Nativity Scenes

Once I saw a Renaissance painting of Jesus' birth in a museum. Jesus and his earthly parents were positioned under an elaborate stone architectural structure, and they and all of their visitors were richly and stylishly clothed. It looked to me as though the artist didn't realize that Jesus wasn't born in 16th century Italy.

Jesus' birth isn't a common subject for today's artists, even the Christian ones, but we still are familiar with a far-removed relative of that Medieval and Renaissance religious outlook, and that is the Nativity scene. Most of the American Nativity sets portray Jesus, his parents, and all of their visitors (with the occasional exception of a Magi or two) as white. Their clothes are often bright and colorful, though the era is ambiguous. Every once in a while you'll find a Nativity set that portrays Jesus and everyone else as black. And then at a craft show I saw a beautiful wooden Mexican-made Nativity set in which all the characters wore festive Mexican folk costumes.

I start to feel that Nativity scenes have nothing to do with the real Jesus and are made by people who don't really know Him. An empty tradition that does more harm than good, as it makes Christians look quite ignorant, not to mention racially divided. For the record, Jesus was Middle Eastern, dirt poor, and lived in the first century!

OK, not exactly.

Jesus is the Son of God, the Word become flesh, and He was in the beginning with God, before humankind even existed and before we had been inbred and developed the physiological characteristics we associate with different ethnicities today. Jesus is God, but He wore the body of a man for a little while. What that man looked like is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Jesus left behind the glory that was His in heaven and stepped down into our dirty, poor, sinful world. He didn't ask us to change a thing before He would touch us. Instead, He came as we were. Jesus stepped into the world of a Jewish carpenter and his fiancée who knew nothing but oppression and exploitation, but who had faith to follow God's plan. He stepped into the world of Renaissance noblemen who knew nothing but palaces and luxury, but who realized that Jesus was worthy of their worship. He stepped into my world, my quiet, insignificant middle-class American life, to save me and do what He wants with my life. Jesus meets us where we are. He is present in every Christian's life, no matter what their temporary body looks like or what sins they've committed or what condition their neighborhood is in.

After I had looked at the museum Nativity painting for a moment, I read the museum curator's notes on the placard next to it. It mentioned that the wealthy patron who had commissioned the painting was depicted in the painting, along with his family, bowing before Christ at His birth. The artist had not been trying at all to paint the historical birth of Jesus. This was an image of Jesus being born in the hearts of specific people with a unique life. They wanted to be able to look at this painting and be reminded that Christ came for their family, that He was their king, that their family should be worshipping Him.

Picture any Nativity you've ever seen. Christ came for people who look like that, whose lives looked like that. But there's more. There are Nativity scenes that have never been made that show how Jesus was born in caves, in apartment buildings, in mud huts, in castles, in cottages, in skyscrapers, in two-story suburban homes. The people worshipping at the manger are dark and pale and in-between. And they're all accurate. Jesus is here.