Isaiah 9:2–7 This is one of the most common non-Gospel texts read at a Christmas worship service. It is a key text that authors of the Gospel, Paul in the Epistles, and even Jesus himself refer back to in order to emphasize that Jesus is the one described here as coming. This “great light” breaks the bonds of oppression and ends hunger and violence. In particular, the text notes that David’s kingdom will endure and will do so in peace.
Psalm 96 A call for praise to the God of Israel, who is to be seen as superior to all other god-figures over anything else we might worship instead. It also calls us to spread the word about this God and that God will judge the world righteously.
Titus 2:11–14 This brief and often overlooked text packs a lot into a couple of sentences. It speaks of Jesus’s time on earth as the embodiment of God’s grace, reminds the audience that he came to reconcile us once and for all with God, and speaks to the anticipation of his coming again after his death and resurrection.
Luke 2:1–14 Similarly densely packed, this text covers Mary and Joseph’s travels to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, and the annunciation by the angel to the shepherds about the birth of the Messiah.
Day of Midian—Midian is a son of Abraham, so Midianites are considered descendants who are supposed to be a part of God’s chosen people. Though they have established their autonomy from Israel (establishing the territory also called Midian), Israel later conquers them, bringing them back into the greater nation of Israel.
Bethlehem—It is necessary in the Gospels for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem in order to fulfill the prophecy that the Messiah will be born there, as stated in the book of Micah.
Quirinius—Quirinius is the governor of the territory where Bethlehem is at the time of Jesus’s birth. For the sake of grouping territory for the census—which the Israelites really hate having to do—the regions of Syria and Judah are combined into one under his oversight
Note that in this nativity story, there’s no mention of kings. That’s because they don’t come along in the story until Epiphany, which comes after Christmas. Epiphany lasts for twelve days after Jesus’s birth, which is where the twelve days of Christmas come from.
It’s also interesting that the story in Luke makes no mention of how many shepherds are involved. We usually have three in the nativity scenes, likely because it lends some aesthetic balance to the setting. But it’s not biblically based.
Finally, if you see a nativity set—especially at a church—with Jesus in the manger before Christmas, think about how weird that is.
If the point of Christmas is to celebrate the arrival, and if Advent is about the anticipation leading up to that birth, shouldn’t the manger be empty until Christmas day, much like we depict an empty cross on Easter? Sometimes it’s worth getting a new perspective on our traditions in order to help bring us more into the present moment so we really see what’s in front of us, engaging it with our whole selves rather than letting ourselves get half-numb to the familiarity of it all.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled."
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th' angelic host proclaim,
"Christ is born in Bethlehem."
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King!
Christ, by highest heaven adored:
Christ, the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of the favoured one.
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see;
Hail, th'incarnate Deity:
Pleased, as man, with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King!
Hail! the heaven-born
Prince of peace!
Hail! the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
Born to raise the son of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the new-born King !"
The Church has no mission of its own. All we can have by ourselves is a club or a debating society; and our only hope, left to ourselves, is to win as many members for our own club and away from other clubs as we can. And whatever this is, it is not Mission. Mission belongs to God. The Mission was His from the beginning; it is His; it will always be His. He has His purposes from the foundation of the world, and the means to fulfil them; and the only part the Church has in this is obedience—a share in the eternal and life-giving obedience of the Son of God... And the most terrible judgment on the Church comes when God leaves us to our own devices because He is tired of waiting for our obedience—leaves us to be the domestic chaplains to a comfortable secular world—and goes Himself into the wilderness of human need and injustice and pain. This judgment does come on churches and nations, when they forget that God is in command, that He does the choosing. Stephen Bayne
Believing the church in China needed educated women to be Christian wives and mothers, as well as Bible women and evangelists, Mildred Cable and Eva French opened a girls' school in Huozhou, China in 1904. They began with twenty four students, but before the year was out they had seventy women and girls in attendance. In 1908 Eva's sister Francesca joined the work, and the three women worked together for the rest of their lives, becoming known as ‘The Trio'.
The school continued to grow and graduated its first class of teachers in 1913. Over a period of twenty years, approximately 1,000 girls we’re educated at the school. Many of the girls went on to become teachers themselves, impacting Chinese education throughout the region. In 1923, when the Governor of Shanxi decided to open seventy new provincial schools for girls, he called on the Trio’s students and teachers to staff the schools.
At that time Dr Kao, a Christian Chinese doctor, invited the Trio to come and help in reaching out to Muslims, Tibetan and Mongolian people in the interior. When the women heard of the Silk Road, stretching a thousand miles from Gansu province to Xinjiang province, and the need for evangelism among the people in remote areas, they answered the call. The three travelled by mule cart. Eight hundred miles and nine months from Huozhou, they arrived at their first stop, Zhangye. The pastor at the small church there said they were an answer to prayer. In the coming months The Trio conducted a Bible school for men and women, taught reading classes, and travelled into the surrounding villages to preach the gospel. They set up a tent at the village fairs, and people gathered to listen to the Christian message. The size of the church congregation doubled, and many natives were trained in the work of evangelism.
The Trio then moved on to Jiuquan and Dunhuang, which was a crossroads for people from India, China and Tibet and had a heavy Muslim population. They later followed the Silk Road to the Russian border, crossing portions of the Gobi Desert. After a furlough in England, The Trio returned to China in 1928, in the midst of a civil war. They retraced their steps along the Silk Road, encouraging the Christians in their faith, visiting 2,700 homes, conducting 665 meetings and selling 40,000 copies of Scripture.
During the war Muslim forces gained control of 600 miles of the Silk Road and the city of Dunhuang. The Muslim general, noted for his cruelty, summoned The Trio to the army headquarters eighty miles away and asked them to bring their medical supplies. They treated the general’s wounds. Once they had healed, Mildred asked permission for them to leave. She also asked him to consider the life he led, and he accepted from her a New Testament.
In 1936, the communists required The Trio, along with other foreigners, to leave China, Mildred and Francesca later wrote of their travels in The Gobi Desert, which continues to be an excellent guide into that remote region today.
If we take the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem literally, the Holy Family has no choice but to go there because of the census being taken. In this case, it’s interesting to think that the Roman Empire—the very force that Jesus ends up standing up to, costing him his life—is an integral agent in the fulfilment of this biblical prophecy.
If we fast-forward to the end of Jesus’s ministry (yes, I know it’s not Easter), given that the Roman Empire also is the collective agent of his crucifixion, we could say that the “enemy” helped hasten the fullness of his becoming the Christ he comes to be.
It is not just the innkeeper who allows the Holy Family to stay in his stables who helps solidify the understanding of Jesus as a humble servant of the poor; the very opportunity would never have presented itself had they not been rejected repeatedly by the first innkeepers with whom they sought shelter.
It’s a curious thing, this Jesus story. At every turn, there seems to be something pressing against the direction God desires for Jesus, and yet he emerges on the other side, not unmarked by the experience, but transformed in a way that seems like an even more complete picture of the Jesus who was prophesied.
This could reveal some uncomfortable things about God, depending on how we look at it. If God willed all of these things to happen, it’s a pretty twisted way to show love to an only son. Or maybe Jesus is collateral damage in a larger story, with all of the means justifying the greater end of human salvation.
On the other hand, maybe people just do horrible things to each other sometimes. Maybe God doesn’t intercede because if God did, these constant lifelines would ultimately prohibit us from growing. Or maybe suffering is more of an inevitability rather than a necessity. Maybe God knows that though we have the capacity to know and do better, we won’t all the time. And maybe God can work in the midst of those worst moments of humanity too.
In the midst of a foreign occupation, faced with scandal, likely marital tension, potential poverty, far from home and absent a true resting place in a moment of greatest need, love, grace, peace, and hope still push their way through into the world. Yes, it’s messy, painful, and not exactly what we expected, but it’s beautiful regardless. It’s irrepressible in its aim to transform, despite the fear and violence with which that transformation is met.
We may be able to change how it looks or the places where it’s found, but love is insistent. It’s inevitable. It simply is.
Miracles
I wish we could see life as an ordinary miracle
I wish that we realize that we are a miracle
I want to feel like I give my own life to show everyone that their life is a miracle
Our hearts yearn for love
Our hearts yearn for comfort
Miracles surround us
But we are too blind to see
How many miracles we face every day
Life is a miracle
Friends are a miracle
I am a miracle
YOU are a miracle
Through God ordinary miracles happen every day
We just need to take the time to look for them.
Look for miracles
Look in the mirror to find the first one
Trust me
It’s worth it Kim Burton (18)
Be enough love for both of us, God, when I can’t seem to hold up my end. I’ll keep working at it, but don’t give up on me. Amen
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