December 19th 2010

A tale of two nativities!

Or: Who moved the baby?

Luke 2: 1-7 and Matthew 2: 1-11

I am sure the Nativity has never been the same since the Environmental Health Officer was called in to visit the stable following complaints from the public that it was smelly and messy and a health risk for children.

  “You can’t have animals and children in the same place,” he reported. “So you either clean up the stable or move the baby.”

  The nativity scenes have lost the sense of authenticity without the mess and smell. A stable with no mess or smell just isn’t real, is it, because cows, donkeys, sheep and goats are generally not very easy to house train and people don’t go round with pooper scoopers every five minutes.

  The writer of Proverbs (4:4) says that where there are no oxen the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest. That can translate to mean that an empty stable stays clean, but there is no profit from an empty stable.

  The truth is the place where Jesus was born would have been smelly and messy and like life itself very untidy. If you have lived on a farm you would know that there is no milk without manure but in the mess and the smell a treasure is found.

  We look at the Nativity scene each week and it’s all clean and tidy, but that’s not the only thing that is wrong with it – because it just didn’t happen as we like to tell it. There were no wise men in the stable because they were somewhere else and history has been re-written to give us the story we like so much.

  Christmas is actually a story of one birth, but a tale of two nativities because the Shepherds arrived at the stable and the travellers from the east found Jesus in a house. It was a house they went in to where they knelt and worshipped Mary’s child.

  It was a different place to where the Shepherds went and also at a later time because soon after he was born the star gazers came from the east and by the time they arrived another story was being written that has never yet been told.

  The tale of two Nativities is in two very different places, the smelly mess of a stable with visitors from the poverty of working in the fields and the clean whitewashed walls of a house and with travellers visiting from the prosperity of far off eastern shores. The characters are familiar with angels, shepherds, wise men, Mary and Joseph, an innkeeper, a baby, of course, and a few animals as extras to make the place messy and smelly. The animals would not be welcome in the house unless, of course, there was a cat or dog.

  I’m not sure about the existence of the Innkeeper because there could have been a notice on doors and windows which said ‘no vacancies’ as there are on hotels and guest houses during a busy summer at the seaside. Imagination is the writer of the best stories though so how did Mary and Joseph find bed and breakfast in a stable when there was no room at the inn?

  I wonder if they were turned away by grumpy innkeepers who didn’t like the look of them and then stumbled into the stable where they rested like homeless squatters in a derelict city centre building. Or did a Good Samaritan find them on the street and convince an innkeeper to open his door and offer shelter for the night?

  Well, the bible doesn’t tell us how Mary and Joseph found the stable or actually introduce us to an innkeeper so write your own story about the tale of the first nativity with shepherds visiting the new baby laid in a manger surrounded by mess and smell.

  Now there is another story hidden in the text, a tale of a second nativity, for someone moved the family from the smelly mess of the stable to a house with whitewashed walls and fragranced floors where the travellers from the east knelt down and worshipped the new born King. Who moved the baby?

  Today it could be the social worker who received reports of a child sleeping in the manger in a cold, draughty and messy stable with the animals so contacted the Housing Department and had the family moved to a house.

  The travellers from the east never went to the stable and the shepherds didn’t go to the house in Bethlehem so we have a tale of two nativities which has never been told and a mystery of who moved the baby? I find the potential of a new story so exciting because we can take the baby from the stable and give him a new home. Every Christmas our Nativity scenes show Jesus in the manger surrounded by admiring parents, shepherds holding lambs, kings carrying gifts, animals and angels – and it never changes. The story is the same at the start of each Advent and Jesus will still be in the manger when it is packed away again in January.

  I like the idea of Jesus being moved from a manger in a stable to a house where he is placed in a cradle, because that can actually become my house. Jesus is born in the smelly, untidy mess of life but we can find him and welcome him into our homes this Christmas.

  Write your own story about how it happened but someone moved the baby from the stable and this is something we need to be doing. It could have been the innkeeper or the innkeeper’s wife or one of the shepherds who went back or someone in the town who heard the rejoicing of the shepherds, but someone did something that we should be doing this Christmas and took the baby from the stable. It could have been another character not mentioned in the bible, like a neighbour or a midwife, but someone took a responsibility for caring for family and child.

  The bible invites imagination in the telling of the nativity story because as we create the role of the innkeeper so we can do the same for a midwife who comes to deliver the baby. I can imagine how Joseph must have been feeling on his own with Mary and a few animals as Mary went into labour and his relief when a woman arrived to help.

  “Who are you?” he asks as she searches in her bag.

  “I’ve come to deliver your baby,” she says proudly pulling a baby boy from the bag.

  “I didn’t realise it was that easy,” says Joseph.

  In a contemporary writing of the nativity we can see the possibility of a Social Worker, midwife, or Environmental Health Officer intervening and moving the baby from the messy stable, but even in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago there were good neighbours who would take action and move the baby. What would you have done?

  I am sure many of us enjoy the Christmas celebration and endure the indulgences of excessive food and drink, but leave Jesus in the stable to be packed away on the 12th day instead of inviting him to dwell in our hearts through faith, as Paul says. (Ephesians 3: 17) When we offer ourselves to be a house for Christ the Spirit of God lives within us (Romans 8: 9-11) so take him from the stable and give him a home in which to grow.

  Jesus is born in a stable according to Luke’s gospel and is found in a house in Bethlehem by the wise men in Matthew’s so this is a tale of two nativities, but wherever a child is born they need a place where they can begin to grow. Jesus is the Word that became flesh and dwelt within us (John 1: 14), or the Light of the World (John 8: 12) and that word is written into our hearts or the light shines through our lives.

  The tale of two nativities shows for me how God wants to reveal himself in places of poverty or prosperity, in the messy and the tidy and when we take Jesus from the stable and provide a house in our hearts wise people will come to our door with their gifts to bow down and worship him.

  In the tale of two nativities we are being welcomed by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, black and white, rich or poor, male or female. (1 Corinthians 12: 13) From the moment he is born the tale of two nativities tell how there are to be no social or cultural boundaries in the Kingdom of God because Jesus will unite us together, ordinary workers and wealthy royalty, in one faith.

  Whether we find him in the mess of life or in the neat and tidy corners of society Jesus is there waiting to be embraced by a welcome from shepherds who have nothing to bring but themselves to a smelly stable with dirty floor or wise people who bring extravagant gifts to a house with whitewashed walls and fragranced floors. In the tale of two nativities I hear a wonderful message that Jesus will be everywhere for everyone, but we leave him in the stable and miss that wonderful moment when someone moved the baby.

  Christmas is a time of seeking peace and sharing compassion with so many appeals for us to help orphaned children in Palestine; street children in Africa or abused children in other parts of the world and we give generously, but we are not the people who take the child from the mess and give him or her new hope. There are others who go into the messy, smelly places of the world and find the children who need help.

  There is one child at Christmas though who we can all find and take from the stable and offer a new home to. That is the baby who is crying to be heard in the mess of life with good news for the poor and to be welcomed into a house where everyone will bow down and worship him.

  Will you move the baby from the mess of a stable into a comfortable cradle in the heart of your body which is the house where God wants to live?

  It happens in the tale of two nativities but God is willing it to happen in our story today; for someone to take the baby from the mess of the stable and give him a place where he can grow and share that ministry of love and peace which can change the world.

  A ten year old girl was visiting the city admiring the Christmas lights when they stopped at a Church to look more closely at a beautiful nativity scene.

  “Isn’t it beautiful,” said the little girl’s grandmother. “Look at all the animals, and Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus.”

  “Yes, grandma,” replied the girl. “It’s really nice but isn’t Jesus ever going to grow up? He’s the same size as he was last year!”

  Jesus will grow up when we take him from the stable and give him a new house in which he can grow….and this is a good year to do it!  

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