Forget it. Christmas never delivers what it should. Again. A tripledemic of viruses are still hanging over us bigger than the blow-up Santa in your yard. People are sick of it, but don’t care if you get sick either. Parties, big dinners, caroling in the snow? And weeks later you’ll see another surge in virus rates. Inflation presses on, a war that never should have been has global effects, desperate people are clamoring to cross our borders. Oh, but shoppers charge their cards and dull the senses with commercialism. Your tra-la-la-la-las just aren’t going to sing anything good about this Christmas.

If this helps, God knows. God knows it’s a big date on the calendar for us. When daylight lessens, the holiday lights help remind us that life is not as dark as we perceive. Excited children and special holiday recipes give us something to anticipate. Gift giving, especially to those who have less, reminds us that generosity is a gift in itself. All is as if God planned for us to have this wonderful time of the year.

Oh, right. Please, please tell. What’s so wonderful about Christmas for us this year or any other for that matter?

God knows. God knows what you think Christmas is supposed to be. The thing is, God’s Christmas wasn’t all jingle bells and elves on a shelf either.

An Alternative Christmas 

Take a good hard look at the story, and maybe you can relate. The world was expecting, waiting, trying in its own way to prepare for him. The ancient writings promised time and again he would come. The priests tried to make the people straighten up and act holy for his entrance. Various sects armed themselves to battle for him. They were more than ready for his coming. But stockings hung on a mantle need someone to fill them, and we all know stories of sleighs full of toys and chimney drops won’t do the job.

God knows and knows how we think things should be. The problem is, God doesn’t always work like we think God should. God had other plans. So what do we get?

The emperor, Caesar Augustus, needed to fund some projects to support his regime. Tax time! Go to those you can oppress and drain them dry. That will keep those insurgents quiet for a while. Every family was ordered to go back to their ancestral homes to be counted and fleeced.

Now there was this guy, Joseph, who was in a miserable quandary. Several months earlier he found out his fiancé was pregnant—and he wasn’t the proud father. He could have dumped her, no one would blame him, but that would have brought a different kind of guilt with it. Jewish law stated women found pregnant before marriage should be stoned. He must have cared deeply for her, for he decided to go ahead with the marriage. There also was a story about an angel who assured him all was good, so with only an insane kind of faith, he packs up the girl, Mary, and heads out on a three-day journey to Bethlehem despite her due date being not far off. The Romans didn’t give a Christmas fig about that sort of thing.

No telling how hard that trip must have been on her, but their luck ran out faster than reindeer fly. Upon arrival, apparently with crowds that more than rivaled last minute shoppers on December 24, they find there is no place to stay. Even her condition did not yield the mercy of a bed. When you’re tired beyond your last ounce of strength, you take what you can get, a hole-in-the-wall cave of a stable just so you can lie down and don’t have to take one more step. And that’s where it happened.

Christmas All Wrong 

Christmas happened when a baby boy was born to two destitute parents in a barn. The record doesn’t tell it, but you know what it likely meant. Fatigue and filth and only faith to push back fear. One song gets it right: no crib for a bed. With only ragged strips of cloth to securely wrap him, Mary laid her baby in a feeding trough.

Christmas happened, and you can bet it wasn’t a silent night. Not long afterwards, a herd of shepherds came barging in, and you can add to that bet they weren’t wearing masks. These men were people of the night, the ones who lived outside on the margins of life in service to the better-off. They came with a story as fantastic and phantastical as Mary and Joseph each had known. Angels, an army of angels no less, had brought them news that the Messiah Savior was born in Bethlehem, in a manger wrapped in strips of cloth. They had run to see it for themselves and now couldn’t contain their joyous praise to God. Telling everyone, the shepherds’ tale left people astonished. That doesn’t mean the shepherds were believed, just that some may have found their tale incredulous.

Christmas Comes to the Wrong People 

Christmas happened, and it happened in every way it shouldn’t. Like a blanket of heavy snow, oppression, poverty, marginalized characters populate the story. Those who should have been in the know did not get an invitation to the party. Yet, when the story was all wrong, that’s when in the form of a baby God showed up. And what do you get with a baby?

Christmas happened, and it still happens. Our Christmas story this year once again is not the Christmas we want. We sit in this messy middle, wait for life to get back to some kind of normal, hope medical services and logistical supply chains can bring us an effective measure to fight this, wishing there would be a cease fire, if not in Ukraine at least on our own streets. But that’s not Christmas. We never get what we want for Christmas. That’s what we think God should do, and almost always, God never does.

In a real way though, this is likely the closest to God’s Christmas we may ever know. If we are still as church mice on Christmas Eve, we just might see a strange sight through the frosted windowpanes of our souls. God shows up, not how we want, not bringing us all we want. God’s plan is not to fix everything that is wrong in the world, but to meet all the wrong in the world with Love. Just as a baby, despite a birth that is all wrong, is held and received in Love. So whereas God shows up in the most unexpected forms, God shows up in the very form that the world needs most.

That is, when it seems the worst could or has happened, that’s when God shows up.

Christmas happens. Look for God’s love in the most unexpected, all-wrong, no good kind of places in your life. For in that space, God will show up.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill to all.” 

Luke 2:1-20