Confession: I’m highly cynical about Christmas. I’m not cynical in the “bah humbug” Scrooge kind of way or the needing my heart to grow three sizes Grinch way, but I question what lies beneath all the gifts, nativities, trees and carols. I have accepted that we celebrate the birth of Jesus at the wrong time of year (I tend to lean toward an August birth). I’ve moved beyond the fact that many Christian Christmas traditions are hijacked from pagan celebrations. I can even overlook the commercialization of this high holy season. I can move past all of this because I believe it’s a small price to pay to remember that God became flesh, human, and entered this messy and chaotic world.

Yet when I look at a nativity scene and listen to the words of the hymns we sing during Advent or the messages being preached, I don’t get a sense that the world Jesus entered into was messy or chaotic.

We’ve created a false image of what that holy night was like.

We sing songs about it being a silent night or baby Jesus waking up and he doesn’t cry…WHAT?!?!

What birth is silent?

What animals don’t make sounds?

What baby doesn’t cry?

Mary was in labor, and though I’ve never experienced that for myself, I have witnessed numerous cows give birth (yep I’m a farm kid) and have listened to my friends’ stories who have experienced the miracle of birth.

Giving birth is often a long, exhausting, painful and yes MESSY process (it’s also smelly in the barn). However, this is not the image we get from our nativity scenes or from the way the Christmas narrative is often taught. In our images and stories: Mary isn’t exhausted; there is no blood or animal waste; there is no screaming and there is no crying. Aside from all of this, we don’t talk about how Joseph might have been a little panicked as he searched for a place for Mary to give birth and then realized he would have to deliver the baby.

No the birth of Jesus has to be perfect…less than human. Mary can’t look dirty, tired, stressed or as if she is carrying extra weight from her pregnancy. Both Mary and Joseph must look worshipful (clean and peaceful). The manger and surrounding area has to be sanitized: organized as well as blood and waste free. This less than human image is what we carry with us as the moment that God became one of us.

When we sanitize the Christmas story and try to make it perfect, we lose the chaos and the mess. We struggle to see ourselves and our lives in the very story meant to draw us back to our Creator. The unintended consequence of this false image is that people can begin to think that God only enters calm, clean and perfect circumstances.

However, the infant God did not enter a calm, clean and perfect world in a calm, clean and perfect way. No that infant entered this world in the same way that all of us do — in chaos and mess —  and Jesus continues to enter into our chaotic and messy human existence just like he did all those years ago.

So, if you’re wondering if God could possibly be present with you in your loud, chaotic and messy life, remember that those are the very circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus, God in flesh.

“It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David’s town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother’s hand to hold