Us Lions

Theologian Fred Craddock writes of the Luke 2 story of Jesus’ birth that “Luke has kept the story clean of any decoration that would remove it from the lowly, the poor and the marginal of the earth.” 

How remarkable. Whether regaling your colleagues with a story about that funny thing that happened in the meeting or complaining about the drama of a seasonal family gathering or even about the size of the fish we caught last summer, we indulge a penchant for  elaboration. We like our embellishments. Why not drop a couple names if you happen to be holding them?

But Luke is ruthless in this regard. Rather than taking an airbrush to the characters in the story, he just lets them show up as they are. First, a faithful and faithless old priest and his wife. Childless together. Then a young girl of no particular lineage, in a town of no particular importance. With child and, as yet, unmarried.

The mention of Caesar Augustus and Quirinius lets all the listeners – ancient and contemporary – know that this story is written on the underside of power, where oppression dictates the lives of ordinary people. Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem even though it is the last days of her pregnancy. There’s no waiver available and no dispensation given. They aren’t important enough for that. A man and woman in desperate need turned away from lodging. One stable away from homelessness.

 A bunch of shepherds on a hillside watching their flocks by night while everyone who matters is supposed to be in the city of their birth for a census. Here they are, sleeping rough and, if no one bothered to count them, they remain undocumented. Their attempt to keep a low profile is exploded by an angel’s announcement – not of palaces and thrones, of gold-plated rattles and cashmere onesies.  But, rather, a celestial celebration for some poor kid “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” 

The sign given, while strange to us, would have sounded to the shepherds like, “Go find a kid who’s an awful lot like one of your own.”  And this ordinary thing is, for them, so extraordinary that they blow their low profile by dancing in the streets, proselytizing: “They spread the word” while they were “praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” 

In due course, the exhausted parents present their child at the Temple where another elderly man and woman are entrusted with the revelation of the Christ-child. Matthew tells us it wasn’t long after that the parents grabbed what they could carry and fled to Egypt. Refugees for the most common reason: the life of a child. 

Some folks like to say, “The ground is level at the foot of the Cross.” Which, I think, means: when it comes to the work of salvation, no one is better off anyone else. No amount of wealth can afford you better seating. No resume of good deeds can earn you early admission. When it comes to our need for salvation, we all show up on equal footing.

It’s not a particularly Christmas-y insight. Except that on this day we celebrate the birth of the one foretold in Isaiah: valleys raised, mountains made low, rough ground made smooth and rugged places become a plain. The ground is level at the foot of the Cross because it was first tamped down, nice and even, by the incarnation. The ground is leveled by a manger and, more importantly, by the child lying inside it.

There is a lesser known scene toward the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in which Aslan releases all the frozen stone statues, breathing on them and bringing each back to life. 

At this point Aslan clapped his paws together and called for silence. ‘Our days work is not yet over. . . and if the Witch is to be finally defeated before bedtime, we must find the battle at once. And now! Those who can’t keep up – that is, children, dwarfs and small animals – must ride on the backs of those who can – that is, lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants and eagles. Those who are good with their noses must come in the front with us lions to smell out where the battle is. Look lively and sort yourselves!

And with a great deal of bustle and cheering they did. The most pleased of the lot was the other lion, who kept running around everywhere pretending to be very busy but really in order to say to everyone he met, ‘Did you hear what he said? Us lions. That means him and me. Us lions. That’s what I like about Aslan. No shade, no stand-offishness. Us lions. That meant him and me’  At least he went on saying this until Aslan loaded him up with three dwarfs, one Dryad, two rabbits and a hedgehog. That steadied him a bit.

In the birth of Jesus Christ, we have the story of the one person in the whole history of the world who could have legitimately drawn a distinction between himself and the rest of the world.  He had every right to point out that he is part of a Trinitarian “us” over and against the whole world full of “them”.  The one person in the whole history of the world who could have spent eternity past and eternity future in a comfortable “us,” looking down from heaven on all of “them.” This One – our GOD – denied the power of distinction, becoming one of us, born in a simple fashion, among the least of the “thems” in order to draw humanity into the Divine “us.” 

I hear “Us lions!” as a celebration of the incarnation, perfectly in keeping with the nature of Luke’s storytelling. All of us can be found in the story of a babe born in a  manger. All and every kind of “us”es.

Us, the homeless.
Us, the migrant worker.
Us, the undocumented.
Us, the ordinary.
Us, the elderly and infant.
Us, the foreigners.
Us, the refugees.
Us, the faithful and the doubters (sometimes one and the same)
Us, the devout and the we-don’t-really-know.

That’s what I like about Jesus. No shade or stand-offishness. Ground tamped down around a manger creche. We’re all on level footing this Christmas morning. Valleys raised. Mountains brought low, rough ground smoothed out and rugged places a plain. Thanks be to God.