In the days before and following Christmas, Nazareth Village puts on a Christmas play. It is staged in the first century buildings and gives visitors a feel for what it may have looked like at that time. In this play I have been given the role of the Angel Gabriel. In the lines that the narrator reads leading up to my entrance she talks about the Angel Gabriel who appears to Mary in Nazareth. When I hear this, I always think about how strange it is that I am actually in Nazareth in a first century recreation of Nazareth town acting out the part of an angel appearing to Mary who lived here at the time. And yet, realizing this has never really made me feel more Christmassy about the whole thing. Shouldn’t one feel closer to Jesus in Bethlehem or Nazareth particularly when surrounded by 1st century replicas? Many I talk to who visit this part of the world do not feel closer to Jesus here while there are those who most definitely do feel his presence more strongly here than other places.
I am a traditionalist by nature and our family traditions surrounding Christmas have always been very important to me for creating the “feel” of Christmas. It is also a time for family in my view and so being away from family does make it more difficult for me personally feel festive about Christmas. However, at the same time I am soaking up the opportunity to be part of a new culture and new traditions while developing a new family of relationships. I am not feeling sorry for myself at all, I am just observing that Christmas is really about tradition and fellowship for me personally and so the part I play in experiencing Christmas here is really the part of an observer.
What I have appreciated about Christmas here is the lack of advertisement and general materialistic hype leading up to Christmas. I understand that there is more of this hype in Bethlehem itself but again doesn’t compare the holiday season splendor in North America. So what is the meaning of Christmas? Let’s consider the first Christmas of Jesus’ birth in the time of Herod’s rule and a time under general Roman occupation. What is striking is the contrast of a simple stable scene, of simple shepherds in the fields, a simple young woman, all taking part in something that would become a new way of looking at the word “kingdom”. So perhaps I should reevaluate my low key Christmas this year and consider myself closer to the meaning of Christmas in its very simplicity and in the proximity to the atmosphere of oppression and empire that would have existed at the time of Jesus.
What has become very clear to me is this –I do not care if Mary was or was not eternally a virgin, or if the three wise men came when Jesus was three or one year old or if Jesus was born in this cave or that stone house. What does matter is that in the humility and simultaneous courageous authority of his fellowship and sharing with people, Jesus shattered the preconceived societal norms, loved those who seemed unlovable to others and pointed them toward God while opening their eyes to see beyond their immediate political and religious environment. The divine Son of God came to live as a person among people, eating with them, suffering with them and ultimately offering a freedom from the dominance of empire, social repression, and religious elitism not through escape from these realities but through intimate knowledge with them and the capacity to see beyond in certain hope. The freedom he offered was a kingdom we have part in that has come and is still coming and is one that offers freedom through the promise of an eternal life that will never be captured, boxed, and sold in bite-sized packages. Can Christianity today claim that it does the same?
