First Lines: Thoughts on the Screenplay of Christmas

First Lines: Thoughts on the Screenplay of Christmas…

by Griff Martin
December 19, 2017

If I were God, the whole Christmas story would have been very different. For starters, the lead actors would have changed. Mary would be more like Diane Keaton in Annie Hall: beautiful, wise, witty, and old enough to have a child. Joseph would have played a more prominent role (think Robert Redford in The Way We Were). Martin Sheen (better known as President Bartlett) would have played God and, instead of directing from behind the scenes, would have been a visible role. I am not sure I would have cast a baby as Jesus…having 2 children, I know infants are most unreliable.

If I were God, the location would have been some incredible site. Maybe a beach in Spain, or nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, or at least a New York Penthouse.  The plot would involve more action, romance, dialogue, and would be a bit bigger. More people would be involved and God’s entrance into the world would have been known by all.

But God’s screenplay is quite different.

Mary is just a teenage girl. Joseph is merely a bit player. God orchestrates it all, but does not make an appearance until the very end and then appears as a small baby – a baby that requires diapering, swaddling, and nursing. The plot is really simple. It is an unknown event. It happens in a manger in a stable. The supporting cast is composed of animals and those who care for animals.

I don’t know why this surprises me every Advent season. Throughout the Old Testament, God has worked in the common, the ordinary, and the human. He has worked through donkeys, bushes, ladders, fleeces, and gentle breezes. God seems to work best through the ordinary.

The Christmas story is another simple reminder that, in life, we need to pay attention to the ordinary, the common, and the human. In those things, we will find God.

One of my favorite plays is Our Town by Thornton Wilder. In one of the pivotal scenes, a ghost is allowed to relive one day of her life. She chooses her 12^th birthday. After re-living the day, she asks the God character if anyone ever notices the wonder of every moment. He pauses and replies, “No. Saints and poets, maybe. They do some.”

Christmas is just one more reminder that we should not miss the goodness, the Godness, of each and every moment.

As you celebrate this year, be present to each and every moment. Pay attention to the ordinary, the common, and the human. It is in these things that Christ is likely to be re-born.