Stolen Jesus
Stop me if you have heard this one before....
"Belgian authorities are mystified over a brazen theft over the weekend from a Christmas Nativity scene of an icon of infant Jesus Christ that had been widely scorned online.
Snatched from his crib on the Grand Place in historic old Brussels between late Friday night or early Saturday morning, this specific version of infant Jesus is part of a nativity scene which has been at the center of a maelstrom on social media because the faces of the characters lack eyes, noses and mouths."
See the full article here
Is this what it has come to? People who are so upset about the look of a nativity scene that they steal baby Jesus? Wow!
Just for the record, the reason the nativity characters didn't have facial features was an attempt by the artist to let everyone see a bit of themselves in the story, bypassing hurdles like skin color, beauty, and artistic interpretation. But it appears that a Jesus with no nose makes people very angry.
This comes, coincidentally, in the same month that the Oxford University Press named "Rage bait" as the word of the year (ignore the fact that it is two words). Rage bait is the content put online designed to purposefully push your buttons and get you angry enough to click on it. Similar to clickbait and Honey traps, the whole point is to push you to a page that contains advertising from which they get revenue. In other words, making people angry is a good business model.
The wise teacher in Ecclesiastes once said, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecc. 1:9). People getting angry is not new, it is not unique to this generation, and it doesn't surprise God. I think it is ironic, however, that in people's anger at each other, they stole a doll meant to remind us of the one who died to end our fighting. The angels who announced his birth proclaimed peace on earth (Luke 2:14). Jesus mission was to reconcile all things and all people to himself (Col. 1:20). He came to end the hostility (Eph. 2:16) and commissioned his followers with the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). Someone the greatest symbol of peace on earth in the history of creation has become the centerpiece of a conflict of artistic opinions just days before Christmas.
And yet, all of this is not too far off from what happened that first Christmas. The Romans had taken over Jewish ancestral lands. The Jews resented their presence. The governor demanded a census, likely in order to raise taxes, that required desperately poor people to embark on travel they could not afford. Herod, the Roman-appointed regional king, ruled the people ruthlessly and yet desperately desired their approval. The very presence of the baby Jesus threatened him so much that he went on a killing spree of young boys to try to prevent this would-be future king from usurping his throne.
And in the midst of this, the angels proclaim, "Peace on earth?"
Well, not exactly. Their exact words were "peace on earth among those with whom He is pleased" (Luke 2:14). We know what pleases God...Faith. Peace for those who believe in him. The message here is that he world is crazy, gone mad, out of control. But in the midst of all of that comes crashing in a new reality. A better reality. A reality in which peace reigns over chaos. It's called the kingdom of God. And it is here for all who place their faith in Jesus.
We live in a world desperate for peace. So desperate that they will fight and steal to end the chaos and disorder of their own lives. They want Jesus so bad that they will steal him from a manger scene without even realizing the irony of what they have done. Or they will scream, "Oh My God!" at the scene of a car accident, not even realizing it is God whom they desperately need to cry out to in that moment. And we stand nearby, like the shepherds in the field two thousand years ago, fully aware of both realities. We can see the chaos of the world around us and the perfect peace of the kingdom entering this world through the birth of Jesus. And so we accept the commission to be agents of that peace, ministers of reconciliation. Slowly but surely reordering the world around us into God’s restored vision of creation, one person at a time.
Grace and Peace and Merry Christmas.