Time For Another Dispatch…

Dispatches From the Edge & Other Stories From The Margins:

A Manger in the Corner

Well friends, it's Christmastime again, and it has its usual way of dressing the world up in ribbons and good intentions. Everywhere you look, trees are glowing like they have stories to tell, and wreaths hanging on doors that never saw so much greenery the rest of the year. And old Saint Nick is on his annual goodwill tour, shaking hands with toddlers who want nothing to do with him and eight-year-olds who have wised up to the present-to-praise ratio when it comes to the man in red. The local men's choir is out practicing their harmonies on the church steps once again, trying to decide who is singing flat before that evening's Winter Recital.

And right in the middle of all this pageantry, tucked in a quiet corner that most folks forget to glance at, there is a manger holding a baby. And that baby is God.

Now you might expect God to draw more attention than He does. You might imagine trumpets or a spotlight or at least someone mentioning Him between the peppermint lattes and the ugly sweater contests. But if you have lived long enough, as most of us have, you know how this world works. The loud things win. The shiny things get center stage. And the quiet, important things wait patiently at the edges.

These days, the manger competes with shopping lists long enough to wrap around a small building. It competes with holiday movies where two people fall in love after bumping into each other at the coffee shop, spilling hot beverages on each other's perfectly assembled outfits, and where the local bakery always stays in business, and nobody ever loses their job. It is a strange world when the Word made flesh has to fight for attention with a plastic reindeer and inflatable snowmen, but here we are.

The Good Book says that God is a jealous God. This makes some people nervous, but only because they don't understand what kind of jealousy He's talking about. God is not offended when your felt elf on that old shelf gets more attention than the nativity set. He does not mind when the children smile more at Frosty than at the ceramic baby Jesus in the creche. God is the least insecure person you will ever meet. He knows He will not be forgotten for long. He knows that Decembers have a way of wearing people down to the truth eventually.

Because here is what I have seen in all the places I have walked.

People will often joke about God at cocktail parties where the cheese trays are full, and the lights are soft, and the music is good. Folks feel clever then. People love to amplify how smart they are in good company. And people will laugh at faith, too, the way people laugh at things that they have not needed yet. But, you know, life has a way of cutting the jokes short pretty quickly when it wants to.

I've seen how no one jokes about God when the doctor walks in with the test results.

No one cracks wise when the phone rings at midnight, and it is the police asking for the next of kin.

And no one is laughing at God in a homeless shelter when someone is wondering how a life unraveled so far and so fast. Or chucles at God in the visitation room of a jail when a man is counting the pieces of his life and it’s coming up short.

There is nobody laughing at God in a rehab center when a woman learns she is not as strong as she thought, yet not nearly as broken as she feared.

In those moments, all the jokes are gone.

In those moments, people reach out for something steady, something kind, something that knows their name.

Which is why the manger sits quietly in the corner and waits. God does not fight for the spotlight because He knows the spotlight is fickle. He knows the glitter gets swept up. He knows that eventually the tree will come down. But He also knows that people will come looking for Him as soon as their hearts start to ache, and He will already be there, patient as ever.

I think that is why Christmas feels the way it does. It has all the wonderful noise and laughter and bright colors, but beneath it, there is the quiet truth that keeps us steady, whether folks acknowledge it or not. The truth is that in a small, ordinary corner of the world, God arrived in a special way and has refused to leave us ever since.

Even though God deserves more than a corner of our lives, if your manger sits behind the poinsettia this year, take heart. Because He has never been one to elbow His way to the front row. The Good Lord waits for us as a genlteman will. Like someone who does not hurry anyone along, but simply listens for the moment a person finally says, “I cannot manage this on my own.” And when that moment comes, He is already there, steady as a sunset and loving us with the long patience of the One who has all of eternity in His pocket.