Not So Silent Night

If you had to pick an "all around" Christmas favorite, my guess is that "Silent Night" would be near the top of the list. It is a great traditional Christmas song.

But I suspect that first Christmas night was filled with noise, not silence. Animals crying out, a scared young mother screaming out in the pain of childbirth, and a baby that was much like all others....wailing out a loud hello to the world. There were no modern comforts. Yes, it was bloody and painful. Bethlehem's version of diapers to wash out. No handy wipes. And no room in the inn. God in FLESH, not spiritual idealism.

Think about it. Mary was pregnant. She had never had sex. How could that happen? All this for trying to live a decent life. She endured morning sickness. She was alone and afraid. She could have been stoned to death. So much for the health and wealth gospel.

"You will give birth to God's Son," Gabriel had said. "Push!" Joseph yelled. "The Messiah. Christ the Lord. Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior." "Push!"

That night an angel chorus sang to the shepherds, but their notes were drowned out by the screams of a young woman, a baby having a baby. Somewhere in the night Jesus communicated with sinful mankind for the first time. He cried out.

Mary wiped off the bloody baby, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.

Thirty-three years later, this child would again cry out for sinful mankind, his bloody body wiped off, wrapped in burial clothes, and laid in a tomb. The Gospel according to Jesus is bathed in the real world.

Hollywood likes it's glassy-eyed Jesus that stares down evil and weirds his way into miracles. We all want to sleep in heavenly peace.

But Jesus came to live as we live...a good laugh with friends,hunger pains, tired feet, and a sore back sometimes...to be one of us. And to take our place.

Just as the impossible happened with Mary becoming pregnant, so it was in that tomb. Sin defeated. Death overcome. A way out for you and me. Welcome to the real world Jesus. And Merry Christmas.

(Thanks to David Sisler for inspiration and some quotes.)