Luke 2:1-20
It’s a familiar scene that we see everywhere at Christmas—a loving mother and a slightly bewildered father, a group of awestruck shepherds, some regal wise men, a few assorted barn animals and, perhaps, a decked out camel – all gathered in a stable to gaze in holy countenance upon a manger and the little one who’s laid there…at least you hope he’s still there.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but apparently there’s been a rash of thefts of baby Jesus-es from outdoor nativity scenes around the country. Just Google “Stolen Baby Jesus” (this is the kind of stuff I do) and you’ll see page after page of stories about disheartened and disappointed churches having the holy infant stolen right out of the manger, leaving all the characters looking at nothing but straw.
Hard to imagine people stealing from a church, but stealing Jesus? Why would anyone do such a thing?
Well, police say that most of the thefts are pranks, and that baby Jesus thieves are usually not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Take the case of the five sorority sisters arrested in Monmouth, Illinois a couple of weeks ago, who stole the baby Jesus out of the manger scene on the town square and dumped him on the lawn of the Monmouth College president’s home. Guess where they hatched the plot? In a bar (go figure).
Or how about the woman in Fredericksburg, Virginia, who stole an 80-pound statue of baby Jesus (80 pounds!) and then bragged about it on Facebook, even posting a picture. One of her Facebook friends turned her in. Duh.
Of course, there are others who steal baby Jesus out of anger against Christianity. There are plenty of people who want to remove Jesus from the public eye, and stealing a plastic baby, while not exactly grand theft, is nonetheless symbolic of a desire to get rid of him before he and his followers cause more trouble.
But regardless of whether it’s out of stupidity or out of anti-Christian vandalism, little baby Jesus-es are disappearing at an alarming rate. What’s a church to do?
Enter a company called Brickhouse Security, who is offering to install free GPS trackers in baby Jesus-es used in outdoor nativity displays. The idea is that a church could use a computer or smartphone to track baby Jesus’ whereabouts when he is “away from the manger”—ostensibly to get him back. St. Ambrose Roman Catholic Church in Old Bridge, New Jersey — about 40 miles (64km) southwest of New York City — installed the device after suffering from thefts and vandals several years in a row. "There's been no attempt of theft since we announced that we're tracking our Jesus," said Alan Czyewski of St. Ambrose Church. "This is our third year, and we love this. People are now well aware of our GPS Jesus, so they leave it alone."
I wonder what the sign looks like in the front yard of that church:
We are tracking Jesus. Leave him alone.
Now, nobody likes to have things stolen, and that’s certainly wrong, but I thought about that a lot after I read that, and I started to wonder—what’s the bigger problem here, really: stealing Jesus, or just leaving him alone, secure in the manger? Work with me here a minute…
One of the problems with preaching on Christmas Eve is that everyone knows the story—Mary and Joseph, no room at the inn, a baby born in a barn, shepherds, angels. We know it well, or at least we think we do. We come to church on Christmas Eve expecting to see Jesus in the manger, and we’re happy about that. Who doesn’t love babies? Who doesn’t love this scene? Why would anyone want to wreck that by stealing him away?
But the truth of the story is that we often miss is that there were people who wanted to steal the real baby Jesus right after he was born. The Gospels make it clear that the arrival of this baby, while a joy for many, was a threat to many more.
Matthew tells us the story of Herod the Great, who was so threatened by the possibility of a rival to his throne that he ordered all the babies in Bethlehem under two years old to be taken from their cribs and killed—a lot of empty mangers and empty homes were left behind. And while Luke’s story, which we just read, is not as violent, Luke implies that the baby Jesus is still vulnerable. The story starts with Caesar Augustus, the self-proclaimed divine ruler of the Roman Empire, ordering a census. Augustus didn’t know that Jesus, the Messiah, God’s anointed king, had been born in Bethlehem, but had he known he would certainly have made sure the Bethlehem baby didn’t live to see adulthood.
Call them what you will, but I think that those who want to eliminate Jesus from public view out of anti-Christian angst actually get the story of Christmas better than most of us, because they know what Herod knew and what Augustus would have known—this baby is dangerous. That’s the back story of Christmas. The child who is born in the postcard manger scene will grow up and be a threat to the status quo, a threat to those who wield power through force of arms or the force of their bank accounts. He will expose the inner thoughts of human hearts and call people to a way of living beyond themselves. He will talk about a God who is intimately involved in public, in politics, and with people, rather than a God who is merely private, quiet, and spiritual.
Jesus will preach about a kingdom that has nothing to do with power, wealth, and military might, but everything to do with servanthood, sacrifice, and suffering. Indeed, he will act as though that kingdom was already becoming a reality. He will spend his time eating and associating with people on the margins of society—the sick, the poor, the outcast, the prostitute, the tax collector—while rebuking the religious, the elite, the insiders. He will challenge the powers of sin and death by taking them on directly, all the way to the cross. You can’t defeat someone who wants nothing from the world, who practices what he preaches, and who is willing to die while forgiving his tormentors. Such a person is dangerous to the status quo and must be removed.
Interestingly, the world seems to get that, but many Christians do not. We want Jesus to stay right where he is. “We are tracking Jesus. Leave him alone.” We want a Jesus whom we can keep track of, a Jesus who stays within our own set of doctrinal boundaries, a Jesus whom we can keep privately and quietly on display at church while we ignore him the rest of the week. We want a Jesus who matches our expectations, and who blesses our political agendas—a personal Jesus who orbits around us: our purposes and our needs.
We want a baby Jesus we can admire, rather than the living and active Jesus who cares less about our religious expectations than he does about the world’s redemption.
I find it interesting, for example, that every year we hear about the “war on Christmas.” You know, Christians believing that there’s some nefarious Grinch-like plot out there to offend Jesus (and them) by getting rid of Christmas. They are furious about replacing “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays” and “Christmas tree” with “Holiday tree” (that the tree is not a Christian symbol is something to note, but I digress). The same bunch of people who sing about peace on earth and goodwill toward humanity are quick to scream at a store clerk for giving what they perceive to be the wrong greeting. I saw that at a Costco a couple of Christmases ago. Woman in line in front of me finishes purchasing two heaping cart loads of stuff and the checkout girls says, “Happy Holidays.” The woman went ballistic. “It’s Merry Christmas, dagnabbit (words substituted)! Don’t you know that Jesus is the reason for the season!?”
Really? Is Jesus really the reason for people to engage in an orgy of rampant spending? Is Jesus the reason that many people will experience crushing debt trying to make sure that everyone on their list is materially satisfied with the gifts they want? Is Jesus the reason that tempers flare in mall parking lots, shoppers get zapped with pepper spray by someone desperate for a bargain, and store clerks become punching bags for impatient or self-righteous people? Is Jesus the reason we fight over placement of religious symbols? Is Jesus the reason that more people become depressed and lonely at this time of year than any other?
No, I have a feeling that’s one manger Jesus would be happy to be away from. We need a vision beyond Christmas—a vision of Christ.
The truth is that while some people might be stealing Jesus, we who claim him must actually go a step further and let him run loose in our lives. The manger-born baby, God’s Word made flesh, came to change the world and us along with it. In one of the little-used readings the lectionary offers for Christmas, Paul’s letter to Titus, Paul writes these words:
“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is sure. I desire that you insist on these things, so that those who have come to believe in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works; these things are excellent and profitable for everyone.” (Titus 3:5-8).
What Paul is saying here, I think, is that God’s goodness and love is poured out to us in Jesus, and when that love runs loose in us then it will find its way outward in good works toward others. We receive a gift and we pass it on. We don’t hold on to Jesus, we share him with the world. There are many—like the Herods and Augustus-es of the world—who do not know love—only power. Like Jesus, we are to love them anyway, even when they try to steal our joy.
Interestingly, Paul ends that passage in verse 9 by talking about avoiding stupid controversies—kind of like the war on Christmas!
See, Jesus doesn’t need to be protected, guarded, tracked, or defended—he just wants to be followed. And if we follow him, he will take us out among those who need the gift of his love the most—people who hatch drunken plots in bars, people who clamor for attention, people who are angry at the world, angry at God, people who are broken and have no happy in their holidays. It’s a love that’s dangerous because it calls us to risk ourselves in service to the world, but that’s where Jesus’ love goes—toward those who have none. The prophet Isaiah was right, “A little child shall lead them”—one who is born not to only be admired in a manger, but to be “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” We don’t track Jesus in order to bring him back into our lives. Rather, we track him biblically, prayerfully, joyfully in order see where he wants to lead us.
In Dittmer, MO, Pastor Scott Lohse of St. Martin’s United Church of Christ recognized that baby Jesus gets stolen out of outdoor nativity sets every year, but rather than devise another way to keep the manger occupied, Scott had another idea: “We didn’t want to be found nailing Jesus down or tying him to an anchor or putting him on a chain,” he says. “We wanted to find a way to put a display on our lawn that symbolized the season, but also symbolizes the fact that Christmas is really about giving.”
So, the church has a nativity display, but in the manger there’s no statue or doll of baby Jesus—instead, there are hundreds of ornaments depicting the baby and a sign that says, “Free, take one.”
“Christ is a gift,” says Pastor Scott. “He doesn’t belong to us and so you can’t steal him from us.”
A gift to be shared–away from the manger.
