“Home” is one of the characters of the Nativity. But it certainly isn’t the way Mary and Joseph receive comfort.
Mary, Joseph, and the humble birth
Christmas Eve | Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
Mary and Joseph have to get to Bethlehem for the registration. Which seems so weird to us now. Because we just did a census last year and it was as simple as tapping on our phones.
But the registration is just a detail in this story. It isn’t why it matters. It is merely a curiosity. The registration is what gets Mary and Joseph home.
And what do we expect from homecomings? Hugs and welcomes; lots of I-missed-yous and you’re-looking-wells; smiling faces and festive times. Around the holidays, our minds can paint the room full of greens and lights and candles, tables covered with food, and presents under the tree.
Home for the holidays is pure joy and welcome.
Is this how Mary and Joseph are welcomed home?
Where is everybody?
Where are the parties, the presents, the cheer?
Anybody there to meet them? Welcome them?
This is home?
No Way Home
My family just saw Spider-Man: No Way Home. No spoilers, of course. But the title says a lot, doesn’t it? That same subtitle could easily be applied to Jesus’s birth story. Mary and Joseph: No Way Home.
Because here they are, home. But there is no way to have home here.
I have so many questions about this:
- Why does nobody greet them?
- Where does the family live and why can’t they stay with them?
- Is there any family left?
- How is there nowhere for them to go?
As much as the story isn’t about a census, it is clearly about the emptiness and absence of home.
There is no place for them, no home and no hotel.
Of course, there is another possibility.
The text gives us two clues from which we draw conclusions.
- Jesus is placed in a manger.
- There was no room in the inn.
A manger is a feeding trough. It is also where people put newly born livestock. Jesus, metaphorically known as the lamb of God, and literally a mammal born naturally would fittingly be placed in a manger.
Maybe the holy family is in a stable somewhere. But it is also possible that they are in someone’s spare room, receiving hospitality.
It is also possible that they are in an alley with only each other.
In any case, there is one thing we know for certain. This king, a descendant of David, wasn’t born in the family home, attended by servants. The lowliness of Jesus’s birth is naturally set against the greatness of his family.
This is what the details direct us toward. That Jesus was born in a low station to a woman who sang in the last chapter about her own lowliness.
And who would attend to them? Not royal courtiers. But shepherds. People who live among sheep, watch them, care for them.
These connections are beautiful.
Jesus, lamb of God, placed in a birthing trough and attended by shepherds, is a gorgeous image of service. And one with resonance for how Jesus would live and invite us to live.
It also forces us to recognize how we see our world.
So often we are like those expecting Jesus to arrive in glory rather than humility. That Jesus would come into the world to conquer it, subdue it, and single-handedly transform it like an autocratic king.
But he didn’t. Doesn’t. Won’t.
Instead he comes to us in vulnerability, intimacy, and hope.
Honoring God’s Vision
In Christmas we don’t simply remember a birth: we honor an incarnate vision of the world. That God’s love be made manifest in relationships: those vulnerable, intimate, hopeful arrangements of people, connected by families and churches and clubs and tribes. These ways which invite us to see one another as we are. As we come into the world.
And the most beautiful image of all is that we aren’t beholden only to our families or the homes we grew up in.
We can come home. To church, to friends, even to strangers who will love you for being you. And we can celebrate that this is how Jesus came into the world. And how he keeps coming into the world: in these most humble of places with these most humble of people.