Christmas 2019: The Manger, God's Story Told From Below

Christmas 2019: The Manger, God's Story Told From Below

          I recently read Phillip Roth’s novel “The Plot Against America.” It is a “what if” alternative history in which Nazi Germany blackmails Charles Lindbergh into running for president, defeating FDR, and keeping America out of World War Two.

          What I loved about it, was that the story was told from below—from the experience of a Jewish boy growing up in Newark experiencing the turmoil of his nation,
the strange loyalties of his older brother and his aunt, experiencing intense prejudice on a family vacation to DC, watching his parents mental health deteriorate under the strains of national discrimination…
It could have been a bloodless alternative history that tells a timeline, but never touches on meaning or experience of everyday people,
 but because it tells the alternative history from below, it reaches greatness.

          So too, the Christmas story
—it tells the tale of God from Below!
Yes, there are those big powerful political and spiritual forces at work—Emperors and Angels, but the focus is not there, it is with parents with nowhere to go and shepherds seen by everybody as nobodies.
Our grand story ends with the smallest of signs,
bands of cloth,
a manger,
a baby.

          Let us pray

          Emperor Augustus—that is Gaius Octavius, “the Revered One” the adopted son of Caesar the Divine, winner of the Roman civil war and acclaimed as a bringer of peace.

          He is able, with a few words and the rubber stamp of the Tribal Assembly, to shape the lives of everyone who lived in what Rome pompously claimed was, “All the World.” Collecting their information for the purpose of taxation and preparation for war.

          And there, being moved around like chess pieces by a careless player,
are Mary and Joseph, the holy family who head home to be counted
—head to Bethlehem—(in Hebrew the House of Bread)
—to be counted, and, as it happens, to give birth.
They arrive and there is no place for them.

          Sit with that for a second, these magisterial machination, intentionally or unintentionally, leave Jesus’ parents with no place to rest their head,
no place to place a new little life born into the world,
no place, save a manger packed with strips of cloth.

          Yes, the grand choices of Emperors have grave consequences for those with no place to lay their head.

          For that matter, you have the Angel of the Lord, and then a heavenly host
—an army of out of this world beings invading the earth
—a scene worthy of a good science fiction movie… crop circles and all.
Yes, their message is good news—is Gospel;
points to God breaking into the world
—the disclosure of a Savior, a Lord, a Messiah
—one who brings us peace and favor
…and yet, imagine the overwhelming experience… these poor shepherds, blessed, but overawed.

          Shepherds, men who spent more time with animals than people,
literally found outside the city walls,
smelling of their flock,
cloths colored and caked with the mud and grass of their trade
—an isolated trade to say the least…
They were likely the first people you would see entering the city, but also likely the first people you would not want to be seen with…
just as Mary and Joseph were nowhere, these men were nobodies.

          Nobodies… the first to hear the Good news for all people, for nobodies and somebodies and everybody in between.
The Glory of God shall reside in the city of David wrapped in swaddling cloth and tucked in,
in a trough.

          With that, Angels and Emperors fade from view, the Nobody Shepherds join the family with no-where-to-lay-their-heads.

          They are left alone… together…
neither angel choir nor imperial edict drowning out their pondering, and praise and joy…
the only sound the night, and perhaps the cries of the Christ child.

          The Christ Child, the Holy Infant. The one of whom angels sing, the one whom all would-be-rulers attempt to imitate…
there in the bottom of a manger, snuggled below strips of cloth, put out of an inn, because there was nowhere for him, nobody outcast shepherds brought in…

          From below…
a story from below,
a savior, a Messiah, a Lord—from below.
A God, from below.

          We need to always remember that. That is God’s great gift for us.
We receive the bread of God in Bethlehem, the house of bread, from a trough.
Sustenance for the whole world, from a manger.

          And where else would we find it?
Certainly not in heaven above, for it is too frightening,
nor in the laps of the powerful, for they do not care…

the manger—yes—the manger.

          The manger is how we can tell God’s story, where we can find God among us.

          God nestled in tight here among us. Our everyday life, being reconciled to God. The manger by the inn… & the classroom, the shelter, the nursing home, the machine shop, the stock floor, the operating room, the waiting room, the war zone and the negotiating table.

          The manger, God with us. God’s story told from below

          God here with us.

          God with the soldier so young he has never known his nation at peace.

          God with the fearful family waiting for a cancer diagnosis.

          God’s favor in the face of overwork and grinding obligation—may you rest with him friends!

          God’s Good news to the isolated and mourning—those with family far away, far gone and even far too close for comfort…

-The manger
—all those who hunger, feed here!
-The manger, drawing nobodies into God’s story.
-The manger, there is a place for you, even if there is no place.
          The Manger tells the Christmas story—the tale of God told from Below!
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