Christmas Story Ironies
Christmas is so much more complicated than explaining how a fat man squeezes down a chimney.
Consider the complexities of the real Christmas story:
The Creator of the universe elects to exist as a created being.
A virgin conceives and gives birth to a baby boy.
A husband rejects a lawful divorce, in spite of the rumors he will endure throughout his life.
Deity chooses to become humanity, the immortal becoming mortal so that all mortals could one day experience immortality.
The unlearned are commissioned to explain the greatest story ever told.
The King of all kings enters the world surrounded by farm animals to leave the world surrounded by human animals.
Heathen scientists integrate intellect, spirit, will, and emotion to embark on the most important expedition ever attempted–and they succeed. They believe and worship. And disappear without fanfare.
Egypt gives protection to baby Jesus, the liberator of the Jews; but his people will reject his promises, like they rejected Moses’ words hundreds of years before.
And yet Jesus comes to earth, anyway–quietly and humbly, to live an ordinary life right up until His power explodes across the grassy countryside and challenges everything people have ever believed. Yet still, he labors among the poor, diseased, hungry, and oppressed.
He loves the unlovely.
Jesus chooses this life. And even more startling, He chooses a gruesome death, conquering the grave and providing eternal life for anyone who wants it.
How incredible that Jesus Christ was willing to make such a sacrifice, for such a people as us!
The ironies of the Christmas story are simply unfathomable.
Let’s talk about this instead.
