Some stories are so well known that we miss the meaning. We know who the characters are so we don't think about what it means to have these people in this story.
The story of Jesus' birth is like this. In homes and churches, the same small figures are set out. Father, mother, child in a manger. A couple animals in a stable. Shepherds and sheep. Three foreigners with camels looking at the star or the child and bearing gifts.
The stable will be clean and tidy, not like barns I've been in. There will not be an inn in the background, even though one of the stories claims that the reason he was born in an animal shelter is that his mother, clearly in labour, was turned away from the regular travellers housing.
A few years ago, a church in Montreal placed the figures in a tent with "UNHCR" printed on it. This helped to ground the story in our understanding. One story says that the family were far from home at the time the child was born. The other describes how, after the birth, the family became refugees, chased from their home by the king.
Those who wrote of Jesus' birth wanted to help people see that God was not acting through the existing power structures but through people on the margins, outsiders, people suffering at the hands of power.
When we visited Paris some years ago, we came across a church which had pictures of the Madonna and child depicted in different cultural and racial locations. Many of these pictured the pair in the Global South. While images like this don’t get us back to the original story, they do challenge us to think of what God might be doing on the margins today.
In case the people who hear the story don't get it from the location of the birth, the writer Luke added nomadic farmers. The first announcement was given to shepherds who pastured their flocks in the wilderness. In that dry land, shepherds kept their flocks outside the villages, in the wild, on the hillsides. They were outsiders who did not fit the patterns of life in the towns and cities. Again, outsiders are in the foreground.
To make sure that people understand this, the story by Matthew gives us foreigners as the ones who heed the news. Students of the stars, wise men, not kings, travel a great distance to see for themselves what God is up to. The king, the current political ruler, is angered by their news of a prince of peace.
And in both stories, an unwed mother takes centre stage. Because Joseph is there at the birth – the crèche will have a man beside Mary – we may forget that when her pregnancy was discovered, he planned to dump her. It took some convincing for him to stick by her. It was Mary who could not walk away, who had to bear this gift and burden. The woman is centred.
Pictures of Madonna and child do show the tender love of mother for baby, but do not picture the fear she must have felt when she faced her family and Joseph. The images do not show the agony of labour. Some icons show an infant who looks like they could manage on their own. We never see the kicking and screaming of a hungry baby with pain in their stomach.
One of the worst favourite hymns is Away In A Manger. “The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes. But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.” It’s as if we tell every child who sings the hymn not to cry when they are hurt or sad. So silly. So wrong.
There are images of an adult Jesus laughing. There are images of an angry man as well as a compassionate one. But in the birth narratives we sing and see, the images are quite unrealistic. Which is a shame because the original stories were told to show God coming in human form on the edge of society, vulnerable and marginalized.
Something shifts when God in human form is a vulnerable baby and a refugee.
Cathy Hird lives on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.
Photo source: WikiMedia – Holy Virgin of Częstochowa
