Barnes: Surprising decoration, but deeper in meaning to tell the Christmas story

Christmas is about the cross, more than about the manger.

Last December, my elder daughter texted me a picture of a yard decoration in her neighborhood which profoundly told that truth. A brown wooden manger sat just in front of, and beneath, a prominent, white cross about six feet high, the cross itself crowned by a shining Star of Bethlehem. The image was surprising in its declaration of the deeper meaning of Christmas and Advent.

Matthew and Luke tell the Christmas story of the birth of Jesus with both the crucifixion and the resurrection in their mind’s eye, I am certain. John, the great theologian of the meaning of it all, illuminates God’s mighty work even more fully in the fourth gospel. Altogether, their narratives’ purpose is to show the intention of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the infinite plan of Israel’s Yahweh, in the birth of the Messiah, and that plan’s completion in the crucifixion and resurrection. Their joy is expressed in recording this amazing Advent of humankind’s redeemer in the birth of Jesus the Nazarene, and the promise fulfilled by God in His Son.

Both human and divine, the baby in the manger is the Son of God the Father; Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. He is the very incarnation of God, the historical entry of God into human existence alongside us people; He is God with us.

As the holy God’s very entrance into our humanity itself, bodily in human flesh and blood, Jesus suffers our hardships and troubles, even unto death at the hands of the religious elite. His joys are the truest of all human joys, namely, those of friendship, love, purpose, self-giving, sacrifice, and joyful obedience to the father’s will. In the life of Jesus, those gifts are perfectly received and flawlessly lived.

The baby in the manger is divine, second person of the trinity, the second member of the Triune God: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. He comes to the manger for the holiest of purposes and missions, namely, the redemption of us, of sinful men and women, helpless to redeem ourselves. God is glorified.

Because of Jesus, His incarnation as one of us, uniquely both fully divine and fully human, yet free of sin’s chains, and because of His self-giving on the cross, and His everlasting victory over sin thereby; because, too, of His consequent victory over death through a bodily resurrection, and His exaltation in glory as our high priest and advocate before the father, all the created, natural order is forever, incontrovertibly, comprehensively formed anew. God’s original order of creation is reordered, radically changed, through the ultimacy of the sovereign creator’s divine, all-powerful will. Laws of gravity and algorithms, laws of cause and effect, and other natural laws remain in place; but spiritual, eternal life bestowed through the radically transforming power of Pentecost now constitutes a new order of being in Christ Jesus, seen first in the resurrection appearances of the risen Lord.

Consequently, there are now just two kinds of people. The redeemed and the unredeemed. Redemption is the one difference among us that matters to God. Not our color, race, ethnicity, social status, educational attainment, money, property, etc. And it matters eternally, absolutely. God has reordered His created order for redemption. Completing His mission in a resurrection miracle made known first to a redeemed woman, repentant and forgiven of sin, perhaps forgiven of sins exceeding even our own, Jesus draws near to this trusting believer and calls her name.

She is Mary of Magdala, chosen first by Jesus, because of her consummate trust in Him. That strong trust had kept her present and praying, fearless, at the foot of His cross, throughout His dying. We will not forget her name. John has established its place in our biblical memory.

Christmas and Easter are inseparably linked. That is why the yard decoration containing the manger and the cross tells the sacred Christmas story more strikingly and fully than a manger scene alone can do.

In a year when it is hard to find a religious Christmas card in most stores, and when one of the U.S. Postal Service’s Christmas stamps offers cups of steaming coffee as a Christmas image, my daughter’s neighbors’ front-yard, strong, Christian witness may be deemed outdated by some observers, perhaps seen by some neighbors as intrusive on their holiday enjoyment. Let us pray that they do not.

“O, come, let us adore Him!”

Thanks be to God.