Twas the night before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas…

…and nothing happened, at least not much out of the ordinary.

The inn in tiny little Bethlehem had no vacancies, and people without a place to stay were surely aggravated with the inn keeper. Nothing unusual about that. Other citizens were likely agitated with all the extra traffic, all those people rushing back to their place of birth to register for the census. Impatience would be the expected, normal behavior in those circumstances. And Roman soldiers in Bethlehem, like ones in thousands of places across the empire, probably griped about being stationed in a backwoods, hick town. It was business as usual in the overcrowded, little town of Bethlehem.

Unlike the Santa who arrived with such a clatter that he awoke the father in Charles Moore’s poem, Jesus’ arrival was quiet, except perhaps for his and his mother’s cries at childbirth. The two unusual, indeed miraculous events surrounding his birth that did occur happened to unlikely people in out of the way places: the angels’ appearance to shepherds in the field outside Bethlehem and the star to the Magi somewhere in the east.  

No trumpets announced his birth. No one was forced to bow to the baby king. No words of allegiance to him and his kingdom were recited.

I think Jesus intended it that way.

It’s just like him.

He doesn't intrude into people’s lives.

Think about the people who missed the first Christmas: The innkeeper, hustling to make sure he had every room occupied and paid for, missed Jesus; the religious leaders, who had been waiting for the Messiah, searching their Scriptures for clues of his arrival, got so caught up in their religious activity that they missed him when he finally came; the Romans missed him too, for they were too preoccupied with their own pantheon of gods. 

It’s easy to miss God when he shows up in the flesh, smelling like a baby.

He did come to us that first time, and when he returns, the Scriptures say his presence will be undeniable.

But what about now, this Christmas? Most people will miss him just as they did the first Christmas.

Instead of staying in the five-star hotel, like we might think, he sleeps under the stars; we expect to find him swaggering down the aisle of the largest church in town, and instead he quietly worships in the shadows; we suppose he will march on Washington, making a powerful statement that he is the man in charge now, but instead he sits down in a park, lets the children crawl all over him, then  shares a meal with the homeless while telling them about life in a different kind of  Kingdom.

It’s easy to miss Jesus, not because he doesn't want us to find him. We miss him because we pass by him on the way to someone or someplace else that’s more important to us than he is, for we mistakenly think we aren't that important to him.

I read about a church in Baltimore that years ago found something amazing right there in the wall of their church, something everyone had overlooked. It had been “hiding” from them for more than 25 years. Someone finally recognized a piece of art for what it truly was: a valuable woodblock print by Albrecht Durer, dated 1493. It depicted The Annunciation, the scene where the angel Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to God’s Son. Many of the church members had a difficult time believing it was a genuine masterpiece, for after all, they reasoned, “Why would something that valuable be in a place like this?”

We ask the same question today.

And so we walk on by Jesus, for surely he wouldn't be here in this ordinary place where plain people like us live, surrounded by the dull, drab walls that encase our dull, drab lives. 

But his Presence, his Spirit, is here, because we are that valuable to him. And so he watches us, waiting for us to recognize him for the Person he really is, so we can know and be the people we really are.

He looks for us to look for him.

He intended it that way.