The REAL Christmas Story

I Interviewed a Guest-Family the other day

As soon as the female walks through my door, I can tell she is pregnant.  She introduces me to her "fiance" (they all introduce their boyfriends as fiances so as to make the most positive impression), and tells me they are from out of town.

 I discover after much probing the baby she is carrying is not her fiance's, but never really understand her explanation of who the baby actually belongs to--she says it is a miracle baby but it sounds more like a one-night stand to me.  She is very pregnant, which means she won't be able to get a job for at least 2-3 months.   The government required them to move here; at least, that is what she tells me.   We talk for over an hour but I still don't fully understand the justification behind that explanation either.

They both claim they need shelter and have to be in town through the Christmas season, but do not plan on staying.  They do have relatives in the area, but the relatives have a full house because of Christmas and can only offer them the barn they have out back.

Do I go through the expense of drug testing these people?  Are they right for our program?  Can we manage all the inconvenience of admitting them the week of Christmas?  How will the Host Congregations handle them?  Will the present a positive image for our program, successfully graduating and showing the community we are a legitimate organization?  Will they just leave for another state when their 30 day time is up?  Will their relatives really make them stay in the barn?

Growing up I was always taught that the birth of Jesus was a regal, stately, earth-shattering, come-from-all-corners-of-the-earth-to-celebrate event.  After all, prophets and sooth-sayers travel from halfway around the world to present three of the most valuable commodities known in the Ancient Near-Eastern world to this young infant.  King Herod has an entire city of infants massacred in an attempt to destroy the future "King of the Jews" before he ever comes to power.  The Hebrew Scriptures even predict where this great king will be born, and the stars across the Universe align themselves to confirm the location.

In our modern picture of Christmas, a well-adjusted stable two-parent family gathers in suitable housing together for a meal and the exchange of gifts.  In the real Biblical account, an unwed mother and her "fiance" experience the birthing process far from hospital or mid-wife, with only dirty, smelly animals and shepherds around to witness the event.  Their biggest struggle in the next three to six months is not which gifts to return or which items of clothing don't fit; they are forced to flee to a foreign country as aliens and strangers, probably struggling to keep shelter over their heads and food in their stomachs, while the unwieldy powers of the world unleash unfathomable genocide on the "one-stoplight" town of Bethlehem.

My would-be guests applying for shelter paint a much more realistic picture of Christmas in my opinion than do our cultural stereotypes.  Mary and Joseph are displaced from their home town by no fault of their own--the government orders it.  They are a pregnant engaged couple and the story they tell about the pregnancy being a miracle of God is just as much a "hard sale" then as it would be today.

While parts of the Biblical narrative (specifically Matthew's gospel) locate the theological significance of the birth of the Kingly Christ in the universal, stately history of kingdom and crown, we should never forget the earthy, true-to-life picture from the eyes of Mary and Joseph.  My Sunday School teachers sold me Matthew's kingly political account growing up, but after experiencing a few Christmas celebrations in the real world, I find the earthly view from the perspective of Joseph and Mary much closer to my own experience of God choosing to bestow grace in the strangest, most back-water places.  May we all have the wisdom and the commitment to look for that grace in out of the way places and situations this Advent Season.

Grace & Peace
Mark