Several

years ago as I served in south Florida, 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 polyurethane?"

Long story

short. We built a beautiful Living Christmas Tree with a

substructure made of polyurethane. Stronger than wood or

steel and no chance of collapsing. The architect warned

us, however, it could melt. Much easier to handle and it

cost a whole lot less.

Great 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 suck his mama's

breast. And this is the one to stand up against the

devil? This is the one who will hang out on a cross for

all of us who hang in sin? Strange God!

You have to

admit that God's incarnational production was unlike

anything we would imagine. Ours 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.

The Rev. Dr. John

Hatcher is pastor of River's Edge Community Church in

Fayetteville.

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