Skip to main content

Disruptive Christmas (in a good way)

Read time: 3 minutes.
Adoration of the Shepherds

Disruptive is maybe not quite what you think when you want Silent Night and Peace on Earth.  But he’s bringing Shalom precisely because it's not here and was not here at the incarnation.  As God brought order out of chaos/formlessness to create the world (Genesis 1:2) , so the Second Adam creates a new world.

Though incredible in its result, the surrounding events show God’s sovereignty in ways we are often blind to.  We see the very evident hand of God in the Angel speaking to Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, but He also put it into the mind of the ruler of the known world, Caesar Augustus, (or his Chancellor of the Exchequer!) to hold a census for the mundane reason that he needed more tax revenue.  But this caused Jesus to be born in Bethlehem after a difficult pregnant journey.

Going back a little, in Lk 1:5 the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth is told with a frank simplicity, a dramatic domestic account. Gabriel says John will be his son. Zechariah knows how this is supposed to work - an interesting husband and wife communication that evening.

God put it in the mind of the Magi, through astronomy and metaphysical considerations, (what as that star?) to journey a long way, to see no less than the expected rise of a sovereign power.

It's so helpful to consider these practical aspects, as they really happened, and God has not ceased His presence among us. He incredibly respects and honours his  human creation and fully participates in the wider created world. He arranges things so that His activity is more clear to us, so Elizabeth is barren. Luke records that they were righteous (only possible through faith). This was all not going to happen without their faith, not least as demonstrated in Zechariah’s prayer for a son. When Gabriel says ‘your prayer has been heard’ we might think (as God heard it years before when first prayed) what took so long to be answered! But it's exactly at the right time.  

Why did God make Zechariah dumb?  ‘because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time’  Lk 1:20.  He was there at this moment because of his righteousness/faith, and in the midst of so important an event, a faithless/unrighteous moment results in a physical loss. Don't believe words, can't speak words. 

We know that when we distance ourselves from God, things get worse physically, socially, and materially.  It’s just as real today as then, and needs to inform our warning and witness to the world. But when we're faithful again, He restores us.

TS Eliot’s account of the Journey of the Magi has a sense of immediacy:
A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.’ …

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins, But there was no information, and so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

… were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.

Are we not 'With an alien people clutching their gods'?

Film series like The Chosen are helpful as they bring a sense of being-there to the Gospels, drawing us into the action – would we not react just as the disciples do? Is it not actually exactly the same now?

A vivid retelling of the nativity: