(Part 1)
I’m a true Christmas lover. I’m talking about the kind of person that’s watching the fourth of July fireworks display while simultaneously thinking, “Fall isn’t too far away. We’re basically half way to Christmas.”
I love everything about Christmas and the season that surrounds it. I love that it directly follows Thanksgiving. A holiday of reflection, remembrance and open hands towards others. I love Christmas music, the lights that are literally everywhere and the decorations on every main street and town square. The generosity and just the whole ambiance of the Christmas season is something I count down to all year.
I’ve grown to love Christmas that much more when I made the personal decision to believe in and follow Jesus. While the majority of society has attempted to tuck Him away, out of sight and mind. It still is His birth that we are celebrating. The Christmas story contains so much beauty and is so relatable to common people like me. God could have easily chosen to set a different narrative and choose a different back drop for His incarnation and visitation. But He didn’t, He chose a really strange story.
The first Christmas was pretty messy to be honest. The story includes the common people, lowly towns and a few misfits as the main characters. People and places that no one else would have included in their story, God included in His. Showing us that the true gift of Christmas is for all people, not just those held in high esteem.
I deeply and genuinely love the town that I come from. Yet growing up, and even still today, I’ve always heard the place I grew up talked down upon. Often referred to as “the armpit of Long Island.” While realistically we do have many well-meaning and hardworking people, we undoubtedly do also have our struggles as well. We have one of the highest poverty rates on the island especially amongst our children and youth. Poverty, especially when it becomes dire, has the ability to spin a spiderweb of other issues. People on the outside only see those issues and of course look and talk down upon them. But we’re a town of resilient people that are able to struggle together and do it well. When push comes to shove and it often does, we’re known to show up for one another. Just a few of the many reasons I’m proud to be from here.
God chose to be born in Bethlehem and then raised in Nazareth. He could have just as easily chosen to be born in a golden palace full of the world’s treasures and powerful characters. He could have chosen any place, anywhere and anytime in human history. But His heart felt that these two struggling little towns, also looked down upon at the time of that very first Christmas, fit Him and His mission well.
Nazareth was southwest of the Sea of Galilee, and a very small community, probably less than 500 people the time when Jesus walked its roads. Such a small town and not adjacent to major cities, it was the last place one would expect anything world changing to happen. Nazareth was sort of just existing without any visitors or fanfare. When someone at that time were called a “Nazarene,” it was similar to calling them a hillbilly. Nazareth certainly wasn’t a desirable place at that time. It was considered of low esteem by its neighbors.
Bethlehem was a little different with some different dynamics. It was an extremely poor and overcrowded little town by the water. The houses were small and built on small plots of land, usually with too many people living inside for the size of the structure. Most people owned animals, which added to the overcrowding, the smell of animal dung was most likely everywhere. Bethlehem was also being crushed, overtaxed and manipulated heavily by a harsh Roman government. Rome was known for enacting force, even violence, upon the poor and keeping them under their heels. Overcrowded, desperate, afraid and ultimately helpless. Such a different environment than many of our tidy little nativity plays during December portray.
Nazareth and Bethlehem are proof that God isn’t ashamed of or aloof to human lowliness. He actually draws near to it. He’s not a deity that stands at a distance until we seemingly have our ducks in a row. He knocks on the door of every heart, especially when we find ourselves in a mess or simply passed over by the world.
People may talk down on you, your family, your zip code or your upbringing. The Christmas story is a reminder that Jesus does the opposite. He desires to come visit.
(Part 2 next week)
