Guest commentary by Kathleen Long Bostrom
Nativity scenes have long held a special place in my heart. I am the proud owner of nativity sets from the Philippines and Playmobile, lovingly crafted in all sorts of materials – from cloisonné, to clay, to clothespins. As in many pastor families, our children learned early on that the baby Jesus did not belong in the manger during Advent, so we tucked away all the little Lord Jesuses until after the Christmas Eve service, when after joy to the world, the Lord is come, all those miniature mangers could officially receive their King.
I am always on the lookout for nativities. One year I discovered the most unique depiction of that O Holy Night.
On a crisp, December morning, my women’s Bible study journeyed to the little town of Antioch, Illinois, for our annual Christmas Tea. As we turned onto Main Street, one lady cried out, “Did you see that?”
I craned my head in a futile attempt to try to see what she saw, and caught a passing glimpse of a nativity scene that filled an entire window display. We parked, then bustled down the street to check it out.
There they were, behind a huge pane of glass. A life-sized, plastic, unholy-looking holy family.
Dear Mary, the blessed virgin kind, knelt on a linoleum floor, her white, plastic face frozen in fear, as if she’d just seen a ghost, and not a holy one. Joseph, clothed in egg-yolk yellow, crouched beside his pasty not-quite-wife. A shepherd in hues of brown that looked like he’d been out in the field keeping watch over his flock by night, gathered along with a few tentative wise men draped in turquoise turbans and magenta shawls, their gold, frankincense, and myrrh molded right into their plastic hands. Every single one of them was aimed face-forward, painted eyes staring in wonder at something that lay in the corner of the display.
The object of such interest on the part of the holy entourage was a real, live television set — tuned to (I’m not kidding you) a Charmin commercial.
One can imagine the conversation between the wise men. “Look at that — toilet paper! What a great idea! Where can we get some of that? Wait — what’s a toilet?”
Practically speaking, toilet paper would have been a much more welcome gift.
In the adjacent window, the plastic baby Jesus lay in a manger separated from his plasticene parents by a plaster wall, with nothing but a sinister-looking, plastic lamb to keep him from all evil. This was no cute, wooly baaaaa lamb, oh no! This one had a hideous grin on its face. Even the infant-no-crying-he-makes would have let out a scream at the sight.
What child is this, who laid to rest in a plastic manger, is not sleeping?
Oh, Jesus, Lamb of God, what have we done to you? Mild you may lay your glory by, but this is ridiculous! Not only are your new parents and the Unwise Men captivated by a commercial for toilet paper, they have completely lost sight of you, and abandoned you to the mercy of an evil, carnivorous sheep.
How can this be?
It is the question of the ages, the question of our faith.
“How can this be?” Mary asked when the angel Gabriel appeared out of the clear, blue sky and told her that she was going to bear the Son of God into the world.
How can this be, that God would choose a young, unsuspecting girl, in a small town and certain place in history, to bring the Word become flesh to dwell among us?
How can it be that Jesus will ever decide to come back into this crazy world?
A world where the child of Bethlehem is rendered in plastic?
A world where every year we celebrate his holy birth by rushing helter-skelter to the shopping malls to overload our credit cards and our kids with gifts we cannot afford and which they do not need?
A world where the star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright has been replaced by strings of electric lights?
A world where we build walls between ourselves and others, even those who need us most; a world where we abandon Jesus to a back room because we are so glued to our TVs and cellphones such that we don’t even notice that he is missing?
How can this be that we have turned the most holy and glorious gift from God into a commercial advertisement?
Perhaps you’ve never heard a preacher say this before: Commercialism and consumerism isn’t the enemy of Christmas, as we often claim it to be.
It is all part of the whole crazy, Christmas story.
And I love it.
I feel like a pastor-criminal as I stream Christmas music all day long and into the evening. I never tire of the songs. “Silent Night” is just as awesome the ten-thousandth time as it was the first time I ever sang the words.
Some of the most beautiful music ever written has been inspired by the birth of one miraculous child, and that music is being played all over the world in these weeks leading up to Christmas. Imagine that! Even people who have never set foot in a church listen to music that proclaims the holy birth.
All those strings of Christmas lights? I love the sparkles and twinkles and icicles and blue and red and green and purple and white. I love seeing whole streets lit with white milk cartons — plastic milk cartons — even if people put them there just to keep up with the neighbors. All those Christmas lights tell us about the light of the world, and even people who don’t believe in that light decorate their houses in preparation for his coming.
Those stacks of Christmas cards crammed in our mailboxes and email inboxes? Why bother to send them to people we don’t keep in touch with during the rest of the year? It’s a big expense and use of time. Bah, humbug!
Yet as we grumble, Grinch-like, the cards and letters arriving from long-lost friends bring a smile to our face, and we know that we are treasured, even just being on someone’s Christmas card list.
The presents and wrapping and standing in long lines at the post office desperately trying to get packages in the mail on time: pure craziness! But at least once a year we think beyond our own wants to find a gift that will brighten the Christmas of the uncle who never had any children, and the friend who stood by your side during a long ago crisis, and a sister you never see, who misses her father just as much as you do.
Much of the time, we are facing in the wrong direction, leaving Christ to contend with creepy sheep on his own. But isn’t that what Christ does? Tend to his sheep, no matter how weird or wretched or lost we may be and no matter how far we have strayed from his presence during the past year? The lost lambs are the ones Christ came to find and to save.
That is the surprising wonder of a God who loves us beyond all reason. For find us and save us, Christ does, even amidst the tinsel tunes and electric stars.
So, how can this be? How can this be that the obnoxious commercialism with which we are saturated every year is actually — dare I say it? – a Christmas miracle?
How can this be, that every year we seek to reclaim the gifts of hope, and love, and joy and peace, and believe that maybe, just maybe, we will find them?
How can it be, that once a year, much of the world, even without trying, points to that one, silent night, when a weary woman gave birth in a barn, and angels sang and shepherds stumbled to see this thing that had happened, that the Lord had made known to them?
How can this be — that a cartoon character with a Donald Trump hairdo, who sucks his thumb and carries a blanket, is the one who reminds us every year what Christmas is all about?
I found the Christ child in a holy parade of plastic figures watching a commercial for toilet paper. I dare say Christ has been found in stranger places than that.
As I stood before that shop window, I could not help but burst into laughter, a wonderful, holy kind of joy. It felt good. It felt great.
It felt like Christmas.
“So I don’t care if it rains or freezes,
long as I have my plastic Jesus . . .”
