Today was my first day back at work after Christmas. My office has moved to a new location right next door to a church, which is helpfully left open all day, so at lunchtime I was able to wander in. I found this simple wooden nativity at the front.
As I sat on the front pew in the empty church gazing at it, this little scene somehow moved me and spoke to me about the Christmas story more powerfully than anything I’ve seen, heard or sung for the whole season. Look at the serenity on Mary’s and Joseph’s faces and in their postures. The baby in the manger is simple and understated but at the centre of it all.
Nowhere in this church was there any tinsel, Christmas lights or other festive paraphernalia. Just the nativity scene. I assume it was there because traditionally Christmas lasts 12 days until Epiphany on 6 January. So for several days after most of the world has opened its presents, recovered from its hangover and moved on, there are still faithful souls in the world who are quietly contemplating the birth of Christ, for its own sake.
Seeing the stripped-back Christmas story in front of me reminded me of how wonderfully bonkers the whole thing is. I say that as a believer. It’s bonkers to believe that the divine being who created the universe should choose to become a human, with a human birth, a (gruesome) human death and a short human life in between. It’s even more bonkers to believe that the sole motive for this was love, for everyone and everything God has made.
This is the real Christmas. Happy Christmas everyone!
now for the real thing 