[A Christmas Card Talk]

This is a Creed Card from our Red Letter Deck: The Words and Actions of Jesus the Christ, and if you know how our game works, you know the possibilities of how this sentence could be completed:

Although Surprising to Most, the Kingdom of Heaven is really like___________

“A naked boy running through Gethsemane” (Mark 14:51-52)

“Being long dead before the lord answers your prayer” (Jeremiah 29:10-11)

“Throwing your son's freshly circumcised foreskin at your husband's penis to win an argument with God” (Exodus 4:24-26).

Of course you may find yourself reading something a little more profound and spiritual:

Although Surprising to Most, the Kingdom of Heaven is really like___________

“The righteous remaining sane through committed acts of faithful living in the face of unrelenting bullshit” (Habakkuk 2:4)

“The curtain in the temple torn in two from top to bottom, the earth shaking, the rocks splitting, the tombs breaking open, the bodies of many holy people who had died raised to life.” (Matthew 27:51-52)

“Loving God while not being a dick to everyone else” (The whole sum of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel)

But this is the Christmas season.

We will avoid the debate of whether Mary was pregnant when she met with Elizabeth.

Others can explain that the young couple was not turned away from an “inn” (it was a guest room in a relative’s house), that there was no stable, and the manger was indoors.

One year we’ll defend our belief in an incarnation timed for Sukkoth as there is no way Jesus was born in December, and we’ll write the Card Talk about how the wise men did not show up until He was three years old.

Eventually we’ll even address the fact that the little drummer boy was actually a drunk Roman solider looking for his estranged wife (okay, we just made that last one up).

And while this is a perfect time to question the efficacy of talking about Christmas without the cross, to ask how some ignore the way the Exodus narrative is woven throughout the Nativity narrative, to ponder that the God-Man shat His swaddling clothes, we will complete this Creed Card differently.