Recently I kicked off the Christmas series for advent at our new Church plant, Saints Church Viridian. Sometimes when I speak I notice a hint of confusion cross peoples faces, surprised for a moment as if they just switched on Britbox by accident instead of ABC or HBO. I find myself constantly explaining “I am English and I grew up in Manchester, this is not an episode of coronation street.”
I still find everything feels fairly new here but my main observation from the last few months has been everything is bigger here, trucks are bigger, Christmas decorations are bigger and steaks are bigger which I am particularly excited about!
This year as we have made the transition from Northern Ireland to Texas, the transitional nature of the Christmas story feels like it has a special resonance and a number of things have caught my attention particularly from the hosts perspective in the context of making room for more.
As a family both Beccy and I love Christmas, for us it’s all about celebration.
I love all the little traditions we have. Normally towards the beginning of December we head out with our best friends to choose a tree from his neighbours land, chop it down, rope it onto the roof bars on our car and haul it home, aiming to drive fast enough that any wildlife that may be in the tree might be dislodged but not too fast that we leave a trail of needles and hoping it still resembles a tree by the time we are home. I even love the “magical” if even if a little “crazy” traditions we keep, like our annual sprinkling of reindeer food – a “mystical” homemade blend of glitter and oats no less.
But most of all I love what it all represents. the celebration of Emmanuel – God with us
The beautiful outworking of our glorious creators redemption story. The moment the father’s pursuit of humanity took the form of a most unlikely turn of events.
For us December is a whole month of celebration. Over the course of December we mark advent (I think our kids were really hoping advent calendars were going to be bigger here, you know with chocolate the size of their head or something) but it is the celebration of what is to come, we celebrate as we wait with anticipation for the promise coming of the unfolding story. The promise of Emanuel, God with us here on earth, changing everything for generations to come.
The reality of course is that the first Christmas would have looked very different from ours. No tinsel, no reindeer, no eggnog, and almost certainly no snowy landscapes.
Our glorious redemption story is rooted in a small middle eastern village, set in the backdrop of desert and mountains. Bethlehem nestles in the southern portion of the Judean Mountains. 45 miles northeast of what now is Gaza City and the Mediterranean Sea, 47 miles west of the Jordan, and only 6 miles south of Jerusalem. It was hot dusty and steeped in Jewish tradition that many of us are familiar with from the accounts of King David.
In Luke 2 we read;
” The Birth of Jesus
2 At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2 (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. 4 And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5 He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child.
6 And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7 She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”
For many of us this text probably conjures up memories of cute nativities with rows of proud parents staring on as a young lad wearing his Father’s bath robe with a tea towel on his head smugly announces – there is no room at the inn! Quickly and graciously conceding that they can use the stable. And it seems renditions of the nativity get more and more creative every year, a few years ago superheroes and power rangers took part in one of our boys school’s production.
Digging beneath our modern understanding, the story of course has undercurrents deeply rooted in Hebrew manners and customs and many scholars, have various theories of what really took place on that Holy night. Some argue that the word Luke uses that much of our common Christmas nativity traditions are based on that many have translated as inn would be better translated as guest house, notice in the text here, the NIV has gone for lodging. The suggestion is that far from a stable many of Luke’s contemporaries who he was writing for, having grown up in the middle eastern Hebraic culture probably understood him to be communicating Jesus was born in the main room of a family members house, which may have doubled as a stable for the evening, with a manger set in the floor. Archaeological history reveals to us that many dwellings contained a large family room, used by the family during the day but also somewhere it would appear their animals would have been brought into of an evening with a manger dug into the floor to feed those animals. In this context it may have been that Mary and Joseph found lodging with relatives or family friends but only the large family was available, perhaps their family did not have the means for a large dwelling or perhaps the guest room or rooms were already occupied by other family members?
However regardless of whether it looked like a quaint stable depicted on a hallmark Christmas card and despite whether the host was an inn keeper or not there are a few principles I want to unpack that his role in the story highlights.
Interruptions are sometimes invitations from God for something more. Perhaps if you are anything like me interruptions can feel like anything but invitations. In Northern Ireland I often used to disappear off to work in coffee shops or solitary places to avoid a steady stream of interruptions . But in this case an interruption to the normal rhythm of life became an invitation into God’s incredible redemption story.
A few years ago I was rushing through our church as one service came to a close. I was leading the youth service that morning and I had a tight turn around time to get everything ready for the next service. A friend of mine approached me and explained recently his friend had been diagnosed with an aggressive throat cancer and had come to church for the fist time desperate and hungry for some kind of hope. My friend was so happy he had made the decision but wanted him to find more than hope and asked if I would join him and pray for his friend. It was a interruption I couldn’t refuse. So I made a diversion introduced myself and we prayed. Nothing particularly spectacular happened but his friend seemed to appreciate it nonetheless. As politely as I could I excused myself and disappeared off to get on with the things on my list. A few months later my friend introduced us again and we celebrated as he explained his cancer had gone into remission and soon after his visit the doctor gave him the all clear.
Totally amazing right! And that is the incredible privilege we have, that the Father, invites us to participate with Him in the expansive life giving coming of His Kingdom. When we face interruptions, imagine what might be. Imagine the host of that first Christmas faced with the interruption of family members, friends or even strangers arrivals, unaware of the glorious future his hospitality was about to play a part in?
The unexpected often leads to the extraordinary. A couple of years ago around this time of year I took a trip with a friend down to the bottom of Ireland to visit one of our teams down there. It was roughly a 6 hour drive and about 3 hours down the road we stopped for a coffee and shortly after getting back on the road my car started to splutter and shake, so badly we had to pull over. When I opened the bonnet/hood I discovered my engine was hanging lopsided, just hanging on by a hose and and when the roadside assistance truck pulled up they confirmed it looked like my engine mounts had collapsed and my car was no longer drivable. We were directly in the middle of our journey, it was as far to turn back or as far to continue on so we dropped the car in at the garage and caught a coach to the city we were on our way to. The south of Ireland uses a different currency than the north and by the time we had paid for our tickets we literally only had fifteen Euros left. So in a moment of inspired faith we prayed over that fifteen Euros and asked the Father to multiply it, before we headed to the cheapest place we could think of for breakfast. McDonalds, it might be kind of nasty but it fills a hole, and while we were there we found a man who appeared to be homeless sitting outside so we invited him to breakfast and split our fifteen Euros three ways. Later that day we had a meeting with a church pastor over coffee. At the end he produced fifty Euros and explained he felt God was telling him to give it to us. This is not normal for these kind of meeting and to be honest I am not sure which of us was more surprised, but we graciously accepted and explained how much of an answer to prayer that was, (we hadn’t told him anything of the events that had happened previously). Later that evening we were out for dinner and after paying for our own meals we used what was left over to pay for the people behind us.. Afterwards we met with some friends of ours and as it was Christmas I didn’t think anything of it when they gave us a Christmas card, it wasn’t until we got back to our hotel room that I discovered it contained two hundred Euros, which amply paid for us to get home.
As trivial as those moments of provision seem, nevertheless God is capable of immeasurably more than we can even begin to imagine, with Him often the unexpected can be a gateway to the extraordinary. God can turn whatever unexpected you are facing today into an extraordinary opportunity for His love and grace to be displayed.
The question the host of the first Christmas faces us with is; “are we prepared to make room for the unexpected?” One of the true marvels and beauties of the story is how making room for the unexpected led to the most extraordinary miracle of all, the redemption of humanity.
Making room, changes everything, Jesus is a game changer. I grew up in manchester and like most English teenagers I followed soccer, my team is Manchester United. When I first started following them they wallowed somewhere at the bottom of the league but there was hope in the form of a new manager Alex Ferguson, who since has been knighted. What Sir Alex did for Manchester United was truly remarkable but one of his most effective plays was his super subs. There was one in particular nick named the baby faced assassin because he was so accurate near the net who helped clinch the champions league match which secured United winning all three of the most prestigious league championships in Europe that year. He was a game changer, Ferguson would bring him on with 10 minutes to spare and within minutes of the final whistle often he would score several goals that would win United the game.
More so Jesus is a game changer.
Here is something I wrote for my book “Because You’re Loved” a year or so ago;
“Jesus is a game changer. He is the kind of friend who if you arranged to meet for a coffee you should pack a tooth brush and a spare pair of underwear (although he’d probably tell you not to bring anything for the road) because you never know what might happen. The disciples went on all sorts of wild adventures with him in the bible. Preaching trips, healings, exorcisms, divine provisions of food, finance and business, a transfiguration, weather control, moments that defied the laws of physics and righteous vandalism all happened but everywhere he went people came alive. Tax collectors, prostitutes, terrorists, beggars, blind, lame, deaf, mute, outcasts, even the dead were all transformed in some way when they encountered Jesus. Jesus is a game changer.”
So as we think about all He is inviting us into and the opportunities for the extraordinary that come with His invitations lets intentionally prepare to make room for Him and His Kingdom.
With Him the impossible becomes very much possible.
So my prayer for us this Christmas is that hope would rise, it would rise as we celebrate, and that it would rise as we navigate the interruptions and unexpected. Long may hope arise as we follow His invitations into the extraordinary for He will ever be a game changer!