Last year, I dropped the baby Jesus. It's true. In my haste to set out our nativity scene, I was careless with the Savior and dropped him on a hardwood floor. I looked at that pile of pieces and considered repair, but really... who wants a cracked baby Jesus in their manger scene? My only recourse was to find a replacement.
Now, my nativity isn't a fancy one. I've had it since the early years of my marriage, and I'm pretty sure it came from a department store. I've always wanted a nicer one, but right now this is the one I have.
Finding a Jesus to fit my nativity scene wasn't as easy as I might have expected. Oh, I could find Him all over town. The market is very willing to capitalize on Jesus during this holiday season, after all. Unfortunately, He was always either too big, or too small, or the wrong colors, or the wrong material.
I found a few that I loved, but they came with a price I wasn't willing to pay.
As the season progressed, I got a little anxious about the missing Jesus. I tried to convince myself that my pre-Christmas manger scene was exactly that, a pre-Christmas scene. Mary, I decided, was still heavy with child. As long as I found Jesus by Christmas morning, we were still good to go.
Still, every time I passed the manger, I was reminded that we were a home without Jesus. I would head out yet again to find Him, but you know how distracted you can get during the holiday season...
It's amazing how easy it is to accidentally forget.
One afternoon, late in the month, I stopped by the Dollar Tree for something unnecessary and discovered a display of manger figurines right by the front door. They looked similar in size and shape to my nativity, albeit cheaper looking, but the color match wasn't too bad. I figured a dollar wasn't too much to pay if He didn't fit so I brought Jesus home.
I unpacked the figure and set him up among the rest. He actually didn't look too bad, and a Dollar Tree Jesus is better than no Jesus at all, right? Mission Accomplished. Jesus is in the house.
When the husband came home, he took one look at my Dollar Tree retrofit Jesus
and just shook his head.
But Deb-or-ah... He's blonde.
Indeed, He was. I have no clue why I hadn't noticed that myself. I guess I was too busy making sure that my Jesus image fit with the scene that I had already established.
I told you I should be too ashamed to yak about this one...
Who ever heard of a blonde Jesus? I've never been all that great in geography, but even I know they're aren't a lot of Swedes settled in the Persian Gulf. Besides that, Jesus the Savior was an Israelite, a Jew from the house and lineage of David. Everybody knows that. Who in the world would make a blonde Jesus?
And who in the world would buy one?
Yeah, I know the punchline... a blonde.
But maybe there's a little truth to that. Maybe that Dollar Tree Jesus was manufactured for the folks who like their Jesus to look a little more like them.
Or maybe, it was just a careless Jesus seller who was counting on careless Jesus droppers trying to retrofit Him into their Christmas scene without paying too great a price.
Just a thought.
That's my story this morning, and I'm ashamed to admit that it's a true one.
Or maybe, it was all really a parable.
Maybe, just maybe, it's a little food for thought.
This year, as we embark the journey
we call Christmas,
what kind of Jesus fits into our scene?
*****
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