Thoughts I had while watching “The Miracle of Christmas” at the Sight and Sound Theater last week…
…Do you think angels need their wings to fly or are they just ornamental? I’ve always thought they were just ornamental. In fact, I don’t even picture them moving when they fly. They just kind of sit there, not doing anything except ruining the aerodynamics of the sleek angel’s bodies. I think wings are like the angelic version of the appendix, only they don’t kill you if they rupture.
…How far is it from Bethlehem to Nazareth? Would it be wrong of me to pull out my iPhone and Google that right now? I don’t think so…I’d be enlightening myself, and wisdom is Godly…Hm, 80 miles, that’s a long walk…Do you think God picked that moment in history to send Jesus into the world because cars weren’t invented yet? Otherwise the 80-mile trek wouldn’t have been so impressive. Joseph and Mary could have done that in about an hour in a Honda Pilot if the traffic wasn’t too bad.
…then again, maybe the incarnation had to happen when it did, because the internet hadn’t been invented yet. If it had been, they wouldn’t have needed to travel to their home town to get the census done. Herod could have checked out the demographics of his country on Wikipedia between Google searches for “how to wipe out all the young males in your country” and “hot concubines”. I’m glad God thought of all that before deciding when to interrupt history with the virgin birth.
…Are frankincense and myrrh just spices? Do they even smell good? What if the combination of the two smells was awful, like combining the wonderful smell of cinnamon with the pleasant smell of honeydew melon. Great fragrances on their own, but together they smell like sadness. What if Mary and Joseph really liked the one smell and not the other, do you think they carried the frankincense home with them but re-gifted the myrrh to the innkeeper?
…And what did Mary and Joseph do with all that gold? Since the gifts were for Jesus, did they put it away for him when he turned 18 or did they spend it all on themselves? And if they did spend it all on themselves, did they do it with one big ticket item like a new carpenter’s shop or a couple cattle? Or did they just take out a few gold pieces here and there thinking they’d pay it all back at some point like Harry and Lloyd with their suitcase full of I.O.U.s in Dumb and Dumber?
…And if they did spend all of the gold, did they feel bad about it? Did they ask for forgiveness once he starting doing miracles? I’m thinking at one point if Joseph said to a 12-year old Jesus, “will you please pick up your room?”, Jesus might have said back, “How about I do it when you pay back the 500 pieces of gold the wise man brought me when i was born?” Then there would have been a long silence, and then Jesus would have said, I’m just kidding dad! I love you!” (you see kids, you CAN talk back to your parents without it being a sin! Bryan said so…)
…How about the star that the Shepherds saw in the East? Was that a real star that God turned up the volume on so it would burn brighter just so they would notice it? Or was it actually a holographic image of a star, and not an actual star? (I know holograms hadn’t been invented yet, but God could have traveled in time and grabbed the technology and brought it back with him for this one time). I mean, God could have done anything he wanted right? Maybe just for fun he created a giant light-bright peg and stuck it in the sky and made it glow like a huge star. Who didn’t love Light-Bright?
…I wonder how many other people saw the star (aka, Giant Light Bright Peg) and had no idea what it was. I bet there was a bunch of people who saw it and thought it was aliens from outer space. You’ve gotta think that even back then there were a few wackos who believed there was life on other planets. Nazareth was probably their version of Area 51. Remember that quote from the Bible about “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” I’m guessing that was a reference to aliens. You see, you’re not going to get that kind of biblical insight out a Matthew Henry Commentary, I’ll tell you that right now.
…What do you think would have happened if Joseph, between gags from the smell of the cow crap, had said to Mary while she was pushing baby Jesus out, “Isn’t this so cool, honey! I bet some day people all over the world put out little statues of us and the animals with fake straw to celebrate this fantastic moment! The only way this event could be better is if you weren’t feeling any pain, but that possibility won’t exist until epidurals are invented in about nineteen hundred and forty-two years!” She probably would have ripped his arm off and sunk her teeth into it to deal with the pain like they used to do with pieces of wood during civil war amputations. Mary was fierce like that.
What about you..do Christmas plays hold your attention or do they make you wish you had an iPhone to play with?