Beholding Marvel and Mess of the Manger

Proud parents and grandparents pulled out their cell phones, ready to record songs from their aspiring little ones. The first-grade choir, with hands extended toward the sky, burst into “Gloria” with unbridled passion and jubilation. Their “joyful noise” filled the auditorium.  Their exuberance was hard to miss. Waves of giggles and delight stretched across the crowd-filled sanctuary. No one cared when a child lost the beat or that one off-key voice could be heard above all the others. It was a glorious sound of marvel and mess.

As I took in the joyful noise, a smile broke across my face.  I couldn’t help but ponder that first Christmas.  All earth was groaning for the coming of Christ. Angels burst onto the scene. Divine words spoken. Miracles in abundance.  It was a time full of marvel and mess.

When I condense the story down in my mind, it sounds so bizarre, so unconventional, so full of the fantastical and yet so messy. But that is the Christmas story-the marvel of Heaven coming to redeem a messy world? 

Listen. Can you hear the sheep bleating while a choir of angels serenade the shepherds with the good news of the newborn king? Mary trembles in fear one minute then bursts into humble song the next at the news. She had been chosen to wrap the Hope of the world in her virgin womb.  Wise men start out on a grand adventure, following an eastern star, but are warned to keep the baby’s location a secret from the murderous king. A pregnant woman and her fiancé are forced to travel to his homeland due to a census. Tired, hungry, worn from the journey they pull into town only to discover no vacancies. No room, only a stable and a feeding trough where God incarnate would take His first breath on earth and utter His first infant cry.

I don’t know about you, but I am guilty of tidying up the story. My nice clean nativity scene is so sterile, representing all the glory and adoration of the birth of Christ.

But if I peer long enough and allow the story to speak to my heart, I hear the cries of pain as Mary delivered the Deliverer. I see the tears roll down Joseph’s cheeks as he watches his beloved stand at the gateway of death in order to give birth to the giver of Life. The stench of sheep and shepherds from the fields hovers over the manger which houses the Good Shepherd.

In all my years of hearing the Christmas story, it has never seemed more beautiful or hopeful than this year. God chose to present His glorious gift of salvation to a hurting broken world through a hurting broken world. 

That tells me He loves to take the ordinary, the unlikely, the lowly, the last one in line and whisper in their ear, “I am Emmanuel and I am with you. Will you give me your mess? Will you surrender your hurt, your inadequacies, your broken places to me?” 

As Christmas quickly approaches, may we take time to embrace it fully, with all its mess and marvel. And as we remember it, may it birth in us hope. God did not come to save the “perfect”, but to redeem a broken messed up world. That means He is actively involved in every moment of our lives.

In the words of C. S. Lewis,

May we look for His marvel among our mess this Christmas.