By The Rev. Dr. John Hatcher
Religion Columnist

Several years ago as I served in south Florida, our church adopted The Living Christmas Tree as an outreach strategy. We consulted an architect about the massive structure that would hold more than 100 choir members. Would it be a wood or steel substructure? The architect knocked us on a pew when he asked, “Have you ever considered polyurethane?”

Long story short. We built a beautiful Living Christmas Tree with a substructure made of polyurethane. Stronger than wood or steel and no chance of collapsing. The architect warned us, however, it could melt. Much easier to handle and it cost a whole lot less.

Great idea. I don't know who said it originally, but Ted Kennedy gave his brother, Robert, credit for saying, “Some people see things as they are and ask `Why;' I dream of things that never were and ask, `Why not?' ”

Christmas was God's great, unique idea. To think: God showing up as a baby. What kind of God would have that kind of idea? And as we seek to fathom the deeps of Christmas, maybe it has something to do with doing things that we've never done before and having ideas that we never thought before. God sleeping in a feeding trough!

Sin has made the world a dull, dreary place. The only way we know how to liven things up is more sin. Christmas is about brightening the cold, dark world with one more mouth to feed. Only thing, this mouth was the bread and he could bake bread for a not so small crowd without a single microwave. Just think of it: bread making bread. Have you ever known a pizza to make a pizza?

The world needed somebody to slap us in our place. A swordless infant arrives. How and why? His number one goal those first few days in Bethlehem was to suck his mama's breast. And this is the one to stand up against the devil? This is the one who will hang out on a cross for all of us who hang in sin? Strange God!

You have to admit that God's incarnational production was unlike anything we would imagine. Ours probably would have been trite, expected, and dumb. But this God who showed up in Bethlehem is really cool! He's really neat! He's really awesome! He's really “whatever” the new word among middle schoolers for what breaks the boredom and monopoly of monotony of our days.

To get into the Christmas spirit maybe is not about putting up a tree or buying the world's most recent, boring fads. Maybe the Christmas spirit is about coming up with something new, untried, something really needed. Just like God.

The Rev. Dr. John Hatcher is pastor of River's Edge Community Church in Fayetteville.

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