By Pastor Wayne Zschech
I’m not a huge fan of memes, the “billboards” of social media in my opinion. But every now and then I read one that really causes me to stop, think, and ponder the depth of the message. Here is one that is popular in this season leading up to Christmas.
Your Christmas reminder that Jesus was a brown skinned Middle Eastern Jewish refugee – who befriended sex workers, lower class citizens, and other outsiders
Is this the Jesus we picture in our mind’s eye when we ponder the image of the Nativity? As I walk around town and look at the various creches on display how often does the infant Jesus have white skin and blond hair, and maybe even blue eyes. That’s what I looked like as an infant, a child of northern European decent (my sister got most of the Choctaw genes of dark hair and olive skin). Jesus’ skin was as dark as the skin of the Palestinians and Israelis we see in the news, or even the Latinos coming across our southern border. Do we see Jesus in the dark skinned people we encounter or see in the news?
Do we remember Jesus and his parents were also refugees that had to flee the bloodshed King Herod sought to bring about, believing Jesus to be a potential threat to the political power of Rome? Jesus – a refugee – like the refugees from Haiti, South America, Ukraine, and other nations where violence and disaster have made it unsafe to live and seek refuge in this nation. Do we see Jesus in the faces of the refugees in our midst?
As a man, Jesus would befriend the prostitutes, reminding them they too are a child of God and recipients of God’s grace. Is it possible for us to see the sex workers of our day, not only the prostitutes and escorts, but those who use the internet to sell their flesh, with the same love and compassion Jesus saw in the woman caught in the act of adultery?
Shepherds, those considered the lower-class citizens of Jesus’ day, would be the first to hear of his birth, witness his glory, and proclaim the good news of all they had seen and heard to anyone who would listen. And it would be those society deemed as outsiders and lower-class citizens that Jesus would choose to associate with on a daily basis over the powerful, the elite, and money-hungry wealthy. As we wander the streets around the Christmas market in Center City, drive through the impoverished sections of Camden and Philly, do we see and treat the homeless, the poor, the hungry with the same compassion and sense of humility that Jesus chose to do so in his day?
The more I thought about this meme the more I realized how much we need this reminder at Christmas – how much I need it. It is so easy to romanticize the birth of Jesus, to remember it as a touching story we hear every Christmas Eve in a jam packed church, sing carols that warm our hearts in the glow of a room full of lit candles. We are living in a time when those with brown skin, Middle Easterners, Jews, refugees, sex workers, the poor and those society declares as “outsiders” have been the object of derision and deemed unworthy of our sympathy or compassion. Yet, it is in these people that we experience the presence of Jesus in our midst!
This Christmas, don’t overlook the impact the Nativity of our Lord, Jesus, can have on our lives and the lives of others. Instead, let’s take our cue from Mary. Let us “treasure all these words and ponder them in our heart.” And may the words of Jesus’ birth connect us to the both the person Jesus was, and the people Jesus chose to call his disciples we encounter in our lives and our world each and every day.
Merry Christmas.
