An ordinary story?

When my father was a child, his family had a nativity set—the type with movable figures. Every year, the shepherds and wise men would travel towards the manger as Christmas approached.

One year, a new figure showed up to accompany them on their journey across the living room. The new arrival was a fat monk made of ceramic. He was maybe two inches tall. Imagine a brown robe, white belt, and bald head, hands clasped over a bulging belly. Each day, as the wise men moved, the monk moved with them. This went on for about two weeks.

My grandmother was puzzled. Why was the monk there, she asked?

My then twelve-year-old uncle replied, as only a precocious twelve-year-old could, “But he has to be there. He’s Round John Virgin.”

My very devout grandmother was not amused, and Round John Virgin found himself summarily evicted from the scene.

I thought about that story as I watched the children of our parish build our own nativity scene earlier this evening. Our nativity set doesn’t include Round John Virgin, but otherwise it’s pretty much the same as the one my father grew up with, pretty much the same as the nativity sets you might have in your own homes. A rough shelter. A baby lying in an animal’s feeding trough. Mary and Joseph. A shepherd and some lambs. An ox and a donkey. An angel on the roof. And, off in the distance, three wise men and a rather dazed-looking camel.

We probably all know the story of Christmas, the story we just heard from the Gospel of Luke. Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem, but can’t find a place to stay. Mary’s baby is born in a space normally reserved for animals, and she wraps him in bands of cloth and lays him in a manger. An angel announces the news of Jesus’s birth to shepherds watching their flocks in the fields by night. Later, wise men from the east follow a star and arrive with gifts appropriate to a royal baby—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—for a child born in a very non-royal setting.

It’s a familiar story, a story of shepherds and angels, of a journey and a new birth, of wise men and a star. It’s a story we all know.

But when we hear a story too many times, it can become ordinary. Familiar. Unexceptional. I suspect that’s why my uncle tried to spice things up with Round John Virgin. A similar phenomenon is probably behind the Little Drummer Boy—who does not, for the record, appear anywhere in the Bible.

The basic Christmas story is familiar, and it can fade into the background of this often frantic season. We’re busy with shopping and family and holiday traditions. Or we’re sad because we’re missing out on those things this year. We’re distracted. And we forget to see the baby lying in a manger as anything more than just another bit of seasonal decoration.

When that happens, there’s another version of the Christmas story that it might be helpful for us to remember. It’s from the Gospel of John.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it…. And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

That version of the story has no manger, no shepherds, no angels, and no star. It’s mystical and mysterious. It speaks of God and creation and light and the Word. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with a smelly stable and a newborn baby.

But the truly audacious claim of Christmas is that these two stories are one and the same.

That the Word became flesh and was laid in a manger. That God found no room at the inn. That the light of the world fell asleep in a young woman’s arms—and that the baby born on a night two thousand years ago was the light that the darkness could not overcome.

If you take either story by itself, it’s pretty easy to call it ordinary. The birth of a baby, even a very special baby. The concept of God, distant and mysterious, but not necessarily involved in our day-to-day lives. But Christmas is the day those two stories become one—and that’s not ordinary at all. It’s the scandal and the wonder of the Christian faith. The claim that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That’s the true wonder of Christmas.

On this Christmas Eve, may we remember that the two stories are indeed one. May we remember that God is still be to be found—actually found— in churches like this one, at crowded dinner tables, and around Christmas trees—if only we look. May we remember that God is still to be found—actually found—maybe even more easily among those to whom Jesus first came—among the poor, the homeless, the frightened, and the lost.

To them and to you and to me, an angel still proclaims tidings of great joy. For “to you is born this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

May you have a blessed Christmas.