I had the privilege of babysitting my niece (Amelia) and nephew (Griffin) on Saturday night. As part of their bedtime routine, they each chose one book for me to read aloud. Amelia chose a short picture book while Griffin chose two chapters of a Magic Tree House Book. They each listened to the other’s selection, Amelia sitting on my lap, Griffin curled around my shoulders like a comfortable cat or dog.
As I read from The Magic Tree House, Amelia leaned her head back and looked around the room. She said, “I can look anywhere I want during this story because there aren’t any pictures.” I didn’t think much of her comment until church on Sunday morning. As I sat listening to the cantata, I thought about the Christmas story that was being read to me through music and spoken word. For some reason, it made me think about reading to Griffin and Amelia the night before—reading and imagining what it would be like to travel to the moon and ride on a moon buggy.
The story on Saturday night was exciting and alive. While Amelia looked around the room, she pretended to be in the story. She wasn’t tied to pictures on a page but free to imagine images in her head. She was fully engaged in the story. So was Griffin. They didn’t want me to stop reading because they wanted to know what would happen next…
I wish I could say that I greet the Christmas story with this same excitement and imagination. But if I’m honest, then I must admit that I don’t. I’ve heard the story so many times and I’ve seen so many nativity scenes and I’ve witnessed so many arguments about keeping Christ in Christmas that the story has lost something along the way. I wish this confession weren’t true. I wish that I approached the season of Advent with the same anticipation and wondering with which Griffin and Amelia approached The Magic Tree House on Saturday night or that I’ve approached the 57 audio books that I’ve “read” this year. But I don’t. I know the Christmas story. I know how Christ’s life began and I know how it ended. The story is familiar. It’s comforting. It’s part of the narrative of my life. Yet I grieve the fact that it’s been reduced to a still, stale nativity scene. I grieve that the “greatest story ever told” has gotten stuck on the page in a clean, perfect moment…
Because it couldn’t have been a clean, perfect moment. Well. It could have been perfect, but I doubt it was clean. Mary had a baby in a stable. On its own, having a baby isn’t clean. I’ll leave you to ponder the details of childbirth. And on its own, a stable isn’t clean. I’ll leave you to ponder the smells that accompany a stable. And Mary and Joseph couldn’t have remained frozen in a posture of peaceful adoration while shepherds and wise men came to visit. They still had to eat and drink and sleep and take care of normal bodily functions and “household” chores. And Joseph probably had to leave the stable to be counted in the census, right? [I don’t know about this because I don’t know how the census worked…but the census is why they were going to Bethlehem, right? So it makes sense that they had to do something with the census at some point.]
And the shepherds probably had to heavily weigh whether or not to leave their sheep—their livelihood—alone in the fields to do what the angels said. They probably had to discuss what they’d just seen and heard and figure out what they wanted to do. And they probably had to figure out what to say when they arrived at the stable. How do you introduce yourself to the parents of a newborn baby who is declared to be the Son of God? And when they got there, they probably didn’t freeze in humble submission as much as they gazed upon the baby Jesus in awe—like we gaze upon newborns in awe. They probably made silly little noises and funny little faces and ooo-ed and ahh-ed about how beautiful Jesus was. I’m not saying they didn’t bow down. But I don’t think they froze in one silent position.
And…I don’t know. The possibilities of LIFE in the nativity scene and the Christmas story seem endless when I take the time to read or listen beyond the page—to look around the room and imagine what it might have been like to be there—not just on the night Jesus was born but during the moments when Mary and Joseph found out they were having a child, when Mary marveled at the changes taking place in her body during pregnancy, when Simeon and Anna saw their lives’ ambitions fulfilled when Jesus was presented at the temple, when Joseph changed his first diaper, when…you fill in the blank.
Oh God, forgive me for allowing your story to become stale. Give me fresh eyes to see and new ears with which to hear and allow my holy imagination to sense the same excitement, anticipation, and wonder about your presence in this world as children sense about their visit to the moon. Amen.
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