A pregnant virgin? The God that created stars is born in straw? The legitimate king of the universe becomes an illegitimate baby? The holiest human is homeless? No meritorious midwife, only smelly shepherds. Instead of friends and family, Baby Jesus gets a few foreigners. As if the story isn’t bizarre enough, it continues with Joseph and his new crew skipping the country and sneaking across the border as refugees from the genocidal slaughter of innocent children.
None of this is the Christmas story we expect.
We wouldn’t have planned that. God could have pulled out all the stops and done something opulent. He didn’t. He simply did something odd.
Not only is Christmas weird, how we celebrate it is a bit wackadoodle, too.
We’ve turned a stinky, scandalous story into a sugary safe scene depicted on Christmas cards. We make it so warm and cozy, so softly-lit that you can’t even see the cow crap.
We commemorate this simple, humble story with overabundance. We celebrate the living God by adorning dead trees with twinkling lights, giving credit card-paid presents, and putting on a feast like we haven’t seen since—well, last month at Thanksgiving.
It’s like we’re over-compensating for that whole manger thing. “Sorry you didn’t get a real crib, Jesus, but we’ll spend every Christmas trying to make it up to you.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. It may be normal, but who said normal was good?
What if weird is actually good?
Consider this your invitation to remember that Christmas is weird. Let’s be honest. It’s easy to forget. It’s simple to let tradition wash over us and ignore how God is constantly nudging us out of our normal and into His weird.
This Christmas, you’re invited to join Bara Church as we Keep Christmas Weird.
Wonderful Mary November 26
Exciting Shepherds December 3
Intrusive Joseph December 10
Real Herod December 17
Different Jesus December 24 (one Gathering time at 5pm)
