{"id":2243,"date":"2022-12-23T09:40:09","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T14:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2243"},"modified":"2022-12-23T09:40:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T14:40:09","slug":"the-nativity-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/23\/the-nativity-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nativity Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
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Throughout the season of Advent \u2013 which this year encompasses the four weeks leading up to December 25 \u2013 we\u2019re looking at classic Christmas movies and how they might connect us to the miracle of God choosing to become a human being.<\/em>

And finally, here at the end of the month, we come to a Christmas movie that actually endeavors to tell the story of why we even have Christmas.
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We leave behind Santa Claus, flying reindeer, and kids trying to move the needle from naughty to nice.\u00a0 We come face to face with the claim that God entered space and time in the person of a vulnerable child \u2013 an infant born in the backwater province of the Roman Empire known as Judea.\u00a0
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The Nativity Story<\/em> is Hollywood\u2019s most recent attempt to transform the gospel accounts into a feature-length film.\u00a0 It premiered in Vatican City on November 26, 2006 \u2013 the first movie ever to debut in the home of the Catholic Church.\u00a0
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Sixteen-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes portrays Mary, while Oscar Isaac \u2013 who a decade later would achieve global stardom as Rebel pilot Poe Dameron in the Star Wars<\/em> sequel trilogy \u2013 plays her faithful fianc\u00e9 Joseph.\u00a0
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Most Bible readers cherish mental pictures (including ones they don\u2019t even know they have) of the most famous scenes associated with Jesus\u2019 birth.\u00a0 The power of a movie like The Nativity Story<\/em> is that it challenges our perceptions.\u00a0 Generations of artists, for instance, have led us to assume that the angel Gabriel approaches Mary within the privacy of her home.\u00a0 The Nativity Story<\/em>, however, places that signature event outdoors in an agricultural setting.\u00a0 Nothing in Luke\u2019s text forbids such an interpretation.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what it looks like in the movie: Gabriel Visits Mary – YouTube<\/a>.\u00a0
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Gabriel in that scene actually looks as if he could have been a drummer in a 1970s rock band.\u00a0 Likewise, we may be surprised at Mary\u2019s appearance.\u00a0 Here she has the look of an authentic first century Jewish teenage girl.\u00a0 There is no halo.\u00a0 Nor is she wearing the familiar blue cloak that we see in so many medieval paintings.\u00a0 She is a real person, not a porcelain figurine on our fireplace mantel this weekend.
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The movie helps us think in a new way about the most famous \u201cyes\u201d in human history.\u00a0 \u00a0
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Replying to Gabriel\u2019s mind-bending announcement that God is asking her to bear Israel\u2019s long-awaited Messiah, Mary says, \u201cI am the Lord\u2019s servant.\u00a0 Let it happen to me just as you say\u201d (Luke 1:38).\u00a0 It\u2019s as if Mary is signing her name to the bottom of a blank sheet of paper \u2013 a covenant of heartfelt service \u2013 trusting that God will fill in all the details one day at a time. \u00a0
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It\u2019s impossible to overstate what an act of courage this is.
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Saying yes to God, in Mary\u2019s case, also means saying no.\u00a0 She\u2019s saying goodbye to her reputation.\u00a0 Unmarried, expectant teenagers in first century Israel didn\u2019t get a guest spot on MTV\u2019s 16 and Pregnant.\u00a0 <\/em>They and their families got scorn and misunderstanding instead.\u00a0
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Mary is losing the honor game \u2013 the most important game in town.\u00a0 In an \u201chonor culture\u201d like that of the Middle East (then and now), people assume that only a finite amount of honor exists.\u00a0 There\u2019s not enough to go around.\u00a0 If one person\u2019s public esteem goes up, someone else\u2019s has to go down.\u00a0
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Because Mary\u2019s child will be publicly identified as a mamzer<\/em> \u2013 the Hebrew term for a child from an illicit relationship \u2013 she and Jesus and Joseph will live under a cloud of shame for the rest of their lives, an association almost impossible to eradicate.\u00a0 \u00a0
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Mary is likewise saying no to her dreams of a quiet, pain-free life.\u00a0 After Jesus is born, a wise old man named Simeon will tell her that raising God\u2019s Son will involve great suffering.\u00a0 \u201cA sword will pierce your soul,\u201d he assures her (Luke 2:35).\u00a0 This is not the kind of sentiment that inspires Christmas carols or a new line of Hallmark cards.\u00a0
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Why does she say yes?
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Mary, who would no doubt have been dismissed in her own time as a nobody from Nowheresville, intuitively understands what so many of history\u2019s brightest, best-educated figures never seem to comprehend:\u00a0 All of us are servants<\/em>.\u00a0 The only real issue is whom or what we will choose to serve.\u00a0
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Bob Dylan won a Grammy for his song Gotta Serve Somebody<\/em>.\u00a0 The refrain goes, \u201cBut you\u2019re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed.\u00a0 You\u2019re gonna have to serve somebody.\u00a0 Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you\u2019re gonna have to serve somebody.\u201d
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John Lennon, apparently irritated by such limited options, responded with a song of his own:\u00a0 Serve Yourself<\/em>.\u00a0
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But all he did was prove Dylan\u2019s point.\u00a0 You can give your ultimate loyalty to a global cause, to personal honor and advancement, to an ideal partner, to your 401(k), or to the absolute conviction that there\u2019s nothing worth your ultimate loyalty \u2013 but you will definitely end up choosing to serve something<\/em>.\u00a0
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Mary knows she is always going to be a servant.\u00a0 Therefore she decides, \u201cI am the Lord\u2019s<\/em> servant.\u201d\u00a0
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And that makes all the difference in the world.\u00a0
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It can make all the difference in the world for us, too.
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Which is why we should endeavor this year and every year to have a Mary Christmas.\u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0Throughout the season of Advent \u2013 which this year encompasses the four weeks leading up to December 25 \u2013 we\u2019re looking at classic Christmas movies and how they might connect us to the miracle of God choosing to become a human being. And finally, here at the end of the month, we… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[539],"class_list":["post-2243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2245,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions\/2245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}