Honoring the Extraordinary Ordinary

Is it required upon entering adulthood to begin some sort of Christmas collection?

Crechés. Nutcrackers. Santa mugs. Fragile Radko ornaments. Christmas china. Santa Claus mugs. I learned last week that members of my church are Christmas collectors; I am among them.

Below our tree sits a brown wicker basket full of Christmas books. I began this collection in 2009, the year I became a parent, adding a book or two each year. This year’s addition is Eerdman’s newly published The Birds of Christmas, written by Olivia Armstrong and illustrated by Mira Miroslavova. In the book, Raven is flying over the town of Bethlehem one dark December evening when “the sky behind him shivered with light.” A star brighter than a thousand suns shines, and a celestial voice commands Raven to tell the other birds that a child, the Prince of Peace, has been born. So that’s what Raven does, flying to share the Good News with the wren, the nightingale, the rooster, and the stork, each declaring a gift they’ll deliver to the baby. 

The book concludes with a tender story about how the tiny robin receives its notable red breast, “the colors of a brilliant flame.” It’s a tidy, picturesque scene with docile birds, a jubilant newborn, and parents who look remarkably well-rested. When I read it the first time, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would look and sound like to have a dozen birds fly into the room bearing their gifts of song, pillows stuffed with stork feathers, and blankets woven with moss and leaves. It made me laugh out loud, but then it made me think again about the image I have of Jesus’ birth. 

All too often, we keep the Incarnation sterile, as if what really happened in that stable is too messy, disordered, and human to be holy. I wondered then what else I’ve sterilized about the birth of Christ. The stress Joseph felt or the physical pain of Mary. The smell from nearby animals and the disturbance brought on by the shepherds. When I have thought about them, have I ever really pondered the events or treasured them in my heart like Mary? Am I transformed by the Angel of the Lord’s message that Christ’s birth is good news for all people? Or do I nod along with the gospel as I hear it each year, returning to our picture books, finding comfort and solace in peaceful interpretations? 

The Incarnation was not welcomed by calmness. Christ was born into a world similar to what we still experience today: a world that is loud and fearful and full of power-hungry leaders. Christ, like so many babies today, is born into families stretched thin, bodies that are tired, and hearts carrying grief along with joy. If God chose that kind of ordinary once, perhaps God still does today. Perhaps the miracle is not that holiness interrupted real life, but that it insists on inhabiting it.

This Christmas season, I want to more fully experience the coming of Christ. I want to pull out the Godly Play wondering questions and spend time pondering the events of Jesus’ birth and his coming into our lives, and treasure their meaning in my heart. Instead of reciting the story from memory, is it possible to wonder anew at this remarkably extraordinary story? After all these years, can we welcome it as Mary might have: as something new and overwhelming, but also as life-changing? What would happen if we slowed the story down—reading Luke aloud, noticing where we feel resistance or tenderness, then wondering why?

Just as any newborn child changes the life of their family, the birth of Jesus should change our lives. And it should change our lives every single year, causing us to think of everything around us differently. The good news, after all, is that God comes anyway. Again and again. Into the ordinary places we inhabit, whether we are ready or not.

I wonder what your favorite part of Luke’s nativity story is?

I wonder what the important part of the story is?

I wonder if anything could be left out? 

I wonder where you are in the Christmas story?