the stench of Christmas

by Matt MooneyDecember 22, 2013

There are plenty of things that I do not like about Christmas. I know this must come as a surprise to many of you and some of you may be aghast at the news- as though I dropped a Yule log in my britches.

I am, after all, one of the Jesus believin’ good guys, and just the thought that I could find fault with the holy merriment sends you reeling- headed back to find more headlines about gay ducks or women bishops or whatever the latest, greatest current hot-topic of the Christian blogosphere might happen to be (can we give it a rest already?….I believe the apropos saying for such a time is “keep the main thing, the main thing”).

But what I do not like about Christmas in current culture is another post for another day.

Cause this is about what I DO love about Christmas. And I do love it. I love that my kids are still young enough to think that every gift we’ll give them this year is absolutely amazing and yet old enough to see their wheels turn when we speak of God in flesh coming as a baby.

(I am thinking this is a precariously short window and can already foresee with HD clarity the daughter eye rolls coming in days ahead when she unwraps them all and daddy really didn’t get her an Iphone-Touch-Kindle-Pad thingy of the future. The gadget whereby she could connect to the internet like all of her friends…and ruin her life before it got started.
For now, they still love me and I can still get them everything on their list without wondering if crusty old men are their next follow or like or whatever equivalent creepy button-pusher types do in the future.)

I guess the thing that I love about Christmas is that it forces us believers to move out of the philosophical and into the stable. Out of the pious religiosity that even we ourselves are sick of and into places that smell of manure and sound of birth pangs. Try as we may with the gloss paint we love to dip our brushes in, the birth of Jesus is fraught with angles that will not be prettied up no matter the effort.

This is where it starts to get good for the likes of me and possibly you as well- if you happen to relate to those of us who see the glass not only as half empty, but also quite dirty and in need of a rinse cycle.

Because the birth of Jesus is where the story starts to actually look like something that lines up with my life. Something that sniffs of true.  Without doubt it is majestic as holy hosts of angels sing out choruses proclaiming that the waiting is over and the One has come. But that’s not all. It is dirty and smelly and it is painfully raw. This is the one born to die.

There is no singing at the manger without the silence of the cross.

And it is in this paradox that I find what many others seem to find in gifts and lights and bows on boxes. I delight in this strange God whose Son has come into the mess of the world to bring beauty- not by removing the stench or bypassing the pain, but by becoming incarnate within all of it.

This is what makes me believe that He can love the mess that is me.

Merry Christmas.

2,263 Comments

  1. Debbie Sutherland on December 22, 2013 at 8:53 pm

    seeing it totally different this year…thanks for your perspective…gave me more to think about…



  2. Jared Buckley on December 23, 2013 at 1:26 pm

    Matt, awesome. “There is no singing at the manger without the silence of the cross,” is spot on. Celebrating Jesus all year and not just this season.



There are plenty of things that I do not like about Christmas. I know this must come as a surprise to many of you and some of you may be aghast at the news- as though I dropped a Yule log in my britches.

I am, after all, one of the Jesus believin’ good guys, and just the thought that I could find fault with the holy merriment sends you reeling- headed back to find more headlines about gay ducks or women bishops or whatever the latest, greatest current hot-topic of the Christian blogosphere might happen to be (can we give it a rest already?….I believe the apropos saying for such a time is “keep the main thing, the main thing”).

But what I do not like about Christmas in current culture is another post for another day.

Cause this is about what I DO love about Christmas. And I do love it. I love that my kids are still young enough to think that every gift we’ll give them this year is absolutely amazing and yet old enough to see their wheels turn when we speak of God in flesh coming as a baby.

(I am thinking this is a precariously short window and can already foresee with HD clarity the daughter eye rolls coming in days ahead when she unwraps them all and daddy really didn’t get her an Iphone-Touch-Kindle-Pad thingy of the future. The gadget whereby she could connect to the internet like all of her friends…and ruin her life before it got started.
For now, they still love me and I can still get them everything on their list without wondering if crusty old men are their next follow or like or whatever equivalent creepy button-pusher types do in the future.)

I guess the thing that I love about Christmas is that it forces us believers to move out of the philosophical and into the stable. Out of the pious religiosity that even we ourselves are sick of and into places that smell of manure and sound of birth pangs. Try as we may with the gloss paint we love to dip our brushes in, the birth of Jesus is fraught with angles that will not be prettied up no matter the effort.

This is where it starts to get good for the likes of me and possibly you as well- if you happen to relate to those of us who see the glass not only as half empty, but also quite dirty and in need of a rinse cycle.

Because the birth of Jesus is where the story starts to actually look like something that lines up with my life. Something that sniffs of true.  Without doubt it is majestic as holy hosts of angels sing out choruses proclaiming that the waiting is over and the One has come. But that’s not all. It is dirty and smelly and it is painfully raw. This is the one born to die.

There is no singing at the manger without the silence of the cross.

And it is in this paradox that I find what many others seem to find in gifts and lights and bows on boxes. I delight in this strange God whose Son has come into the mess of the world to bring beauty- not by removing the stench or bypassing the pain, but by becoming incarnate within all of it.

This is what makes me believe that He can love the mess that is me.

Merry Christmas.

2,263 Comments

  1. Debbie Sutherland on December 22, 2013 at 8:53 pm

    seeing it totally different this year…thanks for your perspective…gave me more to think about…



  2. Jared Buckley on December 23, 2013 at 1:26 pm

    Matt, awesome. “There is no singing at the manger without the silence of the cross,” is spot on. Celebrating Jesus all year and not just this season.