{"id":23873,"date":"2022-12-21T11:51:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-21T16:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=23873"},"modified":"2022-12-21T11:51:32","modified_gmt":"2022-12-21T16:51:32","slug":"now-take-christmas-thats-certainly-not-how-i-would-have-done-it-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/now-take-christmas-thats-certainly-not-how-i-would-have-done-it-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Now, take Christmas. That’s certainly not how I would have done it."},"content":{"rendered":"

(With tongue firmly planted in cheek, let us rethink this greatest of all stories.)<\/em><\/p>\n

What was the Lord thinking, doing Christmas the way He did?<\/p>\n

A Baby is born to an unwed couple after a long, arduous journey.\u00a0 The cradle is a feeding trough in a stable in Bethlehem.\u00a0 Welcoming committees of shepherds and foreigners show up. A murderous king sends his soldiers to slaughter babies. The young family flees to Egypt.<\/p>\n

And thus Jesus arrives on the scene.<\/p>\n

Admit it.\u00a0 You would not have done Christmas that way.\u00a0 Me either.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just me.<\/p>\n

As the God of the universe, the infinite and omnipotent Heavenly Father, you could do anything you please, right?\u00a0 In the beginning, You created the Heavens and the earth, right?\u00a0 The opening statement of Scripture certainly establishes who is in charge.\u00a0 So everything is on the table.\u00a0 Nothing off limits.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.<\/em>\u00a0It says that right there in Psalm 115:3.<\/p>\n

Now, all I\u2019m saying is that had I been God and in charge, with no one to tell me \u2018no\u2019 and no administrative authority to question my actions, I think I might have done things differently.<\/p>\n

Take that stable.<\/strong><\/p>\n

She brought forth her firstborn Son and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.\u00a0 (Luke 2:7)<\/em><\/p>\n

My son would not have been laid in a feed trough, friend.\u00a0 No way.\u00a0 Only the best earth has to offer for my Boy.<\/p>\n

Here we have the Son of the Living God coming into this world and being laid in a wooden contraption and cushioned, if at all, by straw or hay.<\/p>\n

Whose idea was this?<\/p>\n

Had we been doing this, you and I would certainly have made advance reservations for the best hotel in town.\u00a0 Who travels these days without planning ahead?\u00a0 And surely the Lord knew when this was all going to happen. I mean, that\u2019s basic, right? The foreknowledge of God, and all.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t misinterpret what I\u2019m saying here. I\u2019m certainly not criticizing the Father. Not me, nosirree. But it would appear some Angel must have dropped the ball in not seeing to the accommodations ahead of time.\u00a0 You have to wonder if heads rolled in Heaven and some angel was demoted.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m confident the Lord chose well in Mary and Joseph.<\/strong>\u00a0 Nothing in Scripture would indicate they are anything less than choice young adults, a man and woman of high integrity and spiritual sensitivity, and we can appreciate this.\u00a0 So, the Lord clearly did a good job with them.<\/p>\n

But the shepherds<\/strong>? As a welcoming committee?<\/p>\n

Who called that one? And what were they thinking?<\/p>\n

My pastor said last Sunday that on the social scale of that day, shepherds ranked just above lepers.<\/p>\n

Shepherds are day laborers.\u00a0 Or in the case of the ones in the field outside Bethlehem, night laborers, I suppose we could say.\u00a0 We\u2019re talking unskilled labor,\u00a0 lowly paid, and probably ignorant.\u00a0 I doubt if they could read or write.\u00a0 And yet, they\u2019re chosen by Heaven to receive the birth announcement from the angels and given front-row seats as the audience for the first mass Heavenly choir performance in centuries.\u00a0 These guys weren\u2019t exactly musicians, if you get my drift.\u00a0 And yet, they attend the first open-air concert given to mortals in aeons.\u00a0 If ever.<\/p>\n

How was that decision made?\u00a0 That\u2019s all I\u2019m asking. Weren\u2019t there better qualified and more saintly men and women in and around Bethlehem that night?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t misunderstand me. I\u2019m not criticizing the Father. No sir, not me.\u00a0 He had His reasons, I\u2019m sure.\u00a0 I\u2019m just saying it looks like someone up there dropped the ball on some of these things.<\/p>\n

And while we\u2019re on the subject, how about those \u201cmagi\u201d<\/strong>?\u00a0 What was that all about?\u00a0 Who called this one, and what are we to make of that?\u00a0 The Old Testament tells us nothing\u2013well, nothing helpful\u2013about a star guiding people to Jesus and certainly not a single word in prophecy hinted at foreign dignitaries traveling hundreds of miles and arriving in Jerusalem asking \u201cwhere is He who has been born King of the Jews?\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, there they are, given prominent space in the Birth narratives (Matthew 2).\u00a0 The only thing I can figure out is that the gold they brought came in handy to finance the sudden flight to Egypt (Matthew 2:14).\u00a0 Other than that, we are told nothing.\u00a0 Was all of that done just so Heaven could slip a little gold to Joseph and Mary?\u00a0 Could\u2019t it have been arranged for them to stumble on a treasure in a field, or win a jackpot or inherit something from a rich aunt?<\/p>\n

I can just see an editor questioning the Heavenly Father: \u201cDo we really need the magi? Do they further the plot?\u00a0 Looks to me like they just act as filler.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s enough, I suppose. We could question the story of Elizabeth and Zacharias<\/strong> in Luke 1, the two elderly ones in the Temple in Luke 2 (Simeon and Anna<\/strong>), and a few other things.<\/p>\n

Okay, let me admit something here.\u00a0 I would\u00a0not\u00a0<\/strong>have done the Christmas story differently because I wouldn\u2019t have done it at all.\u00a0 Had I been God\u2013that\u2019s a stretch for anyone\u2019s imagination, I know\u2013I would not have loved this pitiful race of humans who deserved to be left to their own destructive devices enough to intervene for their salvation.<\/p>\n

I would not have done a Christmas in the first place.<\/p>\n

How much less an Easter, with its crucifixion and resurrection.<\/p>\n

The chorus is right on target: \u201cThere\u2019s no God like Jehovah.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Isaiah 55, God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.\u00a0 For as the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank God for that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d hate to think our God was no better than me and as good as you.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlory to God in the highest!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(With tongue firmly planted in cheek, let us rethink this greatest of all stories.) What was the Lord thinking, doing Christmas the way He did? A Baby is born to an unwed couple after a long, arduous journey.\u00a0 The cradle … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23873"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23881,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23873\/revisions\/23881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}