Missing Christmas

I'm afraid I'm going to miss Christmas this year. The season I have been in for the past couple of months has been a very difficult one, and as I looked at the calendar this week and realized that this is Christmas, I realize how not ready I am to celebrate. 

And yet, as I think about what that means - to not be ready for Christmas for the first time in my life - I realize that I'm actually in good company. 

Nobody in Bethlehem was ready for it, either. 

Think about it. These were faithful Jews. They had invested their lives in God's story; they knew it forwards and backwards. They knew the promises of the prophets, and they had some expectation somewhere in their hearts for the coming Messiah, whenever that would be. I mean, it had been four hundred something years since anyone had really spoken about it, had talked about it, had prophesied about it. 

In four hundred something years? Life happens. 

Life happens and all of these distractions start pouring in and building up. At the time of the actual birth of Jesus, the very first Christmas moment, Immanuel, God with us, a large portion of the people of God were on the move, trudging over well-worn terrain trying to get back to their natural homeland to take part in this weird census that the Roman government had suddenly called out of nowhere. 

They'd packed up their families, saddled their donkeys, sent word ahead to their relatives, and were on their way. They were covered in dust, weary. Their bread was becoming stale. They were looking forward to just getting there so that they could stop for a minute, be counted or whatever they had to do, and then get back to their lives as they knew them. 

When Joseph and Mary got to the inn in Bethlehem, the place where they thought they would be staying for a couple of days until this whole Roman business could be settled, there wasn't even any room for them. They ended up down in the basement with the animals. 

Who is thinking about a 400-year-old prophecy right now? 

Almost nobody. 

And that's actually how it happens that the baby Jesus, the Son of God, is born in a manger and most of the world just goes on as normal. Most of the world doesn't seem to notice. 

A few shepherds, with word from an angel, come over to check it out. A couple of years later, the Roman government hears some kind of rumor about a night long past when something might have changed and sends a few spies to try to figure things out before mass murdering every little boy who might be the one. 

But for the most part, the world goes on as it has. Nobody notices. Christmas...simply passes by. Almost everyone missed it. It was only well after the fact - maybe thirty some years later - that they realized what really happened in Bethlehem that night. 

So when I think about missing Christmas this year, when I worry about not being ready in my heart, I recognize that I wouldn't be the first. 

Two thousand years ago, a newborn baby cried out into a silent night and almost no one heard Him.