Dave Brisbin 12.14.25
Christmas is our biggest cultural holiday, but even among those still celebrating Jesus’ birth, what do we really know about it? Only Matthew and Luke relate any birth narratives, but Matthew tells only of the visit of the Magi, leaving Luke to give all the birth details we have. And there aren’t many.
Luke tells us Jesus was wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. That’s it. In any good story, details are critical, never random, always set with purpose. So what do these details tell us? That Jesus’ birth followed ordinary Hebrew practice—so unremarkable that those in the house where Joseph and Mary were staying, most likely relatives or friends, didn’t even make room for them in their living space. That’s what the word mistranslated as “inn” means. Not a hotel, but the interior living space of every Hebrew home that was separate from the cooking space and that reserved for animals. Luke goes on to say that local shepherds are caught up in spectacular sights, and Matthew tells of astronomer-priests who travel a thousand miles to worship at the feet of a poor child they believe is king.
How did those right in the house with the holy family miss all this?
Truth is, every one of us can only see what we’re prepared to see. Confirmation bias eats up the rest. The point these few birth details make is that our God is an unassuming God, a humble, vulnerable God who must be believed to be seen. To see significance under an unremarkable exterior is the preparation, the goal of spiritual formation. If you’re already poor and marginalized, it’s easier to disregard facades, but no guarantee. The genius of the Magi is that they were wealthy, powerful, educated, and yet still humble, vulnerable, willing to make fools of themselves on a long, risky journey with no guaranteed outcome.
If we’re to understand Christmas, it will be through the Magi’s eyes, because we are wealthy and educated too. To let that go, sell all we have is the only way to see the promise of our star in an unformed child.
We will always find our God as a child. Unformed and forming. Are we prepared to see?
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Dave Brisbin 12.14.25
Christmas is our biggest cultural holiday, but even among those still celebrating Jesus’ birth, what do we really know about it? Only Matthew and Luke relate any birth narratives, but Matthew tells only of the visit of the Magi, leaving Luke to give all the birth details we have. And there aren’t many.
Luke tells us Jesus was wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. That’s it. In any good story, details are critical, never random, always set with purpose. So what do these details tell us? That Jesus’ birth followed ordinary Hebrew practice—so unremarkable that those in the house where Joseph and Mary were staying, most likely relatives or friends, didn’t even make room for them in their living space. That’s what the word mistranslated as “inn” means. Not a hotel, but the interior living space of every Hebrew home that was separate from the cooking space and that reserved for animals. Luke goes on to say that local shepherds are caught up in spectacular sights, and Matthew tells of astronomer-priests who travel a thousand miles to worship at the feet of a poor child they believe is king.
How did those right in the house with the holy family miss all this?
Truth is, every one of us can only see what we’re prepared to see. Confirmation bias eats up the rest. The point these few birth details make is that our God is an unassuming God, a humble, vulnerable God who must be believed to be seen. To see significance under an unremarkable exterior is the preparation, the goal of spiritual formation. If you’re already poor and marginalized, it’s easier to disregard facades, but no guarantee. The genius of the Magi is that they were wealthy, powerful, educated, and yet still humble, vulnerable, willing to make fools of themselves on a long, risky journey with no guaranteed outcome.
If we’re to understand Christmas, it will be through the Magi’s eyes, because we are wealthy and educated too. To let that go, sell all we have is the only way to see the promise of our star in an unformed child.
We will always find our God as a child. Unformed and forming. Are we prepared to see?
Dave Brisbin 7.20.25
We’ve painfully learned that when something seems too good to be true…be very careful or run.
Grace falls into this category. What’s too good to be true more than unmerited favor, unconditional acceptance? Not only too good, but not even fair or ethical. Our theology speaks of grace, but denies it in practice, lost in the glare of reward and punishment. That paradigm, created for us and reinforced by us, is like a box for our minds, describing life and our role so rigidly that even if we do somehow get a glimpse of graceful love, we still can’t believe it really extends to us, unworthy as we are.
Unworthy people can’t imagine they qualify for grace. Shame blinds them. Perfect people can’t imagine they need grace. Entitlement blinds them. So hard to fall in between. The only way to experience the first possibility of grace is to fully admit and embrace our imperfections and failings and yet keep showing up to the possibility of relationship—just as we are, with no pretense or expectation—to graduate from shame or entitlement to gratitude. Gratitude is telling. We’re only grateful for gifts we could never give ourselves…best definition of grace.
This is Jesus’ whole job: graduating us to the gratitude of grace. He knows he’s got to shock our minds out of the box that defines our lives and denies the existence of grace, and it’s got to be a violent shock, a loss of comforting but limiting beliefs as painful as his own was in the wilderness experience that brought him right to the edge. He knows how we think, that we’re always thinking, and that if we’re thinking it, naming it, trying to control it, we’re missing it.
How do you know when you’re in love? Can you explain it? Define it? Control it? Only way to fall in love, experience grace, is to stop thinking, fall out of control. Admit you were never in control and that you don’t exist independently. Isn’t that how it feels? That each breath is not your own, but your beloved’s. Your life only has meaning in theirs? That’s grace, and to move so completely into connection with another is to shock our minds out of the box and graduate to gratitude.
theeffect Podcasts
Dave Brisbin 12.14.25
Christmas is our biggest cultural holiday, but even among those still celebrating Jesus’ birth, what do we really know about it? Only Matthew and Luke relate any birth narratives, but Matthew tells only of the visit of the Magi, leaving Luke to give all the birth details we have. And there aren’t many.
Luke tells us Jesus was wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. That’s it. In any good story, details are critical, never random, always set with purpose. So what do these details tell us? That Jesus’ birth followed ordinary Hebrew practice—so unremarkable that those in the house where Joseph and Mary were staying, most likely relatives or friends, didn’t even make room for them in their living space. That’s what the word mistranslated as “inn” means. Not a hotel, but the interior living space of every Hebrew home that was separate from the cooking space and that reserved for animals. Luke goes on to say that local shepherds are caught up in spectacular sights, and Matthew tells of astronomer-priests who travel a thousand miles to worship at the feet of a poor child they believe is king.
How did those right in the house with the holy family miss all this?
Truth is, every one of us can only see what we’re prepared to see. Confirmation bias eats up the rest. The point these few birth details make is that our God is an unassuming God, a humble, vulnerable God who must be believed to be seen. To see significance under an unremarkable exterior is the preparation, the goal of spiritual formation. If you’re already poor and marginalized, it’s easier to disregard facades, but no guarantee. The genius of the Magi is that they were wealthy, powerful, educated, and yet still humble, vulnerable, willing to make fools of themselves on a long, risky journey with no guaranteed outcome.
If we’re to understand Christmas, it will be through the Magi’s eyes, because we are wealthy and educated too. To let that go, sell all we have is the only way to see the promise of our star in an unformed child.
We will always find our God as a child. Unformed and forming. Are we prepared to see?
