Luke 2:11  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

Matthew 10:34  “Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.

Hey I both love and celebrate the idyllic Hallmark image of the Christmas season and do everything in my power to replay it every year.  To me the color, the lights, the celebrations, the gift giving, the well wishes, the gathering of the people nearest and dearest are a foretaste of the heavenly world to come. I am not that pastor who stood before his congregation on a Sunday morning shouting, “there ain’t no Santa Claus,” as some parishioners left with their hands over the children’s ears.

However the first Christmas hardly resembles the lyrics of our favorite carols. Contrary to “Away in a Manger,” Jesus cried.  He was a baby “for crying out loud.”  Contrary to the phrase “all is calm,” in “Away in a Manger,” much was in chaos.   Although we adore Jesus as our savior in the Judean Hills all those centuries ago he was  also Jesus the disrupter.

• The birth of Jesus disrupted the administration of Herod when he was faced with the scandal that the Magi has chosen the new King of the Jews over the Old Herod the tyrant of Israel.
• The birth of Jesus disrupted the priorities and itinerary of the Magi.  Their lives and careers were determined by their value as consultants to rulers. It’s no mere passing comment for the scripture to record, “they departed into their own country another way;” this was a disruption of their ambition.
• The birth of Jesus disrupted the lives of an ordinary humble couple named Mary and Joseph, turning them into international fugitives.   This couldn’t have been good for his contracting business.
• The birth of Jesus further disrupted emotions of the already unhinged Herod.  Herod had already executed two of his sons, his uncle, his favorite wife and a priest in Israel for suspicions of treason. God didn’t avoid “poking the bear.”
• The birth of Jesus disrupted all the citizens of Israel. When the scripture says, “Herod was disturbed,” it adds, “and all Jerusalem with Him.”  The last thing peace loving Jews needed was to get Rome stirred up against them with the announcement of a Jewish king with no army to defend them. These people had a fragile compromise that allowed them maintain their own Jewish order within the context of the Roman Empire, so long as they played by the rules.  God broke the rules.

There’s more but you have a lot to do so I would be the only one engaged here if I turn this into an encyclopedia of divine disruption.  Now why is it important to know that Jesus, the great comforter was also Jesus the great disrupter?  My answer to my rhetorical question is simple.  It brings me greater peace to know that the will of Christ will sometimes turn my world upside down because then I don’t feel emotionally ambushed when it occurs. Joseph is the unheralded hero of the incarnation of Christ.  Joseph was the emotional leader of calm for his little family and so both the legacy of this marriage and the purpose of the ministry of Jesus was preserved. We do the most damage to our purpose and legacy when we overreact to disruption.  The disruption of the incarnation fulfilled scripture therefore giving the Word of God it’s power; this is because Joseph & Mary buckled in to the roller coaster of life and found joy in the ride.

So go ahead enjoy the rich and joyous traditions of the holidays but don’t forget that some of the most meaningful dimensions of the first Christmas was in the disruption.  Jesus birth was among other more cheerful things, a war on evil.  We find meaning in sports and movies because of the struggle we see; so it is with the incarnation of Jesus. Remove the struggle out of the incarnation and you remove the hope. Christ came to the manger to rumble with the forces of darkness and that’s good news.  As we come into the realization of all the goodness that he won for us it will make us grateful that he was born a disrupter.