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Christmas:

What a unique idea!

The Rev. Dr.

John Hatcher

Religion Columnist

Several years ago as I served in south Florida, where

our church adopted The Living Christmas Tree as an

outreach strategy. We consulted an architect about the massive

structure that would hold more than 100 choir members. Would

it be a wood or steel substructure? The architect knocked us on

a pew when he asked, "Have you ever considered

Styrofoam?"

Long story short. We built a beautiful Living

Christmas Tree with a substructure made of Styrofoam. Stronger

than wood or steel and no chance of collapsing. It was a

fantastic idea.

I don't know who said it originally, but Ted Kennedy

gave his brother, Robert, credit for saying, "Some people see

things as they are and ask 'Why?' I dream of things that never

were and ask, 'Why not?'"

Christmas was God's great, unique idea. To think:

God showing up as a baby! What kind of God would have

that kind of idea? And as we seek to fathom the deeps of

Christmas, maybe it has something to do with doing things

that we've never done before and having ideas that we

never thought before. God sleeping in a feeding trough!

Sin has made the world a dull, dreary place. The only

way we know how to liven things up is more sin. Christmas

is about brightening the cold, dark world with one more

mouth to feed. Only thing, this mouth was the bread and he

could bake bread for a not so small crowd without a single

microwave. Just think of it: bread making bread. Have you

ever known a pizza to make a pizza?

The world needed somebody to slap us in our place.

A swordless infant arrives. How and why? His number one

goal those first few days in Bethlehem was to get all he could

get from his mama's breast. And this is the one to stand

up against the devil? This is the one who would hang

out on a cross for all of us who are hung up on sin? Strange God!

You have to admit that God's incarnational production

was unlike anything we would imagine. Our's probably

would have been trite, expected, and dumb. But this God

who showed up in Bethlehem is really cool! He's really neat!

He's really awesome! He's really "whatever" the

new word among middle schoolers for what breaks the boredom and

monopoly of monotony of our days.

To get into the Christmas spirit maybe is not about

putting up a tree or buying the world's most recent, boring

fads. Maybe the Christmas spirit is about coming up with

something new, untried, something really needed. Just like God

did and in a whole new and different way.

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