“If ever there is a time when it becomes apparent how thoroughly we can misunderstand the coming Christ, it is this time of year. Jesus is everywhere at this time of year. I know that there are lots of Christians who think he is not everywhere enough, and that we could do with less Santas and more baby Jesus, and I sympathise with their motives to some extent, but I think their method is off course. We do not need more nativity scenes. More nativity scenes may, in fact, be one of the great obstacles that the coming Christ has to overcome if his message is to be heard. Why? Because nativity scenes have become almost inseparable from a quest to get Jesus to serve our interests and reinforce our agendas. Nativity scenes have been coopted to render Jesus safe, undemanding, and sentimental. They turn him into an inoffensive Jesus who makes us feel warm and mushy, who reinforces our sentimentalised concepts of happy families and buying expensive gifts. Jesus is left as the guardian of keeping things cute and nice, and keeping up appearances. He is turned into a welcome distraction from the harsher realities of our lives and our world, and “the spirit of Christmas” becomes a kind of drug that lulls us into a euphoric oblivion for as long as we can sustain it.

The nativity scene expectations are about as different as you could imagine from the “winnowing fork and fire” expectations that John the Baptiser held, but I wonder whether they don’t both equally represent us trying to tell Jesus what we want him to do. Sometimes we want him to be the centrepiece of our festivities, smiling angelically but saying nothing, and other times we want him to carry out our political agendas, wiping out the oppressors and vindicating our side. And both of those extremes might be little different from any number of other agendas we might put on Jesus – to be the guarantor of a successful career, or the provider of the perfect spouse, or the protector of our children, or the soother of our anxious souls. I’m not saying that any of those desires and hopes are wrong, in and of themselves. But when we begin to project them onto Jesus, and make them the expected purpose of his coming to us, then we may be setting ourselves up for serious disappointment.

Peace and hope,

Nathan Nettleton