Christmas Carol

A Different Kind of Christmas Story


Prepare ye the way of the Lord. That’s what her preacher had said. That’s what she was trying to do this Advent season. She desperately wanted to prepare her heart to receive the peace of Christ. God knew she could use some peace.

Carol was a single mom trying to raise two kids. Her husband bailed after the second child was born prematurely and had some developmental problems. The doctors couldn’t guarantee she would turn out to be “normal” and he couldn’t handle it. Ironically, her youngest did turn out to be just fine—a happy 11-year-old with a “B” average and an addiction to instant messaging on the computer.

Carol used to love Christmas. Her father once told her that the Christmas “Carols” were sung just for her, and years after she stopped believing him, she loved pretending it was true. She knew the words to all of them. But this year, she just didn’t feel much like singing.

There was a store that she walked by on the way to work everyday that had a window full of nativity scenes. There was one that she always paused to look at. It was too expensive for her to purchase, and she wondered if it might still be there and go on sale after Christmas. Then she always felt a little guilty waiting for a bargain Jesus. It was the kind that just had Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. None of the shepherds or wisemen or barn animals. Just the family. The baby is sleeping and Mary is looking down at him. Her face the picture of calm and peace.

Working full time and trying to raise two precocious girls who were determined to grow up as fast as they could didn’t bring a lot of peace to Carol. She was hoping to find some this Christmas. This year, she was really wanting something more from Christmas. Though her life wasn’t bad, things really hadn’t turned out the way she thought they would. Life seemed a little hollow—as if there was something deep in her core that needed to be filled. She was hoping and praying that Christmas would bring her what she yearned for this year.

She wanted to Prepare the Way for the Lord, but she honestly couldn’t find the time. She got up early enough for a short power walk to help preserve her waistline and her sanity. Then it was always chaos for three females to get ready and out the door by 8 a.m. Her work day sailed with lunch usually being a sandwich at her desk. And then by the time she got home, fixed dinner, helped with homework, got the girls to bed and threw a load of whites in the laundry, all she wanted to do was collapse in a heap. She didn’t even have time to pray. When on earth this the preacher (who didn’t have any children) think she was going to do all this preparation?

But every day when she passed by that store, she paused to look at that nativity scene—it was her very own Christmas story. She imagined that Silent Night when Christ was born. She imagined how miraculous that night must have been and she longed for the peace she saw in Mary’s eyes.

One day as she was passing the store front to look at her nativity scene she was shocked and disappointed to see that it was gone. Guess she wouldn’t be buying it on the after Christmas sales after all. But in its place was a very different kind of scene. This one had the shepherds and the sheep and a donkey and a cow and even the three wisemen. Baby Jesus was not asleep, but his feet and arms were waving in the air and Joseph was leaned over as if speaking to Mary whose head was thrown back like she was laughing.

“What on earth was she laughing about?” thought Carol. Then it hit her. Mary was laughing at the absurdity of it all. Two people, far away from home, birthing their first child—a child that they had on good authority was actually God—birthing him in a barn among the livestock. One would have to either laugh or cry—and this Mary had chosen to laugh.

Then Carol realized that there was nothing “silent” about that night. It was loud and dirty and uncomfortable and painful and, yes…chaotic. Nobody was at all prepared for Jesus that first Christmas, yet he came anyway. He burst onto the scene screaming and messy and hungry. Carol’s hectic schedule seemed like a cake walk compared to what must have gone on in Bethlehem that first Christmas.

If Jesus could enter the world in such an unexpected and unlikely way, surely he could make his way into her wacky world. She had her very own epiphany right in front of the Hallmark store.

So that year, to prepare for Advent, she became the laughing Mary.

When the work package that just absolutely positively had to get there overnight went to Tucson instead of Boston, she ran some damage control and then she tossed back her head and laughed.

When she fell into bitter moods over being left to raise two daughters alone, she smiled because she, and she alone, knew the joy of being a parent to those two wonderful creatures she called daughters.

When the disposal and the dishwasher broke on the same day, she laughed because it couldn’t get worse, and then the next day when the dryer broke, she laughed at her own naivete.

When she heard her two daughters unpacking the Christmas decorations and her youngest cried out—“Mom, Sara hid the baby Jesus. Tell her she can’t have him. Jesus is for all of us.” She laughed, because she knew that truer words had never been spoken.


And then in the midst of all that laughter, a funny thing happened. Not funny, ha ha. But funny, odd. Funny wonderful.

Somehow, the mornings seemed easier. And she didn’t feel exhausted by nightfall. There was not only time to pray, but the prayers seemed to bubble up from inside of her. They came with no effort at all. And there was no part of her body, her soul, or her life that seemed hollow.

Several years ago she had let each of the girls choose their favorite food to have for Christmas dinner. So that Christmas Eve after church when she and the girls sat down to their traditional dinner of pizza and Cheetos, every part of her felt whole.

Her life was loud, messy, uncomfortable, painful and chaotic. She was totally prepared for the coming of the Christ child. After all, her life was just the kind of place where Jesus feels at home.

Wednesday, December 5

Sorry to have to cancel this week's gathering due to strep throat. Here is this week's message. We'll pick back up with Mary next week!

Matthew 1:18-25

This is the year that Joseph gets his due. We know all about Mary, but Joseph seems to fade into the background of Advent. Which is kind of odd, since his story is actually more intriguing. I mean, I think we all know what we’d do if a pregnant teenager came to us for help. There would be hugs and prayers and compassion and help offered. But what if a male friend came to you and told you that the woman he was engaged to was pregnant and the child wasn’t his, but he was going to marry her and raise the child anyway. Anybody got a good response to this one?

Why do I feel as if this story were coming to pass in this day and age, it would be turned into a reality television show?

I can just hear the promo now. “We’ve assembled 10 eligible bachelors and told them that each are going to get to marry a beautiful younger woman. What they don’t know is that the woman is 8-and-a-half months pregnant and the baby belongs to someone else. They’ll be asked to marry her anyway, trek 80 miles through the desert and then deliver the baby with no mid-wife, physician or epidural drip in a livestock barn. The man who is able to secure a donkey for the trip, deliver the baby without passing out or calling for backup, and commit to raising the child as his own will win a two-year trip to Egypt and a life of uncertainty.”

And if this actually did make it into production, would anyone who was watching it place their bets on a poor peasant teenager and a carpenter from a little town no one had every even heard of? They don’t exactly sound like a powerhouse of a couple.

They certainly don’t fit what we typically think of as power couples. Bill and Hillary, Arnold and Maria, Brad and Angelina. They weren’t educated. They weren’t rich. They weren’t prominent. But in reality, Mary and Joseph are the ultimate power couple—and not just because they brought Jesus into the world. I think there are three marks of this couple that make them powerful—not in the way we often think of power.

First of all, they were open to hearing God. Angels appeared to both Mary and to Joseph to announce what was about to come to pass. I don’t think that angels appear to folks who aren’t interested in listening to them. Perhaps Mary and Joseph were chosen because of their openness to the possibility.

I once had a conversation with a woman who shared with me a recent experience that couldn’t be properly explained but yielded delightful results. This person asked me if I believed the Holy Spirit could have been involved. I said I absolutely did. The member said, “Well, I hesitate to share this with anyone but you, because a lot of folks don’t really believe in that.” I said that I believed the Holy Spirit moves in all of our lives. Some of us are just more aware of its movement.

I believe both Mary and Joseph were open to the possibility of God in our midst and that their ears were open and ready to hear.

Mark One of a powerful person.

Secondly, there were willing to believe what they heard. In other words, they trusted God. Even though it didn’t make sense. Even though believing meant their lives would change forever.

Mark two of a powerful person.

Third, they were willing to do something. They were willing to cooperate with God’s action in human history—also known as obedience. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is when Mary says yes. There is something incredibly powerful about this young girl agreeing to carry the child of God despite the consequences that might befall her. But I realized this week that Joseph’s obedience God was equally important. His cooperation went against everything he knew. Jewish law said he should return Mary to her father where that same law said she could be stoned for shaming her husband and family. But Joseph, not having all of the evidence and knowledge of the future, not having all the detail spelled out, decided to do more than law and custom required. He elected to do more than was expected of him. He let justice and compassion guide his decision about his pregnant betrothed. He was pulled, not by the strength of custom, but by the
law of love and his obedience to God.

He continued to follow God and not custom even when the baby was born. He gave the baby, not a family name, as was and still is the custom in Jewish families. He named the baby Jesus. Acknowledging that the baby belonged to God and at the same time committing the raising the child as his own.

Mary and Joseph were willing to cooperate with God’s actions in human history.

Mark three of a powerful person.

I don’t know about you, but I would like to feel powerful right about now. There are so many times that I feel powerless. I feel powerless in the face of war in Iraq and mounting tensions in Iran, Pakistan and the Sudan. I feel powerless to even begin to meet the needs of so many people that I know of who are lonely and forgotten. I feel powerless to defend those who are being abused in their own homes. I even feel powerless to quell the unexpected melt-downs of my six-year-old!

But when I think about Mary and Joseph, I begin to believe that perhaps I am not so powerless after all. Perhaps we can all learn from them something about what it means to be powerful

Let us be open to hearing what God has to say. Open to the power of the Holy Spirit moving in our midst.

Let us believe not only in God but in what God is saying to us. Let us trust that God is leading us down the right path—even when the path looks bumpy and twisty and uncertain.

Let us cooperate with God’s actions in human history. Let us not only hear and believe, but take action. Even when it costs us. Even when it goes against custom. Even when it may sound ridiculous to those who do not hear and to those who do not believe.

The ability to hear God, the faith to believe God and the courage to cooperate with God.
Two thousand years ago, two poor, uneducated and seemingly insignifant people changed the course—some might even argue the fate—of the world.

I’m not really all that interested in the habits of highly effective people. Perhaps that’s because I’m rarely that effective. I’m a lot more intrigued by the habits of the ultimate power couple. Hear, believe and act. If we all had the courage and the faith and the power of Joseph and Mary, then the wars would cease, the hungry would be fed, homes would not be a place of fear.

We worship a powerful God and we all have the potential to be powerful people. Let us hear, believe and act. 2000 years ago, such actions brought a much-needed savior into this world. What might they accomplish today?