A Modern Day Christmas Story

A Modern Day Christmas Story
John R. Petrilli

[While the ancient well-loved story of a Savior born in Bethlehem is always refreshing to re-tell and re-hear, perhaps we can more readily enter into its reality by putting it in more modern terms. Here’s what a modern-day Christmas story might very well look, sound, and feel like.]

An urgent message played back on her voicemail telling her to contact her Ob-Gyn immediately. Susie gasped as she hit the dial button on her caller-ID cell-phone. “Dr. Joy’s office”, the secretary cheerily greeted. Once connected to her doctor’s head nurse, Susie was informed that she was pregnant. “This can’t be”, she whispered to herself, “How can I be pregnant when I’m a virgin?”

That night while praying she saw something really strange appear in her bedroom. It was a light that glowed with a soft yet soothing aura. Then she heard a distinguished authoritative voice come from the aura, “Susie, the baby you are carrying has been miraculously put there by God. You’re to name Him ‘Heysoos’. He will become great and will sit upon the throne of David; His kingdom will never end.”

Susie repeatedly pinched herself just to make sure she wasn’t just imagining all this. No matter how hard she squeezed the skin between her fingers, she still felt the pinch. Overwhelming fears starting rolling over her heart and mind. “What will I tell my parents? They’re going to kill me! How will I ever be able to explain this to my fiancé Bill? He won’t want anything to do with me! I have to get away from here right now before anyone has a chance to see the baby showing!”

Without giving it a second thought, Susie packed her carry-on bag and headed for the airport. She was fortunate to land an inexpensive round trip ticket to fly her to her cousin Gracie’s home in a remote suburb. There she could gather herself, recover from the shock of recent developments, and, in virtual anonymity, bring her newborn-to-be to term with a degree of privacy and secrecy.

What Susie didn’t know was that her fiancé Bill had also experienced a visit from another world. He had received information from a heavenly messenger telling him it would be right, good and necessary for him to marry his impregnated fiancé because her conception was a God thing. Bill was to take responsibility for fathering God’s only Son! Although initially terrified by the night visitor, Bill eventually fell off to sleep, resting a lot easier knowing he could follow through on his carefully laid marriage plans.

Nine months later while listening to their i-pods, a graveyard shift crew of street cleaners heard music that sounded like nothing they’d ever heard before. Looking questioningly at each other they tried to figure out which one of them had those really weird-sounding i-tunes playing. Suddenly the entire block of streets they were cleaning burst forth in blazing light! “What’s up?” they stammered. Then the sound grew loud enough for them to realize it wasn’t coming from any of their i-pods; it was coming from above the city streets! They ran to the nearest intersection where they couldn’t believe their eyes. There, hovering above the tallest skyscrapers floated a cluster of heavenly beings numbering in the thousands. The light they emitted was so bright the street cleaners could hardly make out who or what it was they were seeing.

Without any warning whatsoever, a voice broke through the thunderous praise songs of this celestial group, saying, “Hey guys, chill out; don’t get so stressed! Have we got some awesome news for you! Tonight while you were pulling your night shift a Savior was born right here in a nearby neighborhood! His Name is Jesus Christ the Lord. You’ll know you’ve located Him when you find a baby wrapped in tattered clothes lying in a cradle made of styrofoam.”

That was enough to motivate this blue collar crew to make a beeline straight to the neighborhood which the celestial messengers identified as the Savior’s birthplace. Once they got there, they searched among the homeless crowd until they found one young teenaged couple living under a highway bridge in a makeshift cardboard refrigerator box home. They were huddled against each other to ward off the frosty night air and howling winds. There in a makeshift styrofoam cradle lay their newborn, just as the heavenly visitors had told them. Not wanting to take anymore unauthorized break time, they booked it back to their workplace and immediately told their supervisor and all their co-workers the incredible things they’d just witnessed.

About a week later in the homeless neighborhood Bill and Susie covered their baby in the warmest discarded blankets they could find in a dumpster and carted him off to the nearest church rectory. Fortunately for them the pastor was available. He graciously agreed to perform a dedication ceremony for them free of charge. He himself was orphaned and adopted, and found it easy to empathize with their penniless plight. The caring man of God also commended the young couple for the mature way they were handling their new responsibilities as teenaged parents.

But before they could set foot on the parsonage steps, an elderly man with the kindest expression on his face crossed their path. “Hello”, he softly greeted the couple. “My name is Theodore. While I was praying this morning the Lord told me that I’d meet the Messiah today here at the church. Would that baby you’re carrying be Him?” Shell-shocked at the senior saint’s incredible insight, they replied, “Uh … well … uh, yes … it’s Him!” Old Theodore’s face broke out in a smile wide enough to span the Mississippi. “Hallelujah, Praise God!” he shouted at the top of his years-worn voice. What happened next took everyone by surprise. Theodore opened his mouth to utter a Spirit-led prediction of the saving mission this new Babe would carry out that would affect all future generations spanning the entire globe.

No sooner had he finished mouthing these remarkable words but that a very aged, widowed saint by the name of Adrianna appeared. “I’m so sorry to burst in on you like this”, she apologized, “but I couldn’t help but overhear the prophecy brother Theodore just gave about your baby.” With that she audibly lifted her grateful heart to heaven itself, then darted away to spread the good news to all her believing friends at the nearby senior citizens center.

Fast forwarding two years after these events, the story takes a really interesting turn. We find ourselves squeezed into the cramped quarters of an observatory located on a mountaintop somewhere seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Three astrophysicists are busily calculating the trajectory of an object that has suddenly and unexpectedly appeared in plain view without the aid of their electron telescope. “What IS this?” they exclaimed to each other. “We’ve NEVER seen ANYTHING like THIS before!” As they scrambled for the astrophotography equipment they noticed that the celestial anomaly had begun moving in a most untypical direction. Its pathway followed no known route of any pre-existing planet, star, galaxy, nebula or supernova. This thing was totally new and unprecedented in every way, shape and form.

With all the curiosity and zeal of a child these seasoned astronomers carefully tracked every movement of this dancing star. The only problem this presented was that the star’s pathway went well beyond the horizon. So they quickly threw together their mobile telescopic unit with a built-in GPS and jumped onto the highway. After what seemed like weeks of running down this object, it finally came to a stationary position just above a small run-down tenement building in lower Manhattan. Upon ringing the security intercom, they were cheerfully greeted by a lower class couple named Smith. By now Bill Smith had found his way occupationally as a repairman for a local appliance distributor, while his wife Susie elected to be a stay-at-home-mom who’d already begun home schooling her preschool-aged Son.

Once the team of astrophysicists entered the tiny apartment their minds instantly and inexplicably shifted from astronomy to theology. Without giving it a second thought, these sophisticated men of science found themselves squatting down to get a close look at a rambunctious little toddler named Haysoos. Haysoos had a bubbly giggle that brought smiles to everyone within earshot. Then it dawned on them. They hadn’t been searching for a star after all; they’d been searching for THE Star of David, the very One Who had called each and every star into being and given individual names to all the heavenly bodies that filled the universe! Cognizant of the fact that they were standing in the very Presence of Deity, they took off their hats out of respect, then pulled-out their checkbooks and wrote a sum totaling tens of thousands of dollars in belated baby shower gifts to celebrate the birth of this unlikely couple’s very unique Son.

True to Theodore’s prophecy, this same innocent little toddler grew into a boy, then into a young Man, and eventually into an Adult of great power and influence Who performed so many miracles they defy the accountant’s pen. The toddler-become-Savior eventually fell into disfavor with the recently formed Global Council of Churches by claiming He was God. The Council leadership decided to silence Him by condemning Him to a slow and painful death by starvation and dehydration. Thankfully, the story doesn’t end there. This Man among men proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that He was indeed the Messiah by rising from the dead. Although this event was intentionally hidden from the media, its evidences have long ago been proven incontrovertible. According to His last public statement before returning to His original homeland, this Messiah is planning to re-visit the planet a second time, only the circumstances surrounding the next appearance will be far from ideal. Instead of a helpless baby, this Savior will be returning from Heaven as the Mighty King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And instead of a few janitors and astronomers paying Him homage, every knee on the planet will irresistibly fall down before Him!

Christmas - Oh, HOLY Night!

Christmas … Oh! HOLY Night!

John R. Petrilli

Christmastime often brings to mind childhood memories. For me it recalls the department store window in downtown Syracuse where motorized reindeer mannequins dashed through the winter wonderland scenery, and Santa Claus made a personal appearance at the E.W. Edwards store just to hear me tick off my wish list and make a mental note of my holiday “order”.

The Christmas story itself has a familiarity which, if not careful, can almost lead to a subtle form of apathy or contempt. But this year it’s different for me… really different. I began to see another side of Christmas … the HOLY side. A close examination of the Biblical text surprisingly reveals a Christmas that is holy from start to finish.

Take the night for example. It was holy as the sky was filled with angelic voices singing songs of adoration, praise and proclamation (Luke 2:8-14).

Then there’s the angel sent to relive Joseph’s many and justifiable anxieties. He was undoubtedly holy, as are all the angels sent on God’s errands (Matt. 1:20-23).

And Joseph himself is testified as being a holy young man (Matt. 1:19) who did well to follow the angel’s advice because it was perfectly in line with Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Messiah’s miraculous birth (Matt. 1:22-23), as revealed in the Holy Scriptures (Isaiah 7:14).

Next we have the well-known mother-to-be in beautiful Mary. Her inner beauty and holiness is revealed not only in her ready submission to God’s mysterious and personally embarrassing plan (Luke 1:38), but also in the words that compose her lovely song announcing her child’s impending conception (Luke 1: 46-55). She was a gal who was clearly holy in body and spirit (Luke 1:26-27, 34).

The angel Gabriel who brought the advance notice of Mary’s upcoming supernatural conception was doubtless holy (Luke 1:26).

Mary’s dear friend, cousin and confidant Elizabeth was a Spirit-filled holy woman of God (Luke 1:41), not unlike her Spirit-filled husband Zechariah (Luke 1:67), whose joyful song about his son John’s birth also included direct references to the Messiah and His ministry (Luke 1:68-69 , 76-79).

We all know very well that the shepherds were lowly, but did you ever stop to see that they were also holy? Their open receptivity to an angel’s visit and their quick action in telling others the good news is clear evidence of this fact (Luke 2:15-18).

Holiness continues its theme even after Christ’s birth. Upon completion of her forty days of purification and ceremonial cleansing, Mary carries the baby Jesus into the Temple for dedication to the Lord, and there meets up with a holy senior saint by the name of Simeon (Luke 2:25).

No sooner had he said, “Amen”, but that another holy woman named Anna encounters Jesus and His parents in the Temple (Luke 2:36-38). Her holiness is attested to by her life of dedicated fasting and prayer along with her gratitude for sending the Messiah and her active role in spreading the incredible news to all who were eagerly anticipating their promised Redeemer (Luke 2: 37-39).

And what about those oft-debated Wise Men from the East? Rather than quibbling over their origin, number, or astronomical savvy, we should zero-in on their holy character. Observe the way these men of high degree obediently and carefully followed God’s leading and will as He revealed Himself to them through their familiar language of the stars (Matt. 2:2,9). Upon arrival at the home of the Holy Son of God, these holy men devoutly bowed before Him in reverence and sheer awe (Matt. 2:11).

The story ends on yet another holy note as a holy angel gives an advance directive to Joseph concerning Herod’s plot to destroy Jesus and the necessity of their immediate escape into Egypt under cover of night (Matt. 2:13-15).

From start to finish Christmas is, indeed, wholly holy. It was and still can be , “Oh, Holy Night” as we hear from God’s Word, obey the Spirit’s leadership in our daily lives, and worship the Son Who was born to die so that we could die to ourselves and become reborn.

Are we holy in body and spirit (1 Cor. 7:34b)? Perhaps Christmas is the perfect time for each of us to reassess our personal spiritual status and reconnect with our holy God. A MERRY CHRISTMAS to every one of you, and may this Christmas become for each of you a most “Holy Night!”