This morning I helped decorate my parents' house for Christmas. I sipped my Folgers and put on the obligatory Mariah Carey Holiday Pandora station (I'll be darned if you can listen to "All I Want for Christmas is You" and refrain from dancing around your living room alone).
I opened a cardboard box containing a small wooden nativity set and a plastic, light-up Star of Bethlehem. Illuminated by the star which I had plugged in, I began to arrange the whittled characters.
Usually in these nativity scenes we see baby Jesus and the proud new parents at center stage, with the shepherds flanking one side, and the wise men kneeling at the other. But for whatever reason, as I placed the birch figurines on the table, I felt compelled to intermingle the gift-bearing rulers and staff-wielding herdsmen.
Usually in these nativity scenes we see baby Jesus and the proud new parents at center stage, with the shepherds flanking one side, and the wise men kneeling at the other. But for whatever reason, as I placed the birch figurines on the table, I felt compelled to intermingle the gift-bearing rulers and staff-wielding herdsmen.
Many have read Luke's account of Jesus’s birth and how it invited and equalized the lowly shepherds and noble wise men. But what if it did more than that?
What if under the light of that star, the shepherds and wise men knelt hand-in-hand to give thanks and pray for each other? What if the two parties walked away from the manger together, broke bread, and shared stories? What if that evening's encounter forever changed their vertical relation to God AND their horizontal relation to their fellow man?
What if under the light of that star, the shepherds and wise men knelt hand-in-hand to give thanks and pray for each other? What if the two parties walked away from the manger together, broke bread, and shared stories? What if that evening's encounter forever changed their vertical relation to God AND their horizontal relation to their fellow man?
This year—perhaps more than any year I’ve experienced before—we’re in desperate need of the unity and solidarity that this season can bring. I hope that the celebration of Christ’s coming causes us to kneel and reflect, AND that it compels us to stand up and act. I pray that we "quake at the sight of love's pure light" AND that we join in song to declare that "in His name all oppression shall cease."
Nice thoughts, but it's important that we accurately reflect what the scripture says. The shepherds and the wise men were not together, the wise men arrived some days after the birth and went to the home where the family was staying. And despite all the artistic depictions, only the wise men saw the star.
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