The sheer strangeness of the Christmas narrative from the Gospel of Luke is easily missed when read with either an over-familiarity or a commercialized sentimentality. But the Lukan account of God’s advent into the world is fairly extraordinary. I am struck by the way Luke juxtaposes the announcement of the King of Israel—”For to you is born this day in the city of David the Savior who is Christ the Lord”—with the sign of his advent; “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:11-12). The God of the universe would be born in a lowly, dirty manger, a feed trough for animals, and clothed in woven, cloth strips.

Luke’s narrative highlights what seem to be the most ordinary and the most mundane details of Jesus’s birth for many modern readers. And yet, these seemingly ordinary details highlight how God’s glory is on full display in the birth of Jesus. The gospel writer’s preoccupation with ordinary details revealed the belief that coming of the Messiah and his kingdom would look very different from the kingdom that was expected.

The Bible indicates a long silence of God speaking directly to the people—a silence of four hundred years. But out of the silence of that quiet night, the angel spoke and announced what the people of Israel had all hoped for: He is here, the gospel proclaims, born in the same city as your great king of old, King David! The people now would look upon the new David, their new deliverer, their Messiah. The prophet Micah announced this special context as well: “As for you, Bethlehem too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His going forth is from long ago, from the days of eternity” (5:2). Out of the silent sky came the news that surpassed all news. The Messiah had come and the world would never be the same again, for a king had been born this day in the city of David—Christ the Lord!

And yet, this king would not be born in an expected palace or even into the household of a priest, like John the Baptist, for example. God had other plans. The glorious place of Israel’s new king would be different than expected: “And this will be a sign for you; you will find a baby wrapped in cloths, and lying in a manger.” Born this day, in the city of David is your Christ, your Messiah. ‘And guess what? You’ll find him in a manger, which is the feeding trough for dirty, smelly, ordinary farm animals. Who would believe this report? How could the Messiah come with such vulnerability and poverty?

But the manger would prove to be a palace, and the first subjects of the kingdom would not be the influential or the powerful, not the righteous or the rulers. In fact, only a few people actually hear the news. After the silence of ages, God does not come with a shout, but like a whisper into the ears of a few select individuals. God comes as a crying baby needing the comfort and succor of human parents.

Mary, the young girl and as yet unmarried would be the first recipient of this good news. She was young and insignificant, and this announcement of an illegitimate and unexplained pregnancy wouldn’t help her place in that society. The announcement also comes to shepherds—the least influential folks in that society—young boys, out in the fields, far from their towns and villages, tending to the sheep. The glory of Israel is revealed to those most would deem inglorious. Israel’s new king is born to a young, unmarried girl, in a town not her home, in a dirty, small manger with animals as the initial witnesses to the birth. The heavenly announcement is made only to a group of poor, unnoticed shepherds.

Unveiling the glory of God through humble means and ordinary details is a point Luke’s gospel highlights in portraying a kingdom of upside down expectations. The Almighty God, who created heaven and earth, who created the shepherds and the animals, Mary and Joseph, was the same God who chose to be glorified in human flesh as the baby Jesus. Humility reveals the glory of God! Humility demonstrates God’s greatness and glory, and humility is one of the hallmarks of Jesus’s Kingdom. Dr. James Denison elaborates: “As a young child, [Jesus] was celebrated by foreign Magi, not of his own people. He spent his public ministry touching lepers, welcoming Gentiles and prostitutes, discipling tax collectors and other despised people, and offering the gospel to all who would receive it. His birth proved the words: ‘God so loved the world that God gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but receive eternal life.’”(1)

In a world that confuses glory with glitter, glamour, power, and prestige, would we see God’s glory in this seemingly inglorious package—cradled in a feed-trough, presented to peasants, announced to shepherds? Luke’s gospel account offers a poignant picture of an unsentimental Christmas story and one that shocks those who have become numbed by familiarity. And for all who would wonder at this kind of birth, this kind of king, and this kind of God, they are welcomed to draw closer to the manger and the stable.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.

(1) James Denison, blog post 2007.

On October 30, 1938 a national radio program playing dance music was interrupted with a special news bulletin. The announcer heralded news of a massive meteor, which had crashed near Princeton, New Jersey. The reporter urged evacuation of the city as he anxiously described the unfolding scene: Strange creatures were emerging from the meteor armed with deadly rays and poisonous gases.

The infamous broadcast, which caused panic throughout the country and mayhem all over New York and New Jersey, was made by Orson Welles, a 23-year old actor giving a dramatic presentation of the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds. His compelling performance created traffic jams and tied up phone lines, interrupted religious services and altered bus routes. Several times in the program a statement was made regarding the broadcast’s fictional nature. Still, many Americans were convinced that Martians had landed. One man insisted he had heard the President Roosevelt’s voice over the radio advising all citizens to leave their cities. Another, on the phone with a patrolman, cried in alarm, “I heard it on the radio. Then I went to the roof and I could see the smoke from the bombs, drifting over toward New York. What shall I do?”(1)

The War of the Worlds broadcast will perhaps forever remain one of the most telling examples of the power of context, and in more ways than one. Whether listeners tuned in after the introduction or happened to miss the declaimers, the convincing portrayal was enough to send waves of fear across the country. In the context of breaking news, fiction appeared alarmingly factual.

But also, I think it is fair to ask whether such a reaction could have even taken place outside of the context in which this “breaking news” was heard. In 1938, the global situation was such that an unfolding crisis, and subsequent radio interruption, was not altogether implausible. Furthermore, radio was at that time the primary source for news and information. Nowadays, if we heard troubling news on the radio, the first thing we would do is check it out further on the Internet or television. We are much too cynical to be taken in by such a tale today.

But herein lies an interesting attitude. When thinking about such an incredible example of hoax and gullibility, I suspect many of us have a similar outlook: We are much less vulnerable to fallacy masquerading itself as truth in today’s day and age. But could this not also be a false and dangerous assumption? The War of the Worlds broadcast might no longer fool us, but are we really so much closer to recognizing fact from fallacy?

Just because we reject stories, suspect history, and are well aware that reality television is not reality hardly means that we are less susceptible to deception. When we live cynically yet choose our beliefs by preference, there is deception in our approach to truth itself, which is just as hazardous as believing in Martians because you heard it over the radio. In the words of the prophet Amos, we have fled from a lion only to meet a bear.

From context to context, the tests of truth do not change and must be employed. For regardless of context, the effects of believing a lie are always injurious to life. As Ravi Zacharias notes, “To be handcuffed by a lie is the worst of all imprisonments.” Whether we are claiming Martians landed in 1938 or making the truth claim that there is no such thing as truth, reason leads us to check the correspondence of a claim with reality, and the coherence of the assertions. Our truth claims must be tested before they are believed—and subsequently, they must be lived out.

Jesus, whom Christians prepare to meet again this Advent as one who came near, made some tremendous claims about himself. The reassuring thing is that he also asked us to test these claims and not simply take his word: “Who do you say that I am?” In claiming an answer, we must not abandon fundamental tests of truth—tests that are inherent in the questions Jesus is asking. In the breaking news of the church this Advent season might we approach the Child willing to respond fairly, knowing there are certain responses that are just not left open to us, and ready to fully live the truth we proclaim.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact,” The New York Times, Oct. 31, 1938.