Who do you say that I am?

There is something about this time of year that makes people raw and aware. For families that are struggling, the Christmas season intensifies the preexisting rifts and turns them into chasms. For those struggling pay check to pay check, the pressure to provide gifts becomes a burden that decimates their finances. Christmas has become a incredible source of stress for mothers across north America as we have become obsessed with making  Christmas "magical"? Why?  Its completely ridiculous and yet it is something I have certainly fallen prey to over the years. There is this  expectation that you will have a gift for everyone, bake homemade goodies, cook a fantastic Christmas dinner, attend all the Christmas parties with well dressed, well mannered children in tow, attend the wince inducing Christmas recitals and write handmade cards. It is all TOO MUCH! Why, why do we do this to ourselves? Sometimes I feel like all of it is just a distraction from  remembering that this is time of year we remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus, whether it took place in December or not. 

Last night when I was putting the girls to bed the conversation turned to "Santa Clause" as it naturally does at this time of year. They wanted to know why parents told their children that Santa Clause  was real when he wasn't. I began by explaining that Santa Clause is based on  the historical figure, Saint Nicolas; patron saint of Children. I explained that he was a Greek Bishop who did in fact exist and that he gave gifts to children. As a family with Dutch heritage, we refer to him as we called him Sinterklass. We typically enjoy some tea and ginger cookies and exchange a few gifts on December 6th. I explained that the "Santa Clause" they see in the malls and on TV has was designed by coco- cola for marketing purposes and that he bears little resemblance to the historical figure. I went on to explain that we don't need to believe in Santa to make Christmas "magical". The history of Christ's birth is more magical than anything we could contrive. It is the greatest love storey ever told.

I find it so interesting that the storey of Christ's birth is often depicted in dreamy, muted tones, when in fact it was a situation fraught with desperation. I have been reading the book "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Phillip Yancy and it provides such a harrowing, raw account of the birth of Jesus.

           "Mary, an unwed mother, homeless, was forced to look for shelter while traveling to meet the heavy taxation demands of a colonial government. She lived in a land recovering from violent civil wars and still in turmoil- a situation much like that in modern Bosnia, Rwanda or Somalia. Like half of the mothers who deliver today, she gave birth in Asia, in its far western corner, the part of the world that would prove to least receptive to the son she bore. That son became a refugee in Africa, the continent where most refugees can still be found". - Philip Yancy

I often find it outrageous and laughable when Jesus is depicted as "white" or Christianity is depicted as a "white faith". The opposite could not be more true. Christianity  is not a faith for the proud, the accomplished, self sufficient, selfish or entitled. It is a faith for the underdogs of society. The Bible shows us that growing up, Jesus sensibilities were effected most deeply by the poor, the powerless, and the oppressed". Not only that, He "arranged the circumstances in which to be born on planet earth -without power, without wealth, without rights, without justice - his preferential options speak for themselves. He emerged in Palestine as a baby who could not speak or eat solid food or control his bladder, who depended on a teenager for shelter, food and love." No only that, "the God who came to earth came not in a raging whirlwind nor a devouring fire. Unimaginably, the Maker of all things shrank down, down, down, down so small as to become an ovum, a single fertilized egg barely visible to the human eye, an egg that divide and re divided until a fetus took shape, enlarging cell by cell inside a nervous teenager." - Phillip Yancy

A man by the name of Malcom Muggerridge explains that: "It is possible that , in our day, with family planning clinics offering convenient ways to current "mistakes" that might disgrace a family name, It is, in point of fact, extremely improbably , under existing conditions, that Jesus would not have been permitted to be born at all. Mary's pregnancy, in poor circumstances, and with the father unknown, would have been an obvious case for abortion; and her talk of having conceived as a result of an intervention of the holy ghost would have pointed to the need for psychiatric treatment, and made the case for terminating her pregnancy even stronger. Thus our generation, needing a saviour more, perhaps, than any other that has ever existed, would be too humane to allow one to be born".

So here we are 2,000 years later, still celebrating the birth of this fragile infant. Whatever you believe about it, the birth of Jesus was so important that it split history into two parts. Everything that has ever happened on this planet falls into a category of before or after Christ. 

And He asks us,  "Who do you say that I am"?