The scandal of Christmas

Here's my article for the churches' December newsletters.


In the film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, there’s a scene in which Ricky Bobby leads his family in a mealtime prayer, repeatedly addressing God as “Baby Jesus.”

“Dear Lord, Baby Jesus…” he prays, because he likes the Christmas Jesus best, he says. It sounds odd to many of us. It’s not a form of address we often use for God, but I think it illustrates a common attitude toward Jesus. Christmas is a little more “warm and fuzzy” than other festivals, and a baby in a manger is much cuter and easier to understand than a suffering, dying, resurrected, and ascended Lord.

Or is it? Does a helpless, vulnerable baby in a barn seem like a fitting image for God? This incarnation—the true God living among us in the truly human form of Jesus—is a radical idea! This movement of God to join with humanity overturns all our notions of God as cold, distant, and removed from creation.

And nowhere is God more intimately connected with humanity than on the cross. Christmas is not only about a baby in a manger. It is about the entire story of Word who became flesh and lives among us. The story of Jesus the baby begins the story of Jesus the Messiah, and this story will culminate in his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.

During Advent and Christmas, as we await and celebrate the birth of Emmanuel, may we revel in the scandalous love of God With Us, and may we see the cross even as we approach the manger.

Joy and peace to you!