Advent One: Turned the Right Way

On a walk in my neighborhood this week, I noticed the lawn and home decorations for Christmas have arrived in earnest.  Some folks appeared to change to Christmas just after Halloween, but most waited until Thanksgiving dinner leftovers were parceled into twelve days of Tupperware.

One yard had two familiar decorations: an inflatable lawn ornament and a Nativity set.  For the former, I find the daytime walk a bit disconcerting, as the family is not home, so the decoration’s fans are shut off.  At night, you will see a jolly old St. Nick standing on the lawn with a bag of presents over his shoulder.  During the day with the power turned off, the decoration’s fabric is a misshapen lump on the ground, as if Santa stepped out of the sleigh at 30,000 feet and met his untimely end.

The grace of the Nativity set thankfully saved me from other distasteful imaginings.  The plastic form of the Holy Family, the Three Kings, a Shepherd and a couple of cows returned my mind to more sacred matters. 

While my beloved New Testament professor Dr. David M. May (Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City) has reminded a generation of students each year in the Intro to the Gospels course, the Magi likely did not arrive anytime close to Jesus’ infancy, nor was it likely that the cows paid much attention to the family suddenly taking up the corn crib for a makeshift cradle. 

The reality is that the Nativity took place in the midst of an overcrowded small village, the cacophony of strangers from the hinterlands grumbling about being summoned by the Romans and laughing uproariously at the inn’s tavern likely overwhelmed the newborn cry of little baby Jesus. 

The Nativity set can be “lawn decoration”, but I suspicion in our less religiously adherent times, the sight of one usually marks a household wishing to honor devotion rather than custom or cultural expectation.  Nativity sets are not common in my neighborhood, located in Albany, New York, part of the “Capital District”, which is one of the leading “less religious” metropolitan areas in the United States. 

Around these parts, beholding the Nativity in front of a private home tends to signal more intention to share faith than decorate like the Griswold family of cinematic lore.

Curiously, this Nativity set was arranged differently than I had seen in the past.  The Manger is at the center, but the “grown-up” characters of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the Magi are not positioned in a way that you might expect.  Instead of sprawled out to show the scene to the passing car or pedestrian, the figures are focused on the Manger in the middle.  You are more likely see the backs of some figures, all turned inward to direct one’s gaze to the baby.

With the candles of Advent ahead of us, the “12 Days of Christmas” already playing on repeat in the aisles of box stores praying for your brick and mortar commerce, and the sugar shock of various holiday gatherings for home, family and workplace still to tempt us into weight gain, I hope we too will find ourselves turned in the right direction.