The Scandal of Christmas

Why Jesus' birth was messy, and why that's good news for us

It’s Christmas time — and maybe, like me, you think you have understood the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth and it all feels very familiar… Maybe for you it seems predictable and easily explainable. I’ve heard it said that familiarity is the greatest killer of wonder. It is my hope that the following post (a sermon I recently taught) can help shake up your view of Jesus’ birth and give you fresh wonder and awe at what really took place — it is nothing less than a wild scandal!

You can watch the sermon here.

The Christmas Scandal

It’s Christmas time and we’re celebrating the coming of Christ. We’re looking from the angle of God’s glory being seen in the lowest places. Last week we saw how God chose the lowliness of Mary to bring forth Christ. Lowliness is not something to try to fix or cover, but to embrace. Today we are looking at the lowly manger and the birth of Christ.

But before we look at that, I want to share a danger I feel in this season. I am, and we are, in danger of missing the real shock of Christmas! It has become, for some, too predictable, too easily explained, too normalized. We have sprinkled too much “Holiday” glitter over the nativity scene. We have commercialized it and domesticated what is really a wild thing.

How do we know this has happened to us?

Because we aren’t startled anymore. We aren’t left speechless in awe. We think we can wrap our minds around it and make sense of it. We feel things in our hearts like: “Of course Christ came as a baby…” We can explain it theologically, recite the Scriptures, sing the songs. We have missed the scandal of God coming as a newborn.

I think the word scandal is appropriate: It means something that incites outrage or offense. How can the Creator of 2 trillion galaxies coming as a fetus not be a scandal? How can the Holy God being birthed by a sinner not offend our thinking? It is offensive to our culture, to our expectations of God, to the way the world works.

So here is my concern for this message and series as we teach the Bible: Any increase of understanding without an increase in awe is a dangerous trajectory. God forbid we fill our minds with good theology while our hearts remain unmoved.

My hope isn’t that you just learn something new today. My hope is for a fresh sense of wonder that leads to a fresh response of worship.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1-7)

The question we want to ask and answer is this: Why did Jesus have to come in this way? Why did he have to go this low?

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A Lowly Scene

Let’s return to the verse: Luke 2:7 - “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

Part of how we increase our wonder is to slow down to think through these things. Familiarity is an automatic killer of awe – and so let’s work to see this with fresh eyes.

The Setting

“There was no place, no room for them in the inn.” Everyone was traveling back for the census - family homes were filled with people. We are told that the “the inn,” the guest room, is full, no regular rooms left. Think about this: Jesus gets squeezed out, he is pushed out to the margins. This is Immanuel God with us – and there is no room for Him! Kings have palaces and the true King has no room to call his own. But the story goes even lower.

The Manger

Normal homes had a common family room and a lower level with a stone floor. It was like our version of the garage – where animals would take shelter at night. This is where Mary gives birth. The only space available – alongside animals. Jesus is placed in a stone or wooden trough where cows and donkeys would feed. This is not a clean, nice oak-stained wooden manger with velvet cloth draped over. This is where dirty animals eat: think of the filth and the smell and the dirt. I am not sure you can be born in a lower or dirtier place. Think about it: God chooses to be born in this low, dirty place. This was not where normal births took place – it wasn’t common or expected. God is making a statement about Himself, His lowly heart, His mission.

Just when you think Jesus can’t go any lower...

The Birth

To understand this moment we have to fight the urge to “Disnify” it. I enjoy the song “Silent Night” - but I don’t think “all is calm” is helpful. All wasn’t calm, clean and perfect. Birth is messy, loud, unpredictable, painful. Mary felt real pain. There were no epidurals. No heart monitors. It was scary.

And let’s ponder the form Jesus chose to take: a newborn baby. Newborns are helpless, messy, crying, not useful and needy. They are fully dependent, not able to do anything on their own. Can you pause and imagine God becoming a newborn? This is God, in flesh, becoming the lowest, you can’t go lower. Helpless but still sinless. Dependent but still Creator. Man but still God.

I hope you have a fresh awe for what took place on this night.

We might think that this all is wild and shocking - and it is.

But there is something more wild and that is the reason why Jesus came.

Art by Gari Melchers

A Cosmic Reason

Let’s think back to our questions: Why did Jesus have to come this way? Why did he have to go this low?

Jesus didn’t stoop this low to just show off His humility or meekness. Jesus didn’t come as a baby just for shock factor or to be different. God came in this way because His cosmic rescue mission depended on it. God’s plan of redemption couldn’t have happened any other way than this.

What was the rescue mission of Jesus?

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

In the beginning Heaven and Earth were one (Garden of Eden) – humanity and God united in love. But sin severed the union and caused a fracture that split the Universe. There was hostility and division between Heaven and Earth – creation and Creator. It wasn’t just man that was separated by sin but creation itself – all things groan! God’s mission was restoring that relationship – bringing peace in place of division. The goal was always this: God dwelling with man, walking with us in relationship!

On the cross, Jesus becomes the sacrifice, paying the judgement, bringing peace by His blood. He is the substitute in our place. Jesus is where Heaven and Earth meet and are unified in harmony once again! Jesus’ rescue mission is cosmic in size and scope – redeeming the cosmos! He is doing nothing less than restoring all that has gone wrong.

And this is where the lowly birth of Jesus comes in…

If Jesus is where Heaven and Earth would be re-united – then God must become man. The rescue doesn’t work unless He becomes like one of us – lives and dies as one of us.

Because God’s children are human beings, made of flesh and blood, the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

It was mankind that sinned and went astray and so Jesus comes as the perfect man. The Bible says it this way: the first Adam brought death through his sin. The second Adam brings life through his obedience. Jesus is the second Adam, He is the begenning of the New Creation! In order for God to save humanity, He had to stoop so low as to take on flesh.

C.S. Lewis illustrates this powerfully by writing:

“God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulders. One has a picture of someone going right down and dredging the sea bottom. Or else one has the picture of a diver, stripping off garment after garment, making himself naked, then flashing for a moment in the air and then down through the green and warm and sunlit water into the pitch black, cold freezing water, down into the mud and slime, then up again, his lungs almost bursting, back again to the green and warm and sunlit water, and then last out into the sunshine, holding in his hand the dripping thing he went down to get. This thing is human nature; but, associated with it, all nature, the new universe.”

This is what is happening in Christmas — Christ, the God-man, diving to the bottom of creation to rescue us!

Jesus descends so low so that He could bring all of creation up in His ascension.

Why come as a baby? Why a manger? Why afflicted and tempted? Why death? He had to stoop so low - because this is where all of creation has gone. All of creation was at rock-bottom - in the depths of sin and darkness with no way out. And out of His deep love for us – He dives down to the bottom to rescue us.

Psalm 40:2 says, “He lifted me out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud and mire.”

Jesus could only lift us out of our pit if He first descended down into it with us. He enters into the mess, the dirt, the darkness, the filth of human nature. He doesn’t throw us a ladder down from Heaven to climb out: we could never do it! Jesus comes down to us and puts us on His shoulders - and carries us home!

It’s one thing to say God came low – but there is another level of shock to this:

Though Jesus was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him… (Philippians 2:6-9)

Just as Lewis talks about the diver, stripping off his garments and diving down, Christ - the God-man – casts away the privileges and protections of being God! He doesn’t just go low while guarding Himself. He feels the very lowness we feel. He becomes vulnerable to pain, to rejection, to grief, to loss, to ache. The sharpness of the hay against His skin was the most pain He had felt. He is: “the man of sorrows,” “acquainted with grief,” “tempted in every way we are.”

What a God! That He would allow Himself to feel the fire, the darkness, the pain. He then dies, going to the lowest place – and resurrects, bringing us up with Him!

Jesus comes low in His birth - this is good news. But what is he doing now, today? What does this mean for you and I when we find ourselves at rock-bottom?

A Beautiful Implication

There is good news: Christmas wasn’t a one-off miracle. It was a revelation of God’s heart.

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)

“Contrite” means crushed, devastated, beaten down. “Lowly” means humiliated, demoted, diminished in worth.

Some of you feel this way: crushed, defeated, ashamed, weary, beaten down by life. You have a smile on your face but inside you feel like you are at rock-bottom. Some of you feel too dirty - too messed up - too far gone. You think that you have to clean your life up before God will come near and help.

But here is the Good News of Christmas:

Just as Jesus entered the lowly mess of the manger and put His glory on display, Jesus is still choosing to enter the low, dirty mess of our hearts and bring His life. God chooses to go to the broken, the crushed, the least, the lost, the last. He enters our places of shame, of fear, of regret, of loneliness, of burden.

He enters not to shame or accuse, but to revive and restore! To breathe life where there is death, hope where this is despair.

Jesus has entered into my own lowly places – where I was crushed and humiliated:

When I felt too weak to fight sin and walked around feeling dirty and fake. When I was hurt by the closest of friends and felt betrayed and alone. When I have failed and dropped the ball and felt inadequate and ineffective. Christ has been faithful to descend into my mess, my lowly estate and revive me!

You might think you are too dirty, too much of a mess, but I have good news for you: The mess and dirtiness of your life does not repel the risen Jesus, it actually draws out His love all the more.

If Christmas shows us anything, it’s that God loves to dwell in the low and dirty places. He comes down low to the pits and He lifts us up and out!

This is the scandalous good news of Christmas.