Catholic churches have traditionally erected nativity scenes outside at Christmas time. To represent the birth of Jesus, the scenes include the baby, Mary and Joseph, together with the shepherds, their animals and the “wise men from the East” who came to witness the birth.
Despite the fact that the story is rich in meaning and symbolism, these nativity scenes often are stripped of their deeper meaning and have become quite two-dimensional and shallow.
Like the anodyne carols that have come to define the season, the portrait of the birth that emerges is peaceful, calm and bright. There is no hint of the oppressive Roman occupation that forced this couple to travel across the country to register in a new census mandated by the empire. Nor is there a recognition of the many ironies underlying the story: that this Jewish baby, who is to be a saviour, is born in a cave surrounded by animals, or that the first to come to pay homage are lowly sheep herders and non-Jewish travellers from afar.
In fact, it is these various ironies and others like them that truly define the biblical Christian narrative. It is, in reality, an upside-down faith. In Jesus’s own words, it is a faith where the first shall be last and the last shall be first. It is meant not for the rich, the satisfied or the powerful. Rather it is first intended for the poor, the hungry, the downtrodden and the rejected.
With this in mind, it is fascinating to see how, in recent years, some Christians have taken to reclaiming the challenge inherent in their faith. Just two years ago, a Palestinian clergyman in Bethlehem replaced the stable in the nativity scene with rubble in order to portray what was unfolding in Gaza. His setting of Jesus in the rubble eloquently told the story of the Palestinian people: vulnerable, stripped of their humanity and subjected to indignities. As if to more deeply develop this identification, last year, Pope Francis was shown in quiet prayer before a manger scene in which the baby Jesus was wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh.
In the same vein, this year, a Catholic community in Massachusetts – given the threats faced by migrants and refugees in the US – found their own deeper meaning in the Christmas story. In the nativity scene they erected outside their church, there is no Jesus, Mary or Joseph. Instead, there is a sign noting that because of concern that ICE would be conducting one of their raids, the family had gone into hiding and was seeking sanctuary inside the church.
There are reports of other similar efforts by churches to capture the challenge of the Christmas narrative with references to ICE, the detention of immigrants and the mistreatment of immigrant children figuring prominently in many of these portrayals.
In the case of the Massachusetts display, Catholic leaders in the state rebuked the church in question, accusing them of playing politics. The nativity scene, they said, was to provide opportunities for quiet prayerful reflection, not divisive politics. What these church leaders miss, of course, is that if they strip the birth story – and, one might add, the rest of the biblical narrative as well as the New Testament and the many radical injunctions Jesus gives to his followers – of its essential content, then it is they who are playing divisive politics. By not grounding the nativity in its real-world context, there is the danger that the “contemplative prayer” the leaders are advocating can become shallow and contentless.
After all, the writers of the biblical stories had a point to convey. They weren’t just painting a pretty picture to someday appear in pastel tones on a holiday card. There are reasons why the child was born in a cave and first welcomed not by the high priests but by the lowest and foreigners. Why, in the face of repression, his parents had to take him and flee into Egypt. And why, as he grew, he made every effort to challenge the stale and corrupt religious hierarchy of his day, providing his followers with a challenging message of service to the rejected, the vulnerable and those in need.
Every year around this time, our mailboxes are filled with mostly brightly decorated holiday greeting cards. About a decade ago, I was shocked to open one from a friend in Lebanon. It featured the anguished and dirtied face of a young boy in a tattered t-shirt staring out from behind a wire fence. Inside it read “Holiday Greetings”. At first, I was confused. “Why this card, with this incongruous message? And why now?”
After reflection, I realised that the plight of this young Syrian refugee, forced to flee his homeland and now trapped in a camp, living in squalor, is the perfect image to convey the meaning and challenge of the Christmas story. That story wasn’t written to give comfort to the rich and powerful. It was to give hope to the destitute and the powerless – and to challenge the rest of us to recognise that.
