The Parable of the Nativity Scene

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, how perfect a Christmas card does the snow in Israel this week make?”

Josh spoke thus:

Two friends were looking at a nativity scene.

“Look at all that snow,” the one friend said.

The nativity scene was set in midwinter.  There was a stable door, in through which the viewer could see the Christ child, Mary, Joseph, three kings, a cow and some shepherds and some sheep.  Outside the stable, there was snow on the ground and snow on the roof.

“Well, it is a Christmas scene,” the second friend said.

“But everyone knows Jesus wasn’t born in midwinter,” the first friend said.

“First of all,” the second friend said, “Everyone doesn’t know that.”

“There were lambs in the field in the Bible!” the first friend said, “There aren’t lambs in the field in midwinter.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” the second friend said, “I’m just saying not everybody knew.  The person who painted this painting didn’t know, obviously.  And that’s not the only thing the painter didn’t know.”

“What do you mean?” the first friend asked.

“Look at their clothes,” the second friend said, “They’re not First Century Asia Minor clothes.”

“They’re Fifteenth Century Northern Europe clothes, it looks like,” the first friend said.

“Exactly” the second friend, “The painter of that scene didn’t differentiate between contemporary and ancient.  What was, was, and always had been.”

“Sort of like the Amish,” the first friend said, “In reverse.”

“Sort of like what was true when Jesus was born was true when the painter painted the picture,” the second friend said.

“So they thought First Century Jews dressed like them?” the first friend asked.

“So they thought the message was still contemporary,” the second friend said, “So contemporary dress was appropriate.”

“Did they think that if it snowed at Christmas in Fifteenth Century Northern Europe, it must have snowed when Christ was born in First Century Bethlehem?” the first friend asked.

“They thought that if it snowed at Christmas in Fifteenth Century Northern Europe, then you showed snow at Christmas in First Century Bethlehem,” the second friend said.

The first friend looked beyond the fake frost on the front window of the gallery in which the nativity was hanging and regarded the poinsettia-lined Miami street.

“I’m going to paint me a beach,” the first friend said, pointing at a bikini-clad woman walking by, “And she’s going to be my angel.”

“You just don’t get Christmas,” the second friend said.

“No,” the first friend replied, “But I do get Miami.”