Christmas just isn’t what it used to be. I was in a department store recently and was disappointed to see how cheap the Christmas ornaments looked. Everything is made of plastic. Artificial trees come out of the box with lights already attached. Ornaments look like plastic toys. Even the store Santas look as if they’re purposefully trying to look as fake as possible.
Now don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot to enjoy about the holiday. We can enjoy the festive atmosphere (unless your name is Ebenezer Scrooge). We can appreciate the beautiful decorations as expressions of our God-given creativity. We can appreciate secular Christmas music as expressions of our human need for friends and family. So not all the tinsel and glitter are necessarily bad. I just don’t like all the plastic.
Fortunately, we don’t have to settle for a fake Christmas. We have the Bible that tells us the true meaning of Christmas—the story of Jesus’ birth. Sometimes, however, even Christians add things to the Christmas story that turns the true story into a fake story. We glamorize the Christmas story by singing about three kings who come to visit Jesus when in fact, they weren’t kings. They were magi who were probably pagan astrologers.
We sanitize the story by romanticizing the place where Mary gave birth. The so-called “inn” that didn’t have any room could have been a simple guest room in someone’s house, or it could have been a rock shelter where travelers could sleep. Since it was too crowded, Mary and Joseph had to stay with the donkeys and camels that were tied up close by. It was not a cozy animal stall with loads of soft hay. More than likely, it was a hard, rock enclosure or cave. There wouldn’t have been any cows or sheep. Cows and sheep were usually kept in pens outside of town.
We idealize the story by promoting the primitive conditions in which Jesus was born as an indication of his poverty (as if poverty somehow makes Jesus more dignified). Yet just because there weren’t any accommodations doesn’t mean Joseph was poor. Any traveler, rich or poor, could have found himself in the same predicament as Joseph and Mary. There simply weren’t any accommodations, so they had to make do with what was available.
We must be careful not to glamorize, romanticize, or idealize the story of Jesus’ birth. We don’t want a fake Jesus, any more than we want a fake Christmas. I encourage you to take time to read about the birth of Jesus as found in the New Testament. The true story is in Matthew 1:18-2:18 and Luke 2:1-38. The birth of Jesus is glorious and marvelous on its own. We don’t need to add to it nor make it something other than what it is—the arrival of the Savior, Emmanuel, God in the person of Jesus who came to live among us.
And although Joseph and Mary couldn’t find a place to stay in Bethlehem, I hope this Christmas you can find room in your heart for Jesus.
Leave a Reply