Christmas Interruptus

All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. – Luke 2:3-5 (NRSV) 

Ah, the Christmas season! Children laughing, people passing, greeting smile after smile with much mistle-toeing and hearts that are glowing when loved ones are near in the most wonderful time of the year! 

Let’s get real. Christmas is rarely, if ever, the hap-happiest season of all. Many people have a story of jingle hell, a holiday gone terribly wrong. Few people had it as rough as the holy family.  

Mary and Joseph were not dreaming of a white Christmas or any kind of Christmas. Their hearts were not aglow as they walked ninety miles while nine months pregnant, or while giving birth among animals, or while fleeing their country to avoid a brutal dictator.  

This was not a picture-perfect family sipping eggnog while roasting chestnuts on an open fire. This was a family in deep crisis, a family of refugees who some would label “criminals” or “illegals” today.  

Christmas is not only full of messy disruptions; it is a disruption. It’s about divine reality breaking into our snow globe reality, breaking and entering our neatly planned, perfectly packaged, tightly wrapped, well-ordered lives. 

After a birth story like his, it should come as no surprise that Jesus had a habit of disrupting things as an adult: 

He called fisherfolk from their nets and a tax collector from his desk. He disrupted a woman’s daily routine of drawing water from a well. He disrupted the laws of nature with healings. He interrupted the status quo of political and religious life. He disrupted the power of evil on the cross and by rising on Sunday.   

This Christmas, when disruptions and interruptions come, try not to see them as obstacles to Christmas. Instead, see them as Christmas itself. Do your best to smile, breath and say: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! … I’m right there with you.” 

So often a Christmas lost is Christmas found.  

Prayer
In-breaking Love, I’m not ready for your arrival—which makes it the perfect time.

About the Author
Matt Laney is co-Pastor of Virginia Highland Church UCC in Atlanta, GA and the author of Pride Wars, a fantasy series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for Young Readers. The first two books, The Spinner Prince and The Four Guardians are available now.