Every year around Christmas time I find myself musing and mulling over a specific portion of the Christmas story or season. This year, for whatever reason, I find myself revisiting a pondering from a couple years ago. This December it seems I cannot open Facebook or hear someone talk about Christmas without them mentioning how there was no room for Jesus in Bethlehem. The question that always follows is something like “Will you make room for Jesus?” Often there is an implied, but rarely stated, qualifier “unlike those heathens of Bethlehem.”
A couple years ago during Advent, I reflected on the cultural villain of the Christmas story, the Inn Keeper (see Just Getting By for more on that). I noted in that blog that we often try to make villains of the villagers of Bethlehem. I am beginning to believe there is a great fallacy in that thought. Through the Biblical text we have a view behind the curtain at the bigger plan of God, but to the men, women, and children shod in sandals walking the dusty streets of a small Roman occupied Jewish village, it was just another day. The town may have been abuzz with excitement with visitors traveling for the census. The market was open. The shepherds were tending the flocks. The people were busy about their lives, but they were just ordinary people, trying to live their lives, some with God and some without. In that town there likely were no heathens greater than the one walking in my comfy shoes. Most of them were unaware of history unfolding before them. They had no reason to suspect that Messiah was among them, that God, after hundreds of years, was ushering in a new era in their small little corner of the world. The special thing about humans is that we rarely recognize the significance of the moment we find ourselves in. Our vision is not that clear nor our perception that sharp.
Concerning the birth of Jesus, we live thousands of years removed from the event. Our worldview, context, and traditions have all influenced how we view what happened. It would be disingenuous to say that I would have done something different. The reality is if I had lived then, it would have been an ordinary day. My house would likely have been full of out-of-town family or strangers. My family and I would have had daily life to attend to. I would not have been looking for God to show up on my doorstep, even if I were praying He would.
This year, this day, what am I overlooking in the ordinary? Where is God showing up and I am just missing it? Because the reality is that my vision is not clear enough nor is my perception sharp enough to understand the significance of the moment I find myself in.
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