The Cost of the Christmas Portrait

I can remember sitting in the pulpit on my first Christmas Sunday sermon as a fledgling assistant minister and thinking clearly, “how many of these services will I have to do before I retire and will they all have to be the same dull reflection.” How little I knew of faith, Scripture and more importantly advent. As the years have gone on I have learned more and more to love the theological richness of the birth of Jesus. I have kept plumbing its depths and never found the bottom.

A couple of things have sparked my meditation this year. Bono normally has something to do with it and I think for me with the publishing of the Bono In Conversation book it has been Bono’s interviews that have provoked me this year. He has often spoken about the “poetry” of the Christmas event – “And I believe in a poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in “straw poverty”” - and like many things he says I am suspicious early on and then realize in a different context the truth of what he said and think, “ah, that is what he meant.”

It was during a talk I was giving at the Belfast Art College where the truth of his poetry comment hit me with some force. I was being asked by a surprisingly cautious bunch of art students where I could find any evidence of visual art in the Bible. In the flick of the pages of the Scriptures, I quickly realized that every major point is visual and artistic; creation, exodus, incarnation and atonement. Everyone is visually portrayed with a force that words on a page, no matter how well inspired by the Holy Spirit, could never hope to communicate. Bono is right about the poetry but any time spent hovering over this stable scene will find drama, song and installation.

I have often realized that there would be nothing Jesus would teach about God, man, the gap between the two and what God was going to do about it that isn’t right there in the circumstances of his birth. Blessed are the poor is right there. The upside nature of God’s ways is right there. Loving enemies is right there. Grace to the outcast and stranger is right there. The fallenness of humanity and how far the fall destroys us as we destroy one another is right there.

Let us go a little closer and let us not start with what is bizarrely out of kilter, amiss and askew. Let us sense the visual impact of God. Could there be any greater shock to the religious system than to find God as a baby, helpless, dependent and vulnerable. Omnipotent? No. Omniscient? No. Omnipresent? Not even able to crawl. Sweet mercy, what have we got here. Paul’s explanation of God emptying himself, humbling himself and becoming obedient even to death is from very well written early Church literature but it hardly conveys the wonder and mystery of the incarnation the way the shepherds saw it, confused and all as they must have been.

And there is another thing. God has just arrived on earth. Yes, a re-read of the enormity of that might be no harm. God arrives on earth and who does he invite to meet him. A quick scan of the art of the nativity and you will find not one religious dignitary, robed up and ready for holy ritual. No, gathered around the Lord of Lord and King of Kings are a bunch of ill educated, smelly shepherds straight out of the fields, a few animals, probably, and a carpenter whose head is fried with the events of the past year. Holding the baby is the first person to be let in on the astounding truth of the Gospel; a teenage girl who is the ridicule of her entire neighbourhood.

Of course there were those with a little transcendent insight. Yet, they are a strange crew too. Instead of the gowned graduates of some theological seminary, they are eastern mystical star gazers with little or no foundation for the theological implications of the star they have been following. Even more outlandish is what those with the theological insight did with their knowledge. Herod the King called all his Jewish sages together and after diligently reading the Scriptures they found the truth of the situation. That’s alright then? Wrong! With their knowledge of the holy word of truth they proceeded to flood the streets around Bethlehem with the blood of innocent children.

It has been this corner of the picture that has had me pondering this Christmas. Why would you take the trouble to find out the truth and then purposely try to not only ignore it but to try to thwart what you know to be the grand designs of God? Perhaps this is the part of the picture for us who claim to believe to linger awhile. Herod knew the truth. Here was the long awaited Messiah. The yearned for Saviour has been born. The nation had been long expectant. It was time for national celebration, time to go and tell it on the mountain. The people of God are able to declare the good news that is for all humanity as the refrain of the angels’ song would say. But there is the cost. What the truth means is often too expensive even for those who know they believe it to obey.

God hasn’t painted this scene, conjured this drama or written this poem without thinking through every implication. And so, this Christmas, this is the one I am meditating upon. What does Herod and his religious yes men have to say about those of us who claim to have a hold of the truth of Holy Scriptures? We would like to think that we are not as evil as Herod. We would like to think that we would have used the truth to follow the truth and not murder the truth. Herod was in danger of losing his power, his palace, his riches and his comforts. He didn’t want to lose that. This Saviour would have messed with his place in the world. The cost of confronting Jesus would have cost too much.

Yet, in what ways do we cover over the full truth of this nativity scene to protect us from the cost. It is a stark picture. No matter how much we paper the walls of the stable, carpet the floor or wash the cows we cannot get rid of the madness of this upside down lifestyle and mindset. Comfort, safety and security are replaced by risk, danger and vulnerability. God put himself into precarious scenarios. He did it because of his love for others. He did it for the salvation of the world. And he whispers at us from the filth of a stable, from the germs of a straw manger, from the dubious reputation of dusty roads, from a torturous cross of wood…he whispers… follow me…follow me…follow me. The cost of confronting Jesus costs everything.

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