The Witnesses of Christmas

Every Christmas season, as the words of Luke's familiar rendition of the Christmas story float to the forefront of my thoughts, I think about the details Luke didn't mention, and then I wish I could conduct my own interviews of the witnesses to the event that changed the world. Not that I don't have immense gratitude for Luke and his writings that have carried the Christ Child's story into the hearts of all for these many generations, but aren't there things you're curious about? Don't you wish you could've been there? Don't you wish you could've followed the star to the stable to see for yourself?

On Friday night at our family Christmas party, we did a speedy rendition of the Christmas Story with our grandkids. It was more of a "Run to the Stable" situation - chaotic and frantic - as we tried to wrangle animal costumes on three-year-olds and wrap shepherds' heads with cloths and cords and keep the choir of angels in place until it was time for glad tidings of great joy.

We began by explaining to the children the six-day walking/donkey-riding journey, and it made me wonder, what was that like? I mean, have you ever been required to travel at the worst possible moment? Has your work ever been interrupted by an urgent matter? Have you ever had to stop what you were doing and take care of a task you didn't want to do?

I imagine that being required to make a six-day journey, on foot, to pay taxes to the Romans was not what anyone wanted to do. I'm sure Mary didn't want to travel so close to her due date, and Joseph didn't want to leave his carpentry jobs when he knew big responsibilities were coming his way. But Caesar had decreed it. And so they went.

I see through a grandparent lens at my stage in life. It’s a different perspective to worry as a parent for your child AND to worry for your child as THEY parent their own children. I can imagine the worry Mary and Joseph’s parents felt, sending them off on that donkey, not knowing just when that baby would arrive. I wonder what Mary’s parents said when she told them about the angel's visit. About a miraculous baby. What did Joseph’s parents say? Had the marriage been rushed? Hushed? Had the following months been nerve-wracking? Or had they gone about preparing for a first grandbaby with joy? Perhaps Joseph's father helped him build a cradle in his wood shop. Perhaps Mary's mother busied herself sewing little clothes and blankets for her daughter's precious one. I imagine there was stress. I imagine people talked. I imagine people questioned Mary’s virtue and Joseph’s choice to marry her. I also imagine they did their best to ignore the whispers and help prepare. And I bet it was the hardest thing they'd ever done to see them head off on a journey like that, knowing what was ahead of them.

We had our son and daughter-in-law and their one-year-old portray Mary and Joseph and Jesus, and just like Luke, we skipped over the travail of childbirth in a barn for the sake of the littles, but doesn't it make you wonder? This week, our furnace gave up the ghost, and after it was replaced, there was a small flood in our 1897 pioneer home. I can't adequately articulate the smell of soggy 1897 pioneer building materials, except to use the words "earthy and unpleasant", not unlike a certain stable of old. We certainly didn't want to spend Christmas money on a new furnace, but heat is important in December. Taxes in Bethlehem. A furnace in 2023. We do what we have to do. But I admit we probably grumbled about it more than Mary and Joseph did as they walked along with their donkey and settled in for a birth in a barn.

I prefer to think of the innkeeper, who usually endures the seedy reputation of turning the Holy Family away, as a father himself, who recognized that a quiet stable would be a much better place for the birth of a baby than a crowded inn, bustling with rowdy travelers. I would like to ask him how it felt to know he had accommodated the Savior of the World. I’m sure Mary and Joseph prayed that the baby’s arrival would wait for them to return to the comforts of home, to the other women of the family who would help Mary through this first birth.

Bless Luke for his brevity, in describing an entire labor and delivery event with the words, "And she brought forth her firstborn son." I like to think dear Mary was blessed with an easy delivery, and perhaps a wise woman from next door, who heard her travail and came with food and water and blankets; who tidied up for the witnesses who would follow, and cared for the new parents in those first precious silent moments. I would like to ask her to tell me what it was like to care for the Christ Child and His mother.

We don't often think about the witness of the animals in the stable, but many must have traveled, along with their tax-paying owners. What witness would our furry friends give? Were they struck with awe? Full of wonder at the star? At the baby placed in their straw?

Before the angel announced the birth to the shepherds, did she (I imagine her a she) get to visit the Christ Child first? What an honor it must have been, to peek into those reverent moments, knowing after her announcement many more visitors would follow, and the world would finally KNOW.

I love that the first to be told, the first to be invited to see, weren’t the VIPs. They were the humble, the meek, the lowly, the overlooked. Yet the glory of the Lord shone round about them! The angel spoke to them! The heavenly host sang of praise and peace all around them! Did they run to the stable? Or go quietly, unsure such a thing could happen to them? I love the shepherds’ witness, because I grew up on a farm, born to a humble farmer. My father spent his days in the fields, and yet he too was firm in sharing his quiet witness of Christ.

I have a complicated relationship with choirs. Through school, my friends were singers. My boyfriend was a singer. I was not given that gift. Off they went on choir trips and competitions and tours while I stayed at school. And then my husband joined the biggest choir in our little realm and some of those feelings came back. It would’ve been nice to be part of it all. It’s the talent I would choose if talents could be plucked from a branch like a shiny apple. But I’ve always consoled myself by imagining that when I was an angel in heaven, without the constraints of the human vocal cords I would be given at birth, I was a singer. And maybe I was in that choir of angels who couldn’t wait to join in with the realms of other angels in heralding the great news to the shepherds and their flocks. Can you imagine the sound of it, breaking through the silent night? How long had they waited to break the incredible news?

Each time I hear a choir sing Hallelujah and my spirit soars upon the lilting heavenly music, I'm simply grateful for the gifts of others, for the choir of angels who sang that night, and especially for the gift they announced to us all. Someday, I hope to ask one of those angels to retell the story from their perspective, just for me.

Many years ago, my sister brought home a nativity from Oberammergau for my parents, and after my parents moved heavenside, my sister bequeathed it to me. It keeps me company all Christmas long at my office, and this week I have felt just like this character - a woman, hurrying, her jar of water on her shoulder, a child at her side. She isn't idly gazing at the Christ Child like everyone else. She is running to witness amid everything else going on in her life.

Luke tells us the angel said, “I bring you good tidings of great joy,” and “For unto you is born this day.”

You! That's you! That's me! Good tidings of great joy for us all! For unto US is born this day, a Savior!

With His very birth, Jesus taught us that He would enter into our stories when circumstances were hard. When life wasn't perfect. When challenges were aplenty. He would meet us on the path, or in the stable, or the tax line, or in the puddle of pioneer water drip-dropping in our hallway.

We all have opportunities to WITNESS Jesus' presence in our daily lives.

To WITNESS that He is there in the mess with us.

To WITNESS the gladdest of tidings and the greatest of joys of all: the fact that He came to save US ALL.