Seeing my family's Nativity set with fresh eyes.
 | By Eleanor Barkhorn Editor at Large, Opinion |
I'll be celebrating Christmas this year for the 38th time in my life, and by now, the images of the holiday are comfortingly familiar: the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths, surrounded by Mary and Joseph as the shepherds and wise men look on. It's a lovely, cozy scene, the inspiration for thousands of paintings and Nativity sets. |
But as Esau McCaulley points out in an essay, the Christmas story is weird. The holiday is strange by design. And that's part of what makes it special. |
The story claims that the little baby is not just any baby, but God himself. It's very strange that the all-powerful creator God became, as McCaulley writes, "a child, weak and vulnerable, unable to lift his head without assistance or to wipe his own bottom." |
The strangeness gives way to other, smaller strangenesses: It's strange that the wise men came to see Jesus. They weren't Jewish or worshippers of the God of Israel — their expertise, as McCaulley writes, "ranged from interpretation of dreams to astrology." I love the analogy that McCaulley uses to describe the oddness of their turning up in Bethlehem: "It might be the equivalent of someone showing up at church on Sunday after her horoscope suggested that she try new things." |
But the strangeness, McCaulley argues, is the point: "The Gospels of Luke and Matthew depict the birth of Jesus as the gathering of not the rich and powerful but the lower class (Mary and Joseph), the common workers (the shepherds) and the religious outsiders (Magi)." |
So I hope this year to look at my family's Nativity set with fresh eyes, marveling at the miraculous strangeness of this scene that I think I know so well. And I wish you all a very happy, very weird holiday. |
Opinion Today will be taking break over the holidays. We'll be back Jan. 3. Happy New Year! |
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