{"id":31681,"date":"2022-09-10T15:39:57","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/5-aspects-of-the-first-christmas-no-one-preaches\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:39:57","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:39:57","slug":"5-aspects-of-the-first-christmas-no-one-preaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/5-aspects-of-the-first-christmas-no-one-preaches\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Aspects of the First Christmas No One Preaches"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kelly Sikkema photo – Unsplash<\/div>\n

By Ryan Sanders<\/em><\/p>\n

I love Christmas carols. I don\u2019t mean the Rockin\u2019 Around the Christmas Tree<\/em> fluff playing on your local all-holiday pop station. I mean the classics like The First Noel, O Come O Come Emmanuel, Angels We Have Heard On High<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The ones that actually mention Jesus.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing: even the most Bethlehem-centric Christmas songs often give us the wrong idea. The lullaby portraits of silent nights and heavenly peace? That didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

The first Christmas was beautiful and miraculous, but it was also dirty and loud and confusing. So, in an effort to recover my favorite holiday from its snow globe prison, here are five things about the first Christmas that no one ever preaches.<\/p>\n

1. It was loud.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Neither delivery rooms nor livestock stables are tranquil places. Ask any mom how much \u201cheavenly peace\u201d she experienced during childbirth. Over Mary\u2019s pained cries and Joseph\u2019s anxious admonitions, you probably couldn\u2019t hear any cattle lowing if you tried.<\/p>\n

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Even after the birth, there wasn\u2019t much rest. Newborns cry often and animals don\u2019t sleep quietly. A baby in a drafty barn is a formula for a sleepless, troubled night.<\/p>\n

Nor was it quiet in the fields. The second chapter of Luke says there appeared a \u201cgreat company of heavenly host\u201d to shout the news. The sight and sound of other-worldly creatures was so overwhelming that verse nine says they were \u201cterrified.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was not an angelic barbershop quartet. This was a gospel show choir with celestial amps!<\/p>\n

2. It was medically risky.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Traveling during late-term pregnancy is not a good idea. These days, doctors recommend staying home after 32 weeks, and airlines won\u2019t even board pregnant women past 36 weeks.<\/p>\n

The last thing Mary would have wanted to do just before her due date would be to travel to Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know exactly how they traveled. An apocryphal gospel called the Protoevangelium of James<\/em>, written about 145A.D., gives us the image of Mary on a donkey. But she might have walked or ridden a camel.<\/p>\n

But this much is certain: Whatever the mode of transport, it wasn\u2019t cushy. No shock absorbers or air conditioning. Just jostling and jolting and the nagging worry that all that movement wasn\u2019t good for the baby.<\/p>\n

Are you picturing it?<\/p>\n

Thirty-plus weeks pregnant.<\/p>\n

More than a week of travel.<\/p>\n

Well over 100 miles.<\/p>\n

Riding on an animal.<\/p>\n

This was a risky trip.<\/p>\n

3. It was confusing.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Because Mary was human, she probably doubted. I wonder if she rolled over that first night while the baby slept and whispered into the dark, \u201cJoseph, are you awake? What if we\u2019re wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

After all, the promise she was living was so incredible. Her little boy was Messiah? She was the mother of God? Maybe she misunderstood what the angel really meant. Maybe she was making this into a bigger thing than it was supposed to be.<\/p>\n

Mary\u2019s doubt could be the reason for Mary\u2019s reassurances. She received a lot of them. Over and over, Jesus\u2019 identity is confirmed: by angels, Elizabeth, shepherds, magi, Simeon, Anna.<\/p>\n

If Mary had received so many assurances, could it be because she needed them? Perhaps the Father was whispering, \u201cI know this is hard to take in. I know you\u2019re prone to explain things away. Here\u2019s another proof. Keep believing.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. It was hard to believe.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mary isn\u2019t the only doubter in this story. If we\u2019re honest, we all have doubts. And the story of Christmas doesn\u2019t do much to calm them.<\/p>\n

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After all, virgins don\u2019t have babies. It\u2019s medically impossible. And then there\u2019s this truth: Christmas isn\u2019t the only holiday that claims a virgin birth.<\/p>\n

Zoroaster, Mithras, Perseus, Horus, and Krishna are all said to have been born miraculously.<\/p>\n

Krishna\u2019s mother Devaki wasn\u2019t a virgin when the god Vishnu visited and impregnated her, but her pregnancy is said to be miraculous. Buddha\u2019s mom, Maya, is said to have had a similar experience.<\/p>\n

Zoroaster\u2019s mother, Dughdova, was a virgin when she conceived him by a shaft of light. The mother of the Sufist poet Kabir was both a virgin and a widow when she gave birth through the palm of her hand. A rock gave birth to Mithras.<\/p>\n

And the Egyptian god Horus was supposedly born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris.<\/p>\n

These stories sound outlandish to us, of course. They seem too unlikely to be true. But let\u2019s be clear: Rocks have as good a chance of giving birth as virgins. The origin story of the Christian Messiah doesn\u2019t do us any favors in the believability department.<\/p>\n

This, in itself, is both a paradox and a proof. The paradox is that Christianity espouses conflicting goals: It wants more people to believe, and it insists on creating the hardest doctrine to believe. And the proof is in the unlikelihood of this fantastic story being fiction.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re creating a religion of your own making, and you want people to believe it, this isn\u2019t the way you start.<\/p>\n

Like so many paradoxes of faith, the birth of Jesus is too unbelievable not<\/em> to be true. That\u2019s what happens when the ineffable becomes terrestrial; when the eternal Word becomes temporal flesh.<\/p>\n

5. It was art.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Good art is relentlessly concrete. Poets, painters, and playwrights deal in visible things\u2014all the subjects of art are tangible.<\/p>\n

They give tactile expression to abstractions like love, hate, beauty, and wonder. They express experience by creating it, not describing it.<\/p>\n

They incarnate.<\/p>\n

God wasn\u2019t content to teach us about love. Or to give us a slogan about love. Or to paint a moving picture of love from afar. Abstractions aren\u2019t enough for an artist.<\/p>\n

He became love. Personified it. The artist as art. The divine incarnate. The untouchable tangible. The incarnation was a miracle and a sign and a lot of other things. But it was also this: the world\u2019s greatest work of art.<\/p>\n

In these ways, and many others, our modern portrayals of Christmas sometimes lack realism. There\u2019s always something surprising about the Christmas story \u2014 something powerful that we\u2019ve unintentionally hidden under thousands of years of tradition, adaptation, and wrapping paper.<\/p>\n

Consider these five truths as a framework for a Christmas conversation or an advent sermon series. But my deepest hope is that the first Christmas will be a little more real this year.<\/p>\n

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RYAN SANDERS<\/strong><\/h2>\n

@theryansanders<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Ryan is a writer and previously served as a pastor. He writes for the Dallas Morning News and other outlets. You can find more at theryansanders.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n