Christmas Chaos

Several years ago in mid-December, I was on the phone with a friend after our kids had all gone to bed. We were leaning on each other, sharing the stressors of the season — what gifts hadn’t arrived, when we would be leaving to visit relatives, how the tree lights were malfunctioning.

We were talking as we completed the day’s tasks, and my friend’s voice was becoming more frantic,“I can’t find it. I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Find what?” I asked.

“I can’t find Jesus,” she answered, almost in tears. She was looking for the baby Jesus from her kids’ Little People nativity set.

Then I heard her gasp. “Oh my gosh. That’s it, I can’t find Jesus.”

It’s easy to lose sight of Jesus amidst all the hubbub of this season. Even with the best intentions of celebrating his birth, our Christmases never look like a Hallmark movie, and the challenges we’ve had over the last 11 months have a way of being magnified.

However, the first Christmas had its own complexities. A pregnant teenager named Mary and her fiancé Joseph arrived in Bethlehem to register for the census after about four hard days of travel. But their journey really began nine months before when an angel appeared to Mary and told her she would divinely conceive and give birth to the Son of God.

Just take a minute and consider how that conversation went with her parents. And with Joseph.

According to the custom at the time, the couple were contractually married but not ceremonially. Because Joseph knew the child was not his, he had resolved to quietly divorce Mary, which would have been quite scandalous at the time. But the angel visited Joseph too, so here they were in Bethlehem together.

Along with everyone and their brother apparently because the inn was full.

We know the story almost by heart, or we think we do. But take your imagination there and ponder the humanity. The young man panicked as his betrothed was giving birth — to the Messiah — and he could not give her a warm bed where she could labor. The teenage girl, away from her mother, aching with contractions on a bed of straw and bewildered as to how her Savior could be arriving under such circumstances.

And the swaddled baby whose crib was a feeding trough. And though our modern nativity sets depict the manger as made of wood, it was more likely carved from stone. Like the tomb out of which Jesus would walk 33 years later.

The miracle in the mess. Our hope arrived in havoc.

So when the grocery bills pile up, the table conversations turn tense, and maybe you can’t find the baby Jesus in your nativity set, look for the Prince of Peace, who overcame our broken and chaotic world and offers us this assurance:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. — Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus, happy birthday! Thank you for stepping into our mess and shining a light in the darkness. Forgive us when we lose sight of you and make much ado about nothing. Rather, help us accept your peace and grace as the greatest gifts. Amen.