Saturday of the Fourth Week of Advent
Sometimes, I think, we are so taken with the utter beauty of the nativity scene and the infancy narratives in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels to meditate on the extremity of the situation, indeed the poverty of it all. Having a two and half year-old, I’m always deeply skeptical of the serenity of the manger scene as we see it on Christmas. How exhausted must Mary and Joseph have been after their journey from Galilee all the way to Bethlehem (about 90 miles, or about a week’s journey) only to find nowhere suitable to sleep? How much pain must Mary have been in after giving birth? How about trying to rest with a crying baby (surely He cried!), surrounded by a slew of animals?
These are the images we are confronted with in Luke’s gospel. More than a serene setting, this first Christmas must have been as chaotic and uncomfortable as poverty is. And if we take a cue from Matthew’s gospel, King Herod, out of fear, was slaughtering all the young boys in Bethlehem as the holy family was leaving town. The attempts on Jesus’ life had already begun.
But right before we are given the manger scene in Luke’s gospel, Luke gives us the beautiful canticle from Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. Zechariah’s praise of the God of Abraham who keeps His promises paints a glorious picture of God’s purposes coming to fulfillment. If we were reading the gospel for the first time, we might expect John on horseback and Jesus following on chariot as champions of God, but swiftly, we realize that God’s intention is much more humble. His plan for salvation drives more deeply to the heart of human experience, taking it on in all its struggles and difficulties.
As I continue to reflect upon the struggles and challenges of the first Christmas, however, the scene becomes more, not less, beautiful. The magnificence and joy of the Incarnation—God becoming human in Jesus—is that the real beauty exists in the poverty and strife of the situation, not in spite of it. As the prologue to John’s gospel incants, through God’s Word “all things came to be” (Jn 1:3). This Word stands at the origin of all of us and is yet humbled to become one of us in Jesus. Not just anyone of us, but a poor boy who is laid in a manger. Setting the grandeur of John’s prologue next to the humility of the manger scene cannot but make the difference between God and us clear. And the beauty of the Incarnation is that God bridges it. God’s greatness is displayed in what is most humble and, in so doing, Gods sets his place with the least among us. This much is, of course, consistent with Jesus’ public ministry. He would grow up to call humble fishermen, heal the sick, dine with sinners, call children to him, and die among criminals. Surely God could have brought about our salvation another way, but God esteems humanity, poor humanity, such that He became a poor baby, who is our “mighty Savior” to fulfill God’s “promise[s] of old.” (Lk 1:69-70). And that is beautiful.
- Tim Gabrielli