The Nativity Story: A Great Christmas Movie
For
the Christmas season I wanted to share one activity that my wife and I do to
remind us of the birth of Christ. Every year to set our mind on the birth of
Christ and the Christmas season we do something simple and fun, we watch the movie
The Nativity Story. This movie was
released December of 2006 by New Line Cinema and somehow it has grown to be a
part of our Christmas tradition as a family.
What
I really like about this movie is how it captures the “dirtiness” of the social
and political context that Christ was born into. Often as a modern day
Christian I don’t think about what it was like for a young betrothed couple to
be selected by God to birth the savior of the world, and this through virgin
birth, in a culture that could potentially stone for pregnancies out of
wedlock. The Nativity Story goes a
long way to capture the tension that this would have created in the small town
of Nazareth as well as the internal struggle that Mary and Joseph must have
wrestled through as they tried to walk out a life of faith in God. Every time I
watch The Nativity Story I am struck
with the hardship Mary and Joseph faced in their faith. There faithfulness to
God’s plan cost them more than we will ever know and the The Nativity Story goes a long way in capturing the cost. Watching
Mary and Joseph fight for faith in the midst of cultural pressure encourages me
to face the world and stand firm for the Gospel of Christ. One of my favorite
lines in the movie is Joseph’s sarcastic remark as He and Mary are leaving
Nazareth on the way to the census in Bethlehem amidst condemning stares. Joseph
looks to Mary and says, “I think they are going to miss us.”
The Nativity Story also really helps to
conceptualize the oppression that was going on in first century Judea from
Herod and the Romans. The Nativity Story
portrays well the exorbitant taxes, soldiers stealing young women, the extortion
of property, crucifixion of locals, and the killing of the young of Bethlehem. I
am usually moved to tears at the oppression that God’s people were facing. The Nativity Story adds weight to the
fact that Jesus came to help the weak, poor, and oppressed. I am always moved
to show more compassion in a reflection of what God has down in Christ to our
world. The world Jesus was born into was ugly. In our modern times as we wake
up to the fact that our world is still ugly, particularly of late, it is a
fitting reminder that Jesus and his family faced many of the same threats and
fears that are prevalent in our age. Jesus was born into a dangerous and evil
world. He can identify with our hopes and fears among this evil generation.
The
way in which the The Nativity Story
deals with the many appearances of angles, dreams and visions, and biblical
prophecy is great. The movie moves my soul as scripture is quoted, particularly
when Mary meets Elizabeth and Elizabeth quotes Luke 1:42-45. The Nativity Story reminds me of the
mysterious ways that God has and does work in our world. Furthermore, it helps
me to conceptualize what the experience of these prophetic and angelic moments
may have been like. Joseph has a particularly intense dream to instruct him to
take Mary as his wife since the pregnancy is of the Holy Spirit. As I wrestle
with my faith it is healthy for me to think about how other believers have
wrestled with their faith. The coming of Christ is otherworldly. Christ came as
a revelation from God and the intensity and foreignness of the prophetic and
angelic moments helps to reinforce the idea that our understanding of God and
the coming of Christ is revelation. God entered our broken world from outside
our world. One of the most touching scenes in the movie is of a lonely, poor
shepherd that God reveals the birth of His son to. This particular shepherd is
moved to tears as He sees and touches the hope of the world. So am I. Cue ‘O
come, O come, Emmanuel’…
As
with any motion picture based on the Bible. There is a fair amount of liberty
taken filling out the historical details and expanding the dramatic features of
the text. The Nativity Story should
be commended for its accuracy in depicting the advent of Christ as portrayed in
the Gospel of Luke and the liberties it has taken only serve to enhance the
story. The only scene that seems to stray from the biblical story in any significant
way is Zechariah’s encounter with an angel of the Lord in the Temple. In The Nativity Story Zechariah is
confronted by a facial figure made of the incense from the altar. Luke 1:11
records an angel appearing next to the altar of incense. Furthermore, if the dialogue
of Zechariah’s encounter is not listened to carefully in the movie one might
think that YHWH is speaking where Luke records the prophetic speech to come
from the angel. All and all The Nativity
Story holds very close to the biblical account and the few historical
liberties and biblical anachronisms do not distract from an excellent and
moving portrayal of the advent of Christ.
Finally,
Jesus is born in cave stable. A CAVE STABLE. I have watched the birth of
several of my children and I cannot imagine the complexities of birthing a
child outside in a makeshift barn. The germ-a-phob in me also cringes every time
as I watch the Savior of the world being born into the dirt, hay, and animal
feces. This is our Savior. God born as a baby in a makeshift stable. The God of
the universe in human form. He took on flesh, made of dirt, and touched dirt
with his feet. He was born into a dangerous world, our world, where his life
was threatened everyday. He was poor and afflicted and came to relieve the same.
Christ came for the people of Israel and He came for the world. His mission was
to die on our behalf so that we could have life.
Let
me encourage you if you have never seen The
Nativity Story to pick it up this Christmas season and set your heart on
advent of Christ. It has been a blessing to our family.
*The use of the image above in no way reflects the views of the artist that produced the image.
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