By Rev. Paul Graves
In an early December Facebook meme, a cartoon man ponders this: “They said ‘keep Christ in Christmas.’ But wouldn’t that mean loving everyone, being inclusive, helping the poor, and working for peace on Earth?”
This cultural contradiction goes hand in hand with “the manger scandal.”
The powerful Google image of “Christ in the Rubble” caught the attention of millions of Christians in the last year.
The baby Jesus lies in a manger of broken rocks and bricks. Instead of swaddling clothes, Jesus is wrapped in a black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh.
This image “has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression” in Gaza, according to the Religious News Service.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac stood beside this rubble-manger on Dec. 23, 2023, in Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Church Christmas service. Then, he spoke eloquently and passionately about if Jesus was being born today, “he would be born under the rubble in Gaza.” A year later, it’s still a powerful metaphor.
The image has been multiplied in countless churches across the world. Seeing the baby Jesus in a manger of destruction is jarring to the senses. Seeing the baby Jesus like this could even be called scandalous, which is as it should be.
The manger is a scandal in many ways. Yet when we let ourselves be easily captured by the cultural Christmas environment, we don’t pay attention to what that scandal is.
The word “scandal” in several languages suggests a “stumbling block,” like a trap of some kind.
In 1 Corinthians 1:23, Paul speaks of Christ as a “stumbling block (offense) to the Jews and foolishness (nonsense) to the Gentiles.” That offense and nonsense show up in the manger.
Scandal basically means we’ve been tripped up by our own expectations.
Our own superficial expectations often become a stumbling block to a deeper, fuller life.
The 1580s meaning of the word “scandal” was “damage to one’s reputation.”
So, what is your reputation built on?
Your self-expectations and what others expect of you.
When you look at the manger at Christmastime, what expectations do you see?
Maybe an innocent baby, Jesus sweet and mild? Love? An antiseptic stable? Perhaps you even mix the manger up with Santa’s sleigh carrying gifts for “good boys and girls” – but not the naughty ones.
But scandalously, the manger is filled with grace and undeserved love – not naughty-nice, merit-driven goodness.
The Greek word “skandalon” suggests a stumbling block, but also “a trap or snare laid for an enemy.” But there is no trap for an enemy in the manger. Undeserved love has no enemies. That’s how God created us to be, even if we choose to ignore that reality.
Our Christmas challenge is to unlearn our expectations that conflict with the expectations of the Gospels’ writers: Jesus the immigrant to Egypt as a baby; the subversive challenger of unrealistic Judaic laws; friend to tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes; a wise rabbi who called out hypocrisy through indirect parables and direct confrontation.
Ultimately, he was a man willing to die for his friends.
All this from a baby? Wow!
Our expectations turned upside down. Scandalous!
Embrace the scandal. We don’t have to stumble over the manger. We can free ourselves from the trap where we fear and paint “others” as our enemies. Remember Jesus’ ministry of compassion and courage. We’re called to live out in our own actions how Jesus lived his life: welcome the “other,” whoever that might be; feed the hungry; comfort the wounded (of heart and body); push back against acts of injustice whether personal, legislative, systemic. Most importantly, love each person – even those scandalized by your love!
The Rev. Paul Graves is a retired elder member of the Pacific Northwest Conference of The United Methodist Church.
