Contemptible Creche
A friend recently shared with me how his wife set out a favorite nativity set on their coffee table. It was one of those artistic sets which catches the eye and calls for attention. A work of art. But when Mom’s back was turned, her toddler toddled by with Sharpie in hand and inked the animals, angels, shepherds, sheep, wise men, Joseph, Mary and even baby Jesus. Never had such saintly figures been so sadly soiled. A polished and perfect set became a mess in a matter of minutes.
But in a way, this toddler’s version of Christmas is better. Because the nativity was one magnificent mess after another.
Luke provides what may be the shortest summary of the nativity (Luke 2:7). His synopsis highlights the untidiness of it all. Luke does this by examining three gifts given to Jesus by Mary.
Gift #1: Birth
“And she gave birth to her firstborn son… (Luke 2:7 ESV)”
I was in the hospital room when my wife Kendra gave birth to Jordan. Years later I witnessed her giving birth to Jacob. Birth is not for the faint of heart. It’s a watery, bloody, clumsy and chaotic experience. There’s nothing unblemished or untarnished about it.
Birth is so disordered that it’s one of the deadliest threats a child will face. One student of the ancient world suggests that the infant morality rate in the Roman world was as high as seventy-five percent. Three of every four children in Jesus’ world didn’t make it through their first day out of the womb.
It’s still dangerous. Approximately one million children die each year on the day of their birth. Asphyxia, infection and other complications steal life just after it’s been given. In fact, I nearly died on the day of my arrival. My premature twin and I were so skin-and-bones that I barely survived by the skin of my teeth.
And God chose Mary to give this gift to Jesus. The gift of a beginning so precarious it threatens to become an end.
Why?
Delicate Deliverer
Here’s why: this gift enabled Jesus to fully identify with you and me in our most vulnerable states and at our most at-risk moments. None were as at-risk in the ancient world as children on their birth-day. God chose Mary to give that perilous present to Jesus so that Jesus could empathize with us in our valleys of vulnerability. Jesus knows what it’s like to live when life is so fragile it could crack like spring ice on a pond.
- Thus, he’s familiar with the emotion that accompanies not having enough paydays to cover the weekdays.
- He’s acquainted with the experience of thinking that the death of your marriage will be the death of you.
- He understands the feeling of dealing with a disease which possesses the power to extinguish your existence.
Jesus endured one of life’s most tenuous moments and can therefore treat you with tenderness in yours. He responds not with condemnation and critique, but with compassion and commiseration anytime you find yourself exposed.
Mary gave Jesus the gift of beginning life in a posture of fragility so profound he might have not made it past day one. And this gift gives him the ability to empathize with you every time you feel you can’t make it past one more day.
