A Different Perspective
on the Christmas Story

The angel Gabriel was having a very strange day. God had given him a mission he just couldn't quite understand. Raining down fire, turning women into pillars of salt, flooding the globe, swords of fire, all that Sodom and Gomorrah stuff–that's the kind of action Gabriel understood and even liked, but this mission was different.

It started out ok. A rumor was going around the heavens that God was going to become human. Gabriel was excited–he had visions of fiery chariots streaking across the skies, and the Messiah bursting forth in a great explosion–you know, the good, old fashioned fun he was used to. Let's face it, very little beats watching a fiery chariot. But then the strange thing happened–a scroll came to him directly from God. On it were written the words:

"God will become a baby. Go to this address in Nazareth and tell the mother to name the child Jesus–and don't forget to tell her not to be afraid."

Gabriel wasn't generally the questioning type, but this one set his mind to wondering. God will become a baby? Granted, it had eventually worked out well for Moses, but for God? Not even the heavens could contain God, so how was a human body going to do it? Besides, you've seen what comes out of those little things–hardly befitting for the Creator of the universe. Babies are completely powerless and completely dependent. The whole idea was nothing short of ludicrous.

And what about this name? Jesus? There is a Jesus on every street corner. Can't you come up with something better?

Gabriel had his orders, so he went. He thought to himself, maybe once I see the mother to be, it will all make sense. Gabriel was in for another shock. Mary was no queen. She was just some clueless Jewish peasant with a crush on a guy named Joe.

And speaking of Joe, couldn't God find somebody who had a little less sawdust in his beard? Maybe someone who smelled a little better? Maybe someone a little more intelligent? Actually more intelligence might not be a good thing. This guy was going to have to believe that his soon to be wife was pregnant with God's kid. Most men wouldn't fall for that one.

There is no telling how long Gabriel hovered overhead before he decided to trust God and follow through on his mission, but he eventually did. He told her the name. He told her the plan. He told her not to be afraid. As he left, he said that with God, all things are possible–as much to reassure himself as to reassure Mary.

What can we learn from Gabriel? I think the most important thing is that from the very beginning of this whole thing called Christianity, there have always been more questions than answers. There have always been as many reasons to doubt as there are to believe.

I feel a sort of kinship with Gabriel. I completely understand how he felt. Let's face it, when it's not read through the eyes of faith, the whole story of Jesus's birth is just a little bit ridiculous. It's not the way anyone of us would have written the script if we'd had the chance. We'd have gone with the fiery chariot or gently floating down from the heavens in a magnificent beam of light. We definitely wouldn't have chosen to be something that is completely dependent and so easily damaged.

As humans, we fear our own frailty. We've seen far too many of our friends and family members die, despite their best attempts to stay alive. We see and experience things that none of us can explain and none of us can understand.  Why do children have to die? Why do the people we love sometimes leave us far too soon? Why aren't our prayers for healing answered in the way we want them answered? If you want answers, I'm afraid I don't have any. I could probably make something up that would at least allow me to feel like I'd tried to help heal some of the pain, but I can't answer these questions.

For me, there is something that gives me great comfort. It is the knowledge that we worship a God who became one of us. A God who has experienced all of the joy and the horror that can come during a lifetime. A God who knows what it is like to be helpless and frail. A God who has descended into the very depths of what it is to be human–who experienced loss, who experienced physical and emotional pain, who even experienced an extremely painful and premature death. Our's is a God who understands what it means to be human, because our God loved us enough to leave the safety and security of the heavens and become one of us.

Does it make sense to you now too, Gabriel? This is the way it had to be–no fiery chariots, but rather a helpless baby in a manger. Because while most people focus only on Jesus's death as the ultimate sacrifice, his birth was every bit as important. Our God was to be named Emmanuel–God with us–and that's the important message at the very heart of Christmas.    

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