For example, would you choose to come to earth in controversy? While today a pregnancy outside of marriage can be controversial, at the time of Jesus it was sacrilege, a great shame worthy of social rejection — yet our God is not afraid of a bit of controversy.

Would you send the very pregnant mother of your Son on a journey on a donkey over 100km to give birth? Would you have Mary and Joseph refused accommodation by their own relatives, a humiliating act in the ancient world where hospitality was so important? God’s way does this sort of thing; struggle and rejection.

Would you appear as a baby or in the sky with impressive power and glory? Our God chose the former; he sent his Son as a zygote, the most inauspicious start! This is more dramatic when we realise how dangerous this was at a time when millions of women and children died in pregnancy. From the beginning God chose the dangerous path.

Would you arrive in the real seats of power like Rome or Jerusalem or an obscure town like Bethlehem? Of course you would choose Rome. Not God, he chose Bethlehem. Of course he had a reason; the Messiah needed to be born in the birth-place of King David. Yet for outside observers this is bizarre. But that is God, he loves to start obscure and then surprise the world.

Would you expect magi, or “wise-guys”, from Israel’s traditional enemy Babylon, to turn up and worship the baby with expensive gifts? Would you expect the “king” of Israel, Herod, to murder all the male babies of the town to get rid of this threat? Herod’s act we now know pointed ahead to Jesus’ ultimate rejection and death. The Magi anticipates the future where Gentiles from all over the world would worship him. That is the way of God — salvation by sacrifice and death and the transformation of the world.

Would you expect angels worshiping in the sky? Actually, you might. This is the sort of impressive display we might see if God popped in. Yet the only people who saw it were a few shepherds. But wait; there is an important point here. This baby would become the ‘Good Shepherd’ who would seek and save the lost sheep of God and send his disciples to do the same around the world — awesome.

The truth is that this crazy Christmas shows the way of God. It is not the path of self-glory and domination, but of humility, obscurity, his gospel starting small and spreading through the world with surprise and love. As we enter the season of Advent, let us continue to live out the pattern of that first Christmas here in New Zealand.

Happy Christmas! Go Deeper!