Which Nativity Scene Character Are You?

Jesus probably wasn’t born in December. (Google it!)

So, there’s something odd and borderline absurd about the “Jesus is the reason for the season” tagline. I’m just sayin.

Nevertheless, I think we stand to gain from contemplating and meditating on the miracle of The Word Made Flesh (even if we should have had Jesus’ birthday party like 3 months ago).  I’ve always found nativity scenes rather beautiful–whether the toddler-sized, plastic ones with chipped paint on them in the neighbor’s front yard or the small, faceless, glass one on my grandmother’s dining room table.  In this Christmas season, I would like to pose the question: Which nativity scene character are you?

I’m not asking which one you look like or which one’s your favorite. I’m asking where you find yourself in the Jesus story right now.

Are you Mary?
Are you pregnant with a hope, with a dream, with a life-changing possibility? Mary had not had sex with Joseph, and yet she was about to give birth. That’s outrageous. That’s miraculous. Is your life, metaphorically speaking, a womb for something miraculous? Does it scare you?

Are you Joseph?
Have you been subject ridicule from your community? Are you shocked? Are you hesitant?  Are you incredulous? Do you kind of just want to back away from it all? And are you hanging in there anyway?

Are you the Wise Men?
Is something drawing you? To the divine? To the magnificent? To Jesus? Are you having a moment of recognizing that Christ is special? Is your heart bowing down? Have you encountered Jesus and realized that you must return to your life “by another route”?

Are you the Manger?
Are you holding something amazing and don’t even know it?  Have you been unexpectedly endowed with divine significance, dirty and ordinary as you are?

Are you the Livestock?
Are you bashfully peering over shoulders to curiously behold this Jesus person? Are you chewing on the hay beneath the swaddled baby? Are you even aware that you are a participant in a momentous occasion?

Who are you today? Who are you this season? How do you come to Jesus, if you come at all? Do you see yourself in the Nativity?
May you find your place in the Jesus story.

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