Friday, April 26, 2024
What does it mean to be on location at the very first Christmas? No, not the one that has been completely inundated with all the competition and consumerism of the season, but the very first one, the way it was intended to be. Where people were anticipating hope!
When a King is lying on straw in an animal shelter, we can’t help but ask ourselves what God is really thinking. I wonder why this beautiful story that God is telling about the delivery of his Son in the flesh to the world, had to take place in such diffi cult circumstances. Don’t most stories have a twist in the plot which makes the audience ask why?
Well, scripture will later tell us that Jesus was born in a manger because the fi rst people that God wanted to see, would be people who only knew how to get to mangers. These were common people who only know how to look and have access to common places. I believe the story was told this way so that people would walk away from this beautiful story thinking somehow this baby is like us. Here Jesus comes wrapped into our lives and wrapped into our experiences. We imagine that if God ever did come, He could be so far away that we wouldn’t be invited to the party, but actually, He didn’t even invite us to his party, He came and joined our lives. Jesus wrapped himself in our injured flesh in such a way that only the true Son of God could do. Maybe this isn’t a story about shepherds or wise men fi nding Jesus. Maybe, just maybe, the real story has to do with God finding you.
Why would you expect to fi nd Jesus anywhere else? Sometimes, we might feel that Jesus is more welcomed in someone else’s heart than inside mine. That He actually likes someone more than you, loves someone more than you, enjoys someone more than you. The truth is that we believe God would rather be in that person who is much holier than I am. Maybe that person who was born generous, born more financially secure and can do more with that they have. Sometime, we find it hard to picture finding Jesus in my life, where there is sin, guilt, regret, and so on. But he chose to be born in a manger where you would be included in this story, where you would have access to Him. He has created a plan of salvation that includes everyone, where no one is ever left out. Jesus has always had a tendency of showing up in fiery furnaces, lion’s dens, at the well with a struggling women who has had fi ve broken marriages, in the Temple courts with adulterous people, the sick and unclean, even on the Damascus road with a persecutor of Christians. This is where Jesus has always been since day one of his arrival in this world.
In 1898, a man by the name of Emmett Kelly was born. He soon became the most recognized clown face in American history. He started working with the circus in the 1930’s, and with the Great Depression upon us, he developed the character named Weary Willy. This was a character that many could relate with because of the homeless problem caused by the great financial crisis. This was the guy who made the famous pantomime at the end of the circus when only one spotlight was on, he would come out with a broom and try to sweep off the spotlight.
At the age of 80, Emmett Kelly passed away in 1979. Shortly after his daughter received the call that lived in California, she gathered up some mementos to take with her on the plane. Once she was on the plane, she pulled out some of the things she had brought and began to go through them. One item was a newspaper clipping that had always touched her so deeply. It was the only time that Emmett Kelly was caught smiling in public. He was standing at a payphone receiving news from his wife that his daughter had been born. Tears began to fill her eyes as she help that old yellow newspaper. A man seated next to her saw her crying and asked her what was wrong? She told him the story and showed him the photograph. The man next to her said “I’m the photographer who took that picture.” Later on, that young photographer called this moment in his life a “God moment.”
These are the times where God is trying to reassure you that I am still in your life, I am still in your manger, and I’m just as rooted in the difficulties of life as I am the great memories. God says I’m with you when your children are heading in a direction in which you just don’t understand. I’m with you when a relationship breaks down and you can’t seem to fi nd the necessary repairs needed to fix it. When your family dynamics change, your career changes, your financial situation changes, I’m still with you. When you are getting older and are unsure of what God wants from you next, He says I’ve never left you.
Do we believe that God is still working miracles in our lives today? Let this story give you hope that God chose the manger for His Son to be born because it is only there that you and I would be able to fi nd Him!
