Christmas Story 2020 David Carr
He was born in a manger over 2000 years ago to show you the truth and light . He was, and is still called Jesus. He can live with you in your heart and mind when you follow his teachings from the Sermon on the Mount and the Thirty One Parables. . You can hear and feel his message in the eyes and words of his disciples, who speak his truth and new commandment, living as apostles in the world. You can tell who his followers are by their caring for the hungry, sick, or lonely, visiting prisoners, teaching children, investing their talents, helping their neighbors and working to make his kingdom on earth a glorious place for all eternity. Jesus loves you today with an everlasting love just like he has from the very beginning. He sacrificed life as we know it to teach forgiveness, loss, hope, faith and everlasting life in spirit and service. Jesus wants to share his riches and relationship with you forever, and loves you more than you can think or know!
As we enter the final week of Christmas (after struggling with a year of loss and social distancing from Covoid19) , the end of Hanukkah and the beginning of Kwanzaa 2020, let us invest moments to think about what we all have in common, instead of how we are so different. Being a person who attempts to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, our family celebrates Christmas and appreciates the meaning of this season. In my life, with our family, with my friends, and in my business, I strive to follow Christ’s examples of acceptance, compassion, integrity, accountability and forgiveness.
Christmas is a season of miracles and hope for a future, much like the miracle of the eight nights of light in Hanukkah and the future that communities can build through the principles of Kwanzaa. As a Christian I believe that the most important part in the Bible are the 80 pages of the four books that describe the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. When you understand these four books discuss a lot of the same things, you begin realize how very little of the Bible is really about Jesus Christ. Many people don’t know the first five books of Old Testament is really part of the Torah.
Most of us read about the birth of Jesus. The shepherds, Mary, Joseph, the mean inn keeper, the lowly donkey, the shining star, the multitude of angels, the kings and the shepherds visiting the newborn baby laid on a bed of straw.
1st century Israel was a time of terrible occupation by the Romans when a young girl lived in a village of no more than 35 homes. A speck on the side of a hill occupied by a Roman outpost.
Mary was a young Jewish girl, maybe around the age of 15. She was not formally educated but was probably well taught in the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the bible), the Law and the Prophets by her parents and brothers who would have attended synagogue.
She lived in a small home with her extended family with little privacy. In those days a family’s animals were often taken into the back of the home at night in a dug-out area. There they would sleep and eat from a feeding trough called a manger. No running water, no toilets, just farm living!
Never in Mary’s wildest dreams could she imagine what her life would hold. Her life was meager and every day in her small-town-on-the-side-of-a-hill in Israel, This first part of the Christmas story shows us who can make a difference with a foundation of faith.
One day an angel, named Gabriel, appeared to her and told her she had found favor with God. Can you imagine an angel appearing to you? He said “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
It’s hard to imagine what Mary felt or thought in that brief moment, and in the time after this happened. Mary was betrothed to be married to another villager named Joseph. She and Joseph did not live together. They were good Jews and followers of the Law. Mary could not understand how she could ever conceive a child. The disciples reveal how she answered the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”so the angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come to you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. The holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
The bible does not tell us Mary’s feelings, fears or inner thoughts. Scripture does, however give us Mary’s obedient and succinct answer. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” We are never told of the detail of the reaction of her family or the village but we can see a glimpse of her fiancée Joseph. The bible calls him a righteous man, one that followed God’s law and was found in right standing with God.
Joseph hears the news of Mary’s pregnancy, but what does he do next in this moment? He probably thinks that she has been unfaithful to him and broken a sacred contract. This must have shaken him to his core! According to the law of the day, Joseph had every right to have her stoned to death, in doing so he would totally vindicate himself, yet he chose a path of faith. Stoning would save him from the shame of a pregnant fiancée. Here we get a glimpse of Joseph’s character. Joseph was faithful to the law, yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, so he had a plan to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel Gabriel appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (God with us).
When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. To the villagers and the rest of the people of Israel the marriage of Joseph to Mary was as good as admitting that he was indeed the unborn baby’s father, and he along with Mary were guilty of pre-marital sex This may have brought shame to the couple and great hardship within the community, but the written history does not speak of this, so it’s up to interpretation. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to their son. He gave him the name Jesus and raised him as a son in the eyes of the village and God, just like we do today. Teaching his son right from wrong with a foundation of faith and service.
Mary and Joseph lived real lives, in real history, in hard times. Yet their faith sustained them in ways we may have a hard time imagining in the wired, wild world of 2020 where we can see each other in real time on a hand-held computer, something that would be considered a miracle only 50 years ago, when the picture phone was debuted at the World’s Fair
As the Christmas story progresses… can you see how agonized Joseph was when he got the news that he had to travel with his expectant wife to Bethlehem, the town of his ancestral birth, to take part in a census of the Roman government occupying beloved Israel? The time for this baby to be born was now… this baby that was God’s son… This baby that he had charge over!
Can you see and imagine the struggle and faith Joseph and Mary maintained together, making a 10 day trip over mountains and valleys to reach Bethlehem. Mary was uncomfortable and ready to give birth. Was it easier for Mary to walk or to ride a donkey? Today people complain about getting stuck in the reclining seats of their air conditioned, or heated chariots.
Can you imagine “O Little Town Of Bethlehem” a real town just 8 miles outside of the capital of Jerusalem swelling and teaming with the ancestors of David, walking around in a darkness lit with candles, fires and torches to take part in a decreed census?
Can you imagine that Mary and Joseph, tired and worn out, were probably taken in by distant relatives? As Mary went into labor, she was taken to the back of a small crowded home where the family kept their animals to give birth with some mid wives and her husband, in a delivery room of straw.
Can you see Mary in real life labor with no doula, medications, diapers, formula or stethoscopes? Can you feel the young couple, miles from their home, holding their baby, their faith, their hopes and each other in a barn?
Can you imagine the lowliest of the low shepherds out in a ravine like valley at night, being visited by a multitude of supernatural beings, telling them the long-awaited Savior had been born?
Can you see people with dusty clothing, worn and tired from sleeping in the fields, but determined to find the miracle baby, filled with wonder and awe, and probably a great combination of confusion and excitement?
Can you understand God’s love in sending His Son to be born in this time, in this place, in this way? I wonder what it meant to Mary and Joseph as they raised their young son in a family of faith, until the day young Jesus did not come home from the temple. Do you know the story?
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?” Jesus asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. I wonder if people today understand what Jesus has been saying to us.
It’s important to see the drama and the struggle of the Christmas story! We need to feel the emotions of two people given a hard choice to follow God’s will, knowing that following it will most likely create some very unpleasant consequences from the world around them. We need to see the Christmas story from the customs of a first century, ancient, orthodox, oriental viewpoint. We need to feel the sweat, exhaustion, dirt, while witnessing faith over fear in the greatest adventure and life ever known.
The three wise men were not present at the Christ child’s birth. They don’t belong at the manger until almost two weeks later, on Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, Jan 6. They saw the young child with Mary his mother after they traveled through the desert for two weeks. They arrived, fell down, worshipped him, and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The wise men were warned by God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, so they departed into their own country another way. Later the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.” When Joseph arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, departed into Egypt, and lived there until the death of Herod, fulfilling which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”
We remember the world and times God chose to deliver his son to humanity. We need to get this story right and real in these days of global pandemic, hunger, homelessness, extreme weather, oppression, social polarization and geo-political instability as we peer over the cusp of 2021.
This is an especially important time to affirm the truth of Jesus’s life, teachings, miracles and presents for humanity, in a time when people are making videos to misrepresent the truth, using computer imaging to create visual reality and changing their very physical existence with cosmetic surgery. In the days of Jesus news traveled by word of mouth or by decrees carried by messengers, sometimes in writing if the parties had great wealth. But for the average person, history and truth was spoken and shared in the markets, streets, homes, fields and temples. The history and truth of Jesus has been shared over generations, just like a story in your family or our shared history that happened years ago. It’s funny how time makes all things new again, including lack of faith as some people now have who deny the Earth is round and the glaciers are melting.
Can you imagine hearing people talk about the miracles of healing that were happening, or how Jesus told stories at the temple to teach the will of God? Can you imagine being at the wedding where he turned water into wine, calmed the seas, or the time he fed the multitudes with a few fish and loaves of bread? Every time something new happened people talked about it in a world where not much happened except daily life and Roman domination. Jesus has been recognized by historians and writers over time, and remains the founder of Christianity. When Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead he was observed ten times before His ascension. All this can be read in the four little books of the bible named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with other references in Corinthians and Acts. Do you know the story of the city of Corinth? It’s much more interesting, beautiful and seductive than the last mini-series, and more real than the last reality show.
Do you know the real, raw and beautiful story of Jesus’ birth and his life? Do you know the Sermon on the Mount and the New Commandment? Have you pondered the 31 Parables? Does it all fill you with amazing wonder, hope and a sense of direction?! I hope Jesus and Christmas gives you the sense of faith and purpose I feel when I open my eyes and plot my course through daily life.
For me this means helping people with housing, teaching, advocating for our environment, being a committed dad and husband, standing by and with my friends, being a positive member of my community development team, and cooking food for the hungry when I have the opportunity to do so. As our children are now in college, they might think it’s strange that their mom and dad don’t give them everything they want, yet provide them with everything they need to live a life of honor, integrity, education, fun and service. We have built our family legacy on a foundation of resourcefulness, gratitude, forgiveness, confidence, exploration, creativity, trust, security, family time, faith, fellowship and friends, which is why these are the presents. The biggest gifts in our home are the promises of love, encouragement, discipline, guidance, accountability, forgiveness, and acceptance as we navigate our course through the everchanging waters of life.
This year I hope people will all keep Christmas closer, by focusing on the gifts we have been given, and what we have to give. So many people have so much in a world where so many have so little. This base of inequality challenges me on a daily basis as I seek ways to construct opportunity with an obligation of personal responsibility. People need a hand up more than a hand out, as everybody who wants to live an honest, educated life should have the opportunity to do so, raising their family, or just living in peace with social security and the constitutional freedoms we cherish in the USA, and other democracies. This can be challenging in a materialistic world where Christmas has been distilled to wanting, shopping and giving purchases to people we love, often resulting in debt and guilt. I believe Christmas can be most meaningful when we find ways to share our talents in ways we feel called to do. By David Carr.
