Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Any Street, U.S.A.

"Main Street Bethlehem. Don't miss it."

This was the advice given to me last week. The Main Street Bethlehem being referenced is a sort of attraction and a sort of play that is put on by residents of Burnet, TX. The idea is to recreate the streets of Bethlehem, circa the time that B.C. switched to A.D. I've never been to Main Street Bethlehem, but the website description sounds like a holiday experience the whole family can enjoy and I'm not hear to knock it.

But it did get me thinking. One of the biggest temptations for Christians at Christmas is to romanticize and dress up an event that was all to real and messy. We have nativities that feature the cleanest of stables, the most sanitized of animals, and the quietest of babies. I don't know if that's the Main Street Bethlehem approach, but I do know they feature free refreshments at the exit. And I'm guessing that the actual Bethlehem does not.

The thing is, the reason why Bethlehem is special is because it's where God first made His home with humanity. It's the place where God put on flesh and dwelt among us. It's where Jesus was born. Born into our mess and our brokenness and darkness. Born to bring some light and to save the world.

Over 2000 years later, the Spirit of God still longs to make His home among us. Jesus Christ looks to be born into our hearts, our lives, and our neighborhoods. God wants to move among people living on Main Street or 6th Street or 12th and Chicon or Oltorf and Lamar. And we can make such theatre of the past that we forget how the reality of the past breaks through into the present; that Jesus who was born in Bethlehem is alive and sends his Spirit today. That the light of Christ continues to break into every neighborhood and onto every street. Not just main street, but your street and my street and up streets and down streets and backstreets that you and I may go to great pains to avoid. The Spirit of God looks to be born into any and every street, the streets we drive on and past everyday and miss along the way. Miss the lost and the lonely and the angry and afraid. Miss the messy and the real.

So, here's my advice this Christmas as you walk down Any Street, U.S.A.

Don't miss it.