The
Christmas Jesus
by
Lowell Grisham
In
the rather tacky, slapstick comedy Talladega Nights, comedian
Will Ferrell plays a NASCAR driver named Ricky Bobby. There is a
scene where Ricky Bobby is saying the blessing at the family dinner
table. He starts the prayer with the invocation, "Dear Lord
Baby Jesus."
And
after he has given thanks for all the fast food on the table and
offered thanks for everyone gathered there, he continues, "Dear
Lord Baby Jesus, we also thank you for my wife's father, Chip. We
hope you can use your Baby-Jesus powers to heal him and his horrible
leg." As he warms up for his next intercession, continuing,
"Dear Tiny Infant Jesus..." his wife interrupts him saying,
"Ah sweetie. Jesus did grow up. You don't always have to call
him Baby. It's a bit odd and off-putting to pray to a baby."
"Well, look," says Ricky Bobby, "I like the Christmas-Jesus
best, and I'm saying grace. When you say grace, you can say it to
grownup Jesus, or teenaged Jesus, or bearded Jesus, or whoever you
want." So Ricky Bobby continues his prayer, "Dear Tiny
Jesus, in your golden fleece diapers with your tiny little balled
up fist..." and the whole table launches into an argument about
what kind of Jesus is the right kind of Jesus.
It seems that our culture
might agree with Ricky Bobby. Our culture likes the Christmas-Jesus
best. Christmas is the most accessible of our Christian feasts.
What is more universally appealing than a newborn baby?
Defenseless and innocent, every infant is a symbol of hope, a new
beginning. Christmas is a celebration that is easily embraced. It's
the only time of the year when all of the radio stations sound alike.
We hear Christmas carols in our cars, in our shops, and on our commercials.
It's not like that at Easter, although for the Christian faith,
Easter is a far more significant event. But you don't hear Easter
hymns played on the radio. And most of the commercial attention
focuses on the coming of spring and the coming of the bunny. It
is easier to like the Christmas-Jesus than the Good-Friday-and-Easter
Jesus.
At Christmas we celebrate the wonder of God's coming to us in such
gentle and humble grace as through the birth of a child to a peasant
couple in Bethlehem. The images of the story lend themselves to
the warm fuzzies of romanticized nativity scenes with kneeling shepherds,
angelic choirs, peaceful animals, and the exotic magi. Underneath
is a more complex picture.
This family is displaced. They have returned to their tribal hometown
because of the census ordered by the Emperor. Such a census allowed
the occupying Roman authorities to tax the people more thoroughly,
and so fund their own oppression. The family is temporarily homeless,
and must count on the charity of others. There are dark overtones
here.
Luke
chronicles a song, the Magnificat, attributed to Mary when
shared the news of her pregnancy with her cousin; it imagines a
reversal of power and economics in which the mighty are cast down
and the lowly are lifted up, the hungry are filled and the rich
sent away empty. It is a revolutionary text. Soon this family will
become refugees fleeing the political violence of their home. There
is so much more in this picture than "Dear Tiny Baby Jesus
in your golden fleece diapers."
When this Jesus grows up and wears a beard, he will be a complex
and complicated figure. He will challenge the social,
political, and economic conventions of his day. He will touch and
heal lepers and unclean women whom it was illegal to touch. He will
declare a kingdom that is greater than Caesar's. He will open his
table fellowship to people who do not even try to be good. He will
treat foreigners and those from other religions with the same compassion
and generosity he offers his own kindred.
He
will reject the expectations for a military Messiah who would punish
and drive away the unjust and the enemy by force. Instead, he will
turn the other cheek and go the extra mile with courageous nonviolence
in the face of abusive power. He will expose religious corruption
and challenge the authority of the state. He will demand daily bread
and a full day's wage even for those who work but one hour. He will
freely forgive the prodigal and call the most-righteous-ones hypocrites.
This is not a child's story.
But it is a life-giving story. It is a story that does not shrink
in the face of tragedy, injustice, exploitation, and alienation.
It is a story of God embracing everything—everything that
happens to human beings—from birth to death. It is God-with-us,
healing brokenness, overcoming oppression, and reconciling estrangement.
So on Christmas, Christians pray happily and expectantly, even innocently,
to our "Dear Lord Baby Jesus," singing with joyful angels
and wondrous shepherds, knowing that this is only the beginning
of the story. Later, when we need something more than the "Dear
Tiny Infant Jesus," we know there is a grown up, fully mature
Jesus who has confronted everything that can threaten human beings,
and has triumphed through it.
Copyright
©2006 Lowell Grisham
First published in the Northwest Arkansas Times of Fayetteville,
Dec 25, 2006.
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