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God’s Entrance

I haven’t had a chance yet to see the new movie, The Nativity Story, but I have read a little about it, and it sounds well worth seeing. It is a reenactment of the birth of Jesus, focusing on Mary and Joseph and their journey to Bethlehem. The reviews are mixed, but what do critics know? Besides, would anyone really expect the story of the birth of Jesus to compete with the excitement and fast action of James Bond in Casino Royale? We might respond by asking, “What event could be more dramatic than God coming into the world?” I’m sure it is not easy for movie-makers to do justice to such a momentous event as the incarnation of God, but it seems that such an amazing, history-changing event as the birth of Jesus would make the actions of James Bond or Ethan Hunt look boring in comparison. Maybe it sounds blasphemous to even make such ridiculous comparisons, but bear with me while I get to my point.

One might expect that if God were to enter this world, he would do so in a dramatic, miraculous way. And certainly he did—for he was born of a virgin, several appearances of angels attended his birth, a miraculous star appeared, magi from a distant country visited, a king tried to have the child killed, the parents were forced to flee to Egypt, and many specific prophecies were fulfilled. Sounds like the making of a great movie.

What is more striking, however, than the miraculous and dramatic aspects of God’s entrance is the humble and nondramatic. Think about it. He was born of a virgin, but how many people could see that? Joseph was the only one who really knew. There was a special star that announced his birth, but it seems only a few magi from a distant country noticed it. The king of Israel heard about it, but only through the visiting magi, almost by accident it seems (they were just trying to find out where Jesus was). While a multitude of angels appeared, only a few shepherds saw it. And if it had not been for the shepherds, no one even in Bethlehem would have known about the birth of God in their town (Lk 2.17-18). Finally, other than a brief appearance in the temple at age 12, Jesus remained in total obscurity until age 30. It seems only a tiny handful of people knew that God had come, though word began to spread from them.

The humble entrance of God into the world is perhaps more amazing than the fact of his entrance. Jesus—the Creator of the universe—was not born in a palace, nor even in a house! He was born, rather, in the field or a stable, and laid in a manger (cattle trough) because not even the lowly inn would take them in (and inns of that day were indeed lowly, despicable places). The one who came to rule the world and to reveal God was not born in Jerusalem, the center of true religion; nor in Rome, the center of power; nor in Athens or Alexandria or any of the other great cities of the time. Instead, he was born in Bethlehem, a town “too little to be among the clans of Judah” (Mic 5.2), and raised in Nazareth, a town despised by the Jews (Jn 1.46). His birth was not announced to kings and rulers, nor to the masses, but to a few lowly shepherds out in a field (although who better than shepherds to first hear of the coming of the Lamb of God?). Nor was Jesus born into a royal family, but to a young peasant couple too poor to afford the normal purification offering of a lamb (Lk 2.24; Lev 12.8). The parents of the Lamb of God could not afford their own.

God’s willingness to condescend to our level, to identify not only with our humanity, but even with the most lowly and common among us, is perhaps the greatest miracle of all. Maybe The Nativity Story won’t get any Oscars, and certainly it won’t compete with the blockbuster films of the year, but somehow I think that if Jesus were in a movie, that is exactly the kind of movie he would choose.