A Little Squeezing

How I love my Nativity set.
It has been my manger since I was a little girl.
Its pieces have been well used and well loved.
Each year when I unwrap them, I remember.

I remember where the manger was placed in my house growing up.
I remember playing with all the figures ever so gently.
Don’t touch the camel, my mother would say.
That directive was more out of necessity, since the legs of the camel were thin and delicate.

So the camel was in place with the wise men far off to the side.
They came later.
All the major players were in place: Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus.
Of course, all the animals played a part as well.

My mother made sure that real straw was laid down on the rustic stable floor.
Some of that same straw is still in a plastic bag all these years later.
The shepherds are depicted as young boys, which of course they could very well have been.
The sheep were always special to me, so white, so small, and so peaceful.

My favorite piece was actually two pieces.
The manger and Baby Jesus.
For some reason, which I never understood, the manger was empty.
My mother would keep Baby Jesus in another place until Christmas day.

I wanted Baby Jesus in the manger.
My mother was big on tradition.
I couldn’t wait until I saw the little Baby lying there.
Christmas just wasn’t Christmas without Him.

I asked my mother why she waited to put Baby Jesus in the manger.
He’s not there yet. Jesus wasn’t born until Christmas.
Logical but wrong in my mind.
Jesus needed to be there for the holiday season to mean anything.

There are some people who put their Wise men across the room.
They move them a bit closer to the manger each day signifying their long journey.
Though perhaps historically accurate, in my mind they needed to be there as well.
The manger scene told a story, and I wanted the major players in place.

My younger son sets up our Nativity set each year.
He loves all the pieces as much as I do.
I love the unpredictable way he places each piece.
He has never once put it up in the same way or in the same position.

It is so different from my childhood yet so right.
There was something unpredictable about the Story.
God promised to send a Messiah.
The prophets foretold how it was to come about.

Yet with all the foreknowledge, the people still missed Him.
The Messiah, born in a stable?
The Messiah in the form of a helpless Baby?
The Shepherds the first to hear the news?

The unpredictability of the birth of Jesus.
Even if you studied all the prophecies, the Birth has a certain absurdity.
Majestic, Creator God sending His Son to be born of a virgin.
God’s Son named Jesus because He would save the people from their sins.

I was watching The Homecoming, a Christmas Story, a teleplay by Earl Hamner Jr.
It is the movie that was the pilot for the series The Waltons.
There is a scene in the barn between Elizabeth and her brother, Jim Bob.
Elizabeth runs to the loft when her feelings are hurt and Jim Bob follows to comfort her.

Elizabeth was confused.
She said that when she grew up, she was going to have puppies.
Jim Bob lovingly explained that it doesn’t work that way.
I’m never growing up, was Elizabeth’s answer to the problem.

She proceeds to tell Jim Bob how she plans to stay little forever.
When she feels herself growing, she will squeeze all the growing parts so they will stop.
She will squeeze tightly, so the growing just won’t happen.
I can imagine that kind of squeezing.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation…For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him. (Colossians 1:15, 19)

Isn’t that what God did?
Didn’t He squeeze all His Majesty into the body of a tiny Baby?
Fully God and fully man.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until the Infinite became the finite.

The absurdity.
The unpredictability.
The unfathomable.
The grace.

All the major players in place.
All foretold and happened just as God said.
The Baby is not in the manger, but He was.
The Baby grew, without any squeezing into a man, like us in all things but sin.

The man grew and was hung on a cross.
The God-man is not there.
He is risen.
Just as he said.

Nothing unpredictable about it.
God the Father spelled it out very clearly in His Word.
The Baby in the Manger and the God-man on the cross.
He is not there.

He is risen just as He said.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze into a grave that could not hold Him.
The absurdity of the thing.
The unimaginable grace.