the reality of “Christmas”

today I got to take communion in a way I never have before.  I had to walk through dirt and bend down before a cross to take the elements.

see, our church doesn’t have a building.  we rent a place at the local fairgrounds, but sometimes other events want the building on Sundays and we have to meet somewhere else.  we’ve met outside a few times (thankfully it was in the summer-ish months).  and we’ve met in the indoor roping/rodeo arena quite a few times.  today, we were in the arena.

and it was cold.  it’s been in the 50’s and 60’s for so long, but today it decided to be about 15 degrees with a windchill of –6 or something insane like that.  while there was some heat in the building, I still kept my 2 coats on.

there was nothing “pretty” about it.  it was dirty.  it smelled (or so I was told).  it was cold.  condensation dripped on us from time to time.

but as I walked across the dirt in the arena to take communion, I had to hold back tears as suddenly, the birth of my Savior and the death and resurrection of my Savior became even more real to me.

in the modern day church, we like things neat and clean.  we like our services to be neat and clean.  we like to appear neat and clean (regardless of what our hearts look like).  we often like to go to church, leave feeling good, and then go about the rest of our week.

and Christmas has turned into the exact same thing.  we focus way too much time and money on gifts.  we like our houses to be all decked out with “holiday cheer” and the gifts under the tree to look just right.  we love to read books that recount the Christmas story of little baby Jesus, all clean and neatly wrapped in a blanket in a manger with nice looking parents looking over him and curiously tame donkeys and cows laying near by (which – in reality, I’ve rarely seen tame donkeys and cows that like to lay angelically next to people.  and where is the manure?  like, really.)

the reality of it all is: the birth of Jesus wasn’t clean.  it wasn’t clean at all.  in fact, it was really really messy.

I mean, have you been inside a stable before?  they’re not exactly the most sanitary of places.  there’s manure.  there’s dirty hay.  I’ve heard they can smell pretty bad (I wouldn’t know firsthand).  I guarantee if you tried to have a baby inside a stable these days, child services would be called on you.

and there was bloodshed.  there was a lot of bloodshed.  Herod was King at the time, and when he heard there was a newborn “King of the Jews”, he was furious.  he ended up ordering his men to kill all baby boys under the age of 2 in and around the city of Bethlehem (check out Matthew 2).  I think most of my life, I’ve heard that part of the “Christmas story” and haven’t really given it a second thought.  but this really happened.  baby boys were murdered left and right.  mother’s screamed and begged for their child’s life to be spared and they were shown no mercy.  their baby boys were murdered before their very eyes, their blood covering the their mother’s clothing.

the birth of Jesus wasn’t neat and pretty.

then there’s the whole genealogy of Jesus, the line from which He came.  there was nothing pretty about this either.  if you read the genealogy of Jesus (like in Matthew 1), you’ll probably recognize some of the names from their stories in the Old Testament.  Jesus came from a line of murderers, adulterers, liars, prostitutes…the list goes on.

the birth of Jesus wasn’t neat and pretty.

which leads me to ask – what kind of God would send His own Son to be born in a messy, lowly stable?  what kind of God would choose a completely messed up line of people to send His Son to be born into?  what kind of God would send His own Son to earth anyway?

the God who loves us so much more deeply than we will ever comprehend.  the God who created the whole ability to love, the whole concept of love.  the God who is love.

He sent His Son, Jesus, to be the Ultimate Sacrifice to pay for our sins.  To anyone who chooses to believe and follow Jesus, God extends this awesome gift of grace.  restoration of our relationship with God.  a personal relationship.  He is not a far-off God that just watches things happen.  He is personal.  He is involved.  He desires for us to know Him and He delights in us!

^”And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”  ~Ephesians 3:18-19