The Imperfect Christmas

Maybe it is the commercials with those super perky jingles or the movies that play again and again as this day approaches or maybe it is the hundreds of cards sent to me adorned with pictures of pure Christmas perfection.  I have seen a whole myriad of sweet cottages glowing with light, covered in pristine white snow.  I have received cards with that living room scene where the stockings are perched above the roaring fire with not a speck of dust in sight.  And I have opened countless cards where mother Mary is all aglow with the star above her holding a baby that is quiet and still and smiling.  And with all of this Christmas perfection before me, I often long for a scene like that.  I yearn for this night to be perfect.  I find that even if it is just for a few hours, I want pure Christmas perfection just like it was on that night that Jesus was born.

But the truth is that night was anything but perfect.  If the young couple had family around they were not there to help.  And as much as Mary loved Joseph and appreciated his support she most likely would have preferred the help of a midwife or her cousin or even a friend to guide her through the birth.  They didn’t have a place to stay, much less sanitary conditions, just space in a feeding trough and for the most part they were alone.  They did have some angels, probably a few animals and after it was all over some strange men made a visit, which in my estimation would not be ideal immediately after giving birth.  There was no table set with fine china, no warm fire blazing and I suspect that the baby was wiggling and crying just like every other baby who finds its way into the world.  We remember that night so differently than it was, perhaps because even if just for a night, we want it to be different.  Perhaps we have fooled ourselves into thinking that God’s presence can only be found in the neat and tidy and organized display we imagine.  And yet God chose specifically to come into circumstances far from perfect.  We can bet that Mary was lonely and frustrated, we can assume that Joseph was worried about what was ahead; we can imagine that there were both tears of joy and longing.  We can be quite sure that the scene that night was as imperfect as any night of our own lives and God showed up.  As much as we are told and shown and led to believe that Christmas is about perfection, it seems to me that the miracle of Christmas, the holiest part of all is that God showed up not because we human beings managed at once and for all to achieve perfection but because God found a way to us, God came to us just as we are, imperfections and idiosyncrasies and all.  Christmas is not about creating the perfect scene or staging just the right meal or hoping to arrive finally at the destination of pure Christmas perfection, the miracle of Christmas is that God finds a way to be present with us right in the raw, real stuff of human living.  God could have arranged a tidier place to show up and then we might call God something like the one who loves us from afar, but instead, the name we hear, is Emmanuel, God with us.

Barbara Brown Taylor puts in this way, “It was God-with-us,Not the God up-there somewhere who answers our prayers by lifting us out of our lives, but the God who comes to us in the midst of our lives however far from home we are, however less than ideal our circumstances, however much or little our lives reflect the Christmas cards we send.”  Our God is born with us, not above us or beyond us, but with us.  It is as if God can never let us go, so God is with us wherever we are, however imperfect and flawed our lives seem.

I bet that if God were to send each of us a Christmas card, it might have picture of a huge pile of laundry, dishes in the sink, and a roll of wrapping paper resting on the couch with the corners chewed by the dog.  And the caption would say something like:  Here’s a reminder that I am with you, just as you are.  Merry Christmas.  Amen.