The truth that we encounter at the manger is all about living in this violent and often hateful world. God became man, and lived among us, and suffered and died and conquered death, because the reality of human life is so broken and unfixable that there is no other way.
The Word became flesh and lived among us, not like on a Christmas card where everything is perfect, but in the world as it is. The story of Jesus’ birth is a story of poverty, tenacity and survival. It is the story of a young pregnant teenager living in a world where being a young pregnant teenager could lead to death. It is the story of a family forced to be on the road because their lives mean nothing to those in power. It is a story in which those who are poor have no place to stay. It is a story of an immigrant family forced to flee from their home to an unfamiliar country because of the threat of violence.
The story of Jesus’ birth is a story that could just as easily be written today. Everything about it is familiar to us. Everything about it is so very real. And yet, we so often choose to buy into a fantasy rather than to embrace the gritty reality of Christ’s birth.
When we make Christmas all about opening gifts, and twinkling lights, and jolly St. Nick, it’s easy to then put it all away for another year on December 26. It becomes a one-day event, with no lasting connection to us.
But when we kneel before the child of God, as the shepherds did on that very first Christmas, and accept the Christ into our hearts, we can no longer simply walk away and go back to our lives as they once were.
Like the shepherds, the wise men, the lepers, the tax collectors, the woman at the well, and the thief hanging next to Jesus on a cross, we are now a part of this story. The story hasn’t ended yet. The story of Jesus’ birth is being lived out right here on the North Shore … by us. We are now a part of the story of the birth of Jesus.
Every time we live the gospel, Jesus is born into our community. When we share our faith, Jesus is born. When we give of ourselves to those in need, Jesus is born. When we stand up against oppression, and prejudice, and hatred, and proclaim the truth of the gospel, Jesus is born.
The Christmas story doesn’t end when the presents are all opened, and the tree is taken down, and the lights go dark. It lives each day, right here, in this community, through us. We are the ones called to bring heavenly peace into this world by sharing the birth of God among us with those who have never heard the joyous news.
Jesus, our Emmanuel, has come.
Each week a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week’s contributor is Pastor Tom Murray of Lutsen and Zion Lutheran Churches.
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