The true, unsanitised story of Christmas
It’s a bastard refugee baby born to a teenage mother — whose husband was planning on divorcing her — in a feed trough in the middle of nowhere. This is the real, brutal story of Christmas.
Nativity scenes featuring caucasian looking figures standing around a smiling baby, surrounded by livestock and angels. Sounds like pretty much every depiction of the birth of Jesus you’ve ever seen, right?
The westernisation and sterilisation of the Christmas is more or less complete and has been for decades. But what was the original story? What is it that us Christians think about at Christmas?
Here’s what really went down.
There’s a young, innocent teenage Jewish girl called Mary. She’s engaged to a carpenter named Joseph. In all likelihood, they weren’t marrying for love. It’s not really how things were done back then.
She lives in a Middle Eastern country called Israel that is occupied — as is much of the world — by Rome, the global superpower of the time. To Rome, Israel is a backwater of little consequence.
Mary ends up pregnant after — what some might call — a supernatural encounter. Everyone else just calls her nuts. She breaks the news to Joseph that the baby is God’s. Yeah, sure thing Mary. You’re having God’s baby. Good one.
Joseph plans to divorce her quietly, because he’s not a bad bloke and doesn’t want to make a bad situation worse. He’s just engaged to the wrong girl at the wrong time. However, Joe has a supernatural encounter of his own, presumably after telling his carpenter mates “It’d take an angel sitting right in front of me telling me this baby is God’s for me not to divorce her” and decides to hang around.
Careful what you wish for, Joe.
The Roman Emperor orders a census to be taken of the entire empire, so Mary and Joseph end up on a rather uncomfortable journey to Bethlehem, Joseph’s home town. They arrive to find the baby wants out and they don’t have private health cover.
Every hotel, motel and Airbnb property is taken. Scholars and traditionalists will tend to quibble over what happens next. Traditionally Jesus ends up being born in a stable. But according to scholars, they end up in the backroom of someone’s house. Either way, Mary gives birth to a bouncing baby Son of God, names him Jesus and lays him in a manger.
Incidentally, manger means feed trough. But the gospel writers Matthew and Luke didn’t think Away in a Feed Trough had the poetry they were after, so manger it was.
So, Jesus Christ comes into the world in a stranger’s house in a strange town and winds up sleeping in an animal’s trough. Not exactly a homecoming party for the Messiah.
Before they know it, Mary and Joseph are playing host to a bunch of shepherds who have spent far too much time in the bush and are ranting and raving about seeing angels in the sky.
“We’ve gotta see the baby!”
Quick note about shepherds in the day. Not only were their feet most likely covered in sheep dung, but they themselves were the lowest of the low. They were literally the shitkickers of their time. Essentially homeless, they were barely a rank above indentured slaves and weren’t allowed to vote. They were nobodies and they stunk.
Next thing, more uninvited guests rock up, only this time from Babylon. You should note that Israel and Babylon’s relationship status could be classified as “it’s complicated”; lots of history involving the words “conquer” and “exile”. The three guys from Babylon are fully fledged astrologers and psychics, wearing all of the weird and wonderful paraphernalia that goes with ancient mystical belief systems.
To add insult to weirdness, King Herod (local king of the region of Judea) hears along the grapevine that there’s a king born somewhere close by. This makes him more than a little antsy, so the voices in his head tell him that murdering every male child under the age of two — just to be on the safe side — is the best course of action. The blood flows freely.
Joseph and Mary catch wind of the plan and make a break for Egypt, another country with which Jews have a complicated history. It’s a country that speaks of misery, slavery and oppression. There they hide out as refugees until Herod dies. When they do finally come back to Israel they settle in an out of the way area, aiming for a life of obscurity.
So let’s recap. We’ve got the supposed Saviour of the World born to a single teenage mum and her fiancé the carpenter in the backwoods of Nowheresville. That particular Nowheresville happens to be in the greater region called Obscurity, which is all under the brutal rule of the greatest military superpower ever seen called ROME.
Little Jesus is sleeping in an animal feed trough in a stranger’s house because his mum and dad were either too poor or too stupid to book ahead. Not only that, they have uninvited house guests who haven’t washed in months and whose feet are covered in sheep turds.
Next, they get nutty astrologers from Babylon — one of their country’s mortal enemies dropping by with crazy expensive gifts because they “saw a star”. Then they find out the local provincial ruler has chucked a wobbly and decided a little yuletide genocide is just the thing.
So they flee as refugees to Egypt which also happens to be one of their historical mortal enemies. Turkey and pudding anybody?
This is the unsanitised Christmas story. Messy and covered in blood and with shit on its shoes and all totally wrong.
And that’s what makes it amazing. Mythology and Richard Dawkins and beardy-man-in-the-sky caricatures aside, it’s a ridiculous story. You couldn’t come up with something so crazy and unlikely if you tried. I’m sure people will comment on this article about religion being a man-made construct and there’s no God etc, but that’s the story of Jesus.
He comes into the world in the middle of the messiest of situations because life is messy. We have crises, our friends get cancer and die, our family members struggle with addictions and self-destruct, we go broke and lose our jobs, relationships fracture. Life is messy.
And it’s that mess that Jesus comes into, as a helpless, innocent baby. And it’s that innocence he calls us to, especially religious people. To put down our stones and lay down our grudges, to embrace wonder while embracing our fellow man because we all have, in some form or other, mess in our lives.
No doubt you’ve heard some Christmas carol some time use the word Emmanuel. The translation of that word is “God with us”. That is the story of Christmas.
It’s God becoming the man Jesus Christ, and incarnating in the middle of political and social and economic and personal turmoil as the lowest of the low.
It’s a bastard refugee baby born to a teenage mother in a feed trough in the middle of nowhere.
It’s God, in the middle of the mess and the chaos of life, saying “I’m here”.
That’s Christmas.
This article was inspired by the Christmas message from Pastor Ben Teefy of Hope Centre Brisbane (minus the coarse language).
Originally published as The true, unsanitised story of Christmas