My Nativity Project (#7 - Jesus)

My Nativity Project:
A Journey Through 
the Manger Scene 
in Sermon and Song
(#7 - Jesus)

For a few years I was a Bible teacher for a small Christian school.  The main subject I taught was the Gospels.  In that class, each week, the students were assigned to write a single page on Jesus.  All the prompts began with "Jesus is / was __________"  with some provocative word of phrase in the blank.  Today we turn our thoughts to the child in the manger at the center of the nativity.  In doing so I offer these two statements for consideration:  Jesus is/was a rebel.  Jesus is/was a refugee.  Each with a song to guide our reflection.

Back in the days before downloadable content I used to trade for bootleg live recordings a bit.  One of my favorite trades was for a recording of Bruce Cockburn doing a live radio Christmas special (he did those for a few years).  On that particular recording was a special guest appearance by Jackson Browne.  The song Browne choose to sing solo is "The Rebel Jesus."  That song is a critique of Jesus' followers.  The third verse always strikes me with its bluntness and often needed rebuke:

"We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus"

But as we gaze into the manager at the center of our nativity and see a baby it is hard to see a rebel.  A few weeks ago a Facebook friend of mine (Nate Bacon) posted this thought:

"Advent. The coming of the King…as a defenseless child. The age-old adage, ‘might makes right’ is literally undermined by the birth of a Child who had no place to lay his head…born at the margins of Empire whose local manifestation—Herod—teetered with insecurity at this threat from below, and responded with violence and infanticide. Terror has long roots in our world…the white-knuckled gripping onto transient power…the hatred and persecution of those who would oppose and subvert our regimes…the pitting of race against race…denying our common humanity and ignoring the common threats to our existence on this planet. Into this malaise comes a child who will lead the Way."

Looking at the child in that light begins to unlock the rebel-ness of Jesus and hints at another prompt I used to hand out - "Jesus is/was a revolutionary." Can we see in the Baby Jesus, laying in a manger, the subversion of a rebel and a revolutionary? Can we hear in the words of Jackson Browne the reality that often we, as Jesus' followers, are far from rebellious or revolutionary?

Read the lyrics as you listen here.

If I were still teaching high school students this Christmas season I would have assigned the prompt "Jesus is/was a refugee."  All the talk of national security with Presidential candidates and politicians making statements daily about closing our borders and other responses to the crisis' at hand we forget that Jesus is born into volatile political environment.  Luke's account of the birth starts by telling us who the Roman ruler was that was ordering the census and a few verses later Luke is stealing a title from that ruler - "The Lord" - and giving it to the baby in the manger.  That is an act of political poetry that speaks to the unrest of the time.  The birth account in Matthew tells us about how threatened Herod by this new King.  Put another way, the situation was so tense that a king was put on guard by a baby, so much so that he kills any potential rival to his throne and power.  It is at that exact moment that Jesus becomes a refugee as he and his family flee to Egypt.  

Can we look into the manger this Christmas and see a baby refugee?  Can we see Jesus in the faces of those forced from their homes and countries because of political unrest that often flood our TV news broadcasts?  Can we see the story of the birth of a rebel, revolutionary, refugee has happening in a world much like our own?

I offer the song "If You Were Born Today" by Low as a soundtrack for mulling over the rebel, revolutionary, refugee who came as a baby to be "God with Us"?

Joel K

Read the lyrics as you listen here.