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If not an inn, then a manger… Reflection for Christmas 2021

I was recently listening to the radio where the host was asking the listeners what was their favourite role in the nativity play that they have enacted at their school. Overwhelmingly many people who responded shared that their role as donkeys or oxen at the manger were their favourite roles. Last year there was a survey in the UK on how your kid’s nativity play role shows what they will earn in the future, and interestingly those who played the role of the oxen are likely to have earned more than the rest of the roles. I am sure each of you will remember the role that you have played at your school’s nativity. The story of Christmas is centred around the manger, and specially at the baby Jesus in the manger.

 

Allow me to reflect on Luke 2: 7 for Christmas this year.  It is recorded as “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

 

Because there was no place in the inn, the first ever Christmas, the birth of baby Jesus did not stop. Mother Mary found an alternative and laid the baby in the manger. If not an inn, a manger is the place for the child to be laid, and that is the Christmas message for this year. The last two years 2020-2021, have been pandemic years, perhaps the toughest years in the recent past, where life came to a standstill. Airports were closed, schools were closed, businesses were closed, places of worship were closed, and despite all the closures, the hope in the Christian faith is that God in Jesus has been working with the communities and the creation in overcoming this phase of the pandemic. If there was no place in the inn, God in Jesus did not stop failing to come into this world. God through Mary found a place in the manger to lay the baby Jesus. Christmas is a story of hope, for God in Jesus is unstoppable in God’s reaching out to the world, for God has always been with us, both in season and off season. In the context of the pandemic, vaccines and vaccinations came as signs of hope, only to recognise that God in Jesus has been with us, helping us to overcome situations of hopelessness and despair. 

 

The child laying in a manger, then served as a sign of hope for the angels to share about the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. The mention of a manger, at least three times in Luke in the story of Jesus’ birth affirms to be a site of wonder, a site where God pitches God’s tent to be a site of solidarity with the people on the margins, and a site of creativity informing the world that God is present even in such unknown, unthinkable and unexpected sites.

 

The story of the birth of Jesus is a celebration of God choosing to find alternatives in offering hope. If not an inn, then a manger, if not in a closed building, then on the street, if not in the sacred, then in the secular, if not in a religious place, then in a public sphere, if not in the faith communities, then in the neighbours on our street, if not in the rituals, then in the serving the needy, if not in the tradition, then in the reimagination, if not in the known, then in the unknown, if not in the expected, then in the unexpected and if not in the usual, then in the unusual, in all of this God in Jesus is offering hope, peace and love to our entire creation.

 

The calling for us is to envision Christmas as a living event, inviting us to recognise the birth of a baby Jesus in our localities and in our times, for Jesus is being born in the margins of our societies, and we are called with Jesus to pitch our tents with the margins, and strive towards transforming our societies offering peace, love and hope to this our world today. For me, Christmas is not the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ, which we as Christians commemorate year after year, but Christmas is an opportunity to recognise that Jesus Christ is being born every day into our contexts offering hope, peace, joy and love to us, making the birth of Jesus relevant for our times. Christmas is not just a past thing, but is an event in the present where God in Jesus is taking birth in situations of poverty, exploitation and marginalisation of our times today. The story of Christmas is very radical that it unsettles the very idea of God who reigns from the realms of transcendence, but who came down to pitch God’s tent among the creation, being born as a baby, born as a poor baby, born in a manger as there is no place in the inn.

 

No matter which role we played at the nativity, be it a donkey, an ox, an angel, the shepherds, the magi, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, we are all loved equally by God, and we are called to share that love with others. May the hope, love, peace and joy of Jesus be with us all during this pandemic Christmas, inviting us to commit towards a free vaccination of all people in all places of the world.

 

Allow me to conclude with a drawing of my 11-year-old son Jaiho Patta, which he has drawn last year during the thick of a lockdown on the story of Christmas. In this drawing Jaiho reflects the nativity scene, ‘Jesus born in lockdown,’ bringing in the relevance of Christmas today.

Raj Bharat Patta