A Place for Jesus

“Keep Christ in Christmas” protests the bumper sticker ahead of me. A placard in front of a neighborhood church trumpets: “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Others, despairing of a way to rescue a celebration of the birth of Jesus from the season of inflatable Santas and garland-festooned wreaths, have abandoned Christmas altogether. It may seem futile to scrounge for evidence of faith in the Incarnate Lord amid the mounds of discarded wrapping paper and glistening ribbon. After all, every year since 1965, Charlie Brown has has been lamenting the commercialism of the season and crying out to know what Christmas is all about. His plea began long before "Black Friday" entered common parlance and when "Cyber Monday" could only have been a science fiction buff's dream. Perhaps, as some believe, we live in a post-Christian world, where Jesus has lost out in a popularity contest with Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. But I, for one, am hopeful about Christmas. Christmas is, after all, a season of hope.
Hope is an endangered virtue in this world of drive-by shootings and refugee camps, of topsy-turvey economics and car bombs. Still, Christmas survives, even if only as a neo-pagan rite of mid-winter, because it has never ceased to be a season of hope. Look behind the sappiest television special, and you will find hope lurking. It will come disguised under a hundred versions of “the true meaning of Christmas.” Of course that “true meaning” will be a weak-kneed version of the Christian proclamation, something like forgiveness or brotherhood or giving-rather-than-receiving. God may be entirely absent. But the Christmas I know insists that our true hope is not that people can sometimes be good, but that God, who is good, is also faithful. God, for whom nothing is impossible, has loved us in our unloveliness and graced us in our gracelessness. If we are hopeful for humanity, it is certainly not because we humans have proved we can save ourselves. Rather, “the Mighty One has done great things . . .” (Luke 1:49).
It was into a sinful, doubting and hopeless world that our Savior once was born. Even absent automobiles and cell phones, it was in many ways a world we would recognize. A foreign power ruled Jesus's homeland through a puppet king whose family had converted to Judaism out of political convenience. At the top of society were the wealthy few; at the bottom beggars and lepers. The Sadducees who ran the temple maintained their authority by engaging in realpolitik with the Romans, while in the streets of Jerusalem roamed dagger-wielding sicarii, who believed that terror could topple the oppressive order. Out in the desert, extremists banded together into sects, believing only they were worthy to be saved as they counted the hours till divine judgment doomed the rest of humanity.
It was a world desperately in need of Jesus; it was a world that had no place for him. There was "no room in the inn." Yet, he transformed that world with his presence. He can do it again. The Christmas spirit may be a feeble substitute for the Holy Spirit, but where there is the Christmas spirit the door is cracked for God to enter. The persistence of the themes of hope, brotherhood and human kindness that scent the air at Christmas are like that proverbial spark waiting to be fanned into a flame. Its dim glow witnesses to a planet still longing for salvation, still wanting to believe.
Often the last holdout to secularism in our malls and in our homes is the Christmas crèche. That endearing and impossible amalgam of shepherds and Wise Men silently reminds us of the Lord of this feast. Yet it is a tepid witness, overburdened with sentiment, imperiled by familiarity. Once shepherds trembled at the mere reflection of the glory of God in his angelic heralds. Once a fearful king rampaged against helpless infants to quell the light which challenged the entrenched darkness. The Italians use a word, chiaroscuro, to describe the vivid contrast of light and dark that adds so much drama to the paintings of artists like Caravaggio. But centuries before Caravaggio, Matthew and Luke proved themselves masters of the craft. The Biblical portrait of Christmas is not trite; it is painted in the chiaroscuro of divine majesty and human frailty.
Then let us start there. Why not retrieve the manger scene from its comfortable niche beneath the tinsel-laden tree and hold it up to the light? We can peer beyond the cliché coziness of mother and infant child to discover the Word of God that speaks as distinctly today as ever. We can use statues of plaster and wood to lead us to matters of flesh and sinew. And we can capture the child’s delight in peeking in at baby Jesus to set free truths that still confound the aged.
As we make the journey back to the Palestine of Jesus’ day and ahead to our own time, we are awakened to look at the familiar with new eyes. This book is Subtitled, “A Walking Tour of the Christmas Crèche” for good reason. The author does not pretend to be a learned scripture exegete, an art historian or student of folklore. This is not a scholarly opus, though it owes much to the scholarship of others. It is more a guidebook for travelers. It alerts the interested reader to stop and take note of the second wise man on the left and before exiting not to miss the staff in Joseph’s hand on the right. Here it invites one to open his Bible and reread a prophet’s words. Then it points over there to show how a familiar pose derives from a Renaissance fresco, which in turn recalls an ancient legend.