Celebrating the unexpected

The thing I love the most about the Christmas story is that it’s just so, well, unexpected.

As a writer (which is what I fancy myself to be), if I were to sit down and write about the arrival of a king—the Messiah, a Savior, the Redeemer—I wouldn’t pick a stable to be the setting or peasants’ son to be the king. A woman steps away from girlhood wouldn’t be my natural choice for his mother, and she wouldn’t have to give birth in a stable filled with animal smells and noises with only Joseph’s whispered words of encouragement. It does add excitement to the plot that Mary gave birth to her child miles away from home, without her mother, a midwife, or a circle of trusted women family members and friends who celebrated the birth process with her. It’s an unexpected picture of contrasts to imagine the tiny baby king cradled in Joseph’s sun-browned, rough, work-worn carpenter’s hands.

If we were writing the story, the cast of characters probably wouldn’t have included a group of shell-shocked, fearful shepherds who came to celebrate Christ’s birth. It doesn’t seem right for the birth of a king to be so . . . lowly. Wise Men from the east dressed in finery and bearing gifts seems like a step in the right direction, but that didn’t happen until later. On the night of his birth, Jesus was welcomed by his simple, hard-working parents and the dregs of society. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, especially for a king.

I’m glad, though, that God doesn’t do things the way I would. He brought Christ to earth in a what we wouldn’t expect—in a way the Jews didn’t expect—and He provided for salvation in a way we sometimes wish He hadn’t. I like having a God I can’t figure out entirely.

The picture that keeps coming back to me this Christmas is that of the baby lying in a manger. And as I see that image in my mind, the words proclaimed by John the Baptist (and inscribed on my brain by Andrew Peterson): “Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away our sin!”

This Christmas, I don’t want to forget that God works in ways I don’t have to understand, and He sent His Son to do the unthinkable and take my sin away. What a wonderful gift!

I hope that it never becomes commonplace to me!