c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) A friend sent me a clever electronic Christmas card.

I clicked on a Web link and saw a drawing: a pleasing bungalow nestled in a quiet nighttime yard.

By clicking on elements of the drawing, I could add fire through the window, a tree covered with twinkling candles, dog and cat, star and snowfall.

Soon, the sleeping bungalow awoke and became an expression of safety and family. I could picture childhood Christmases when I awakened to magic in such a house.

In this drawing, good became better, pleasing became more pleasing, and settled became homelike. I thought fondly of the sender and how much I value our friendship.

Then I allowed her gift to touch more deeply. If the transformation had been more radical _ ugly to beautiful, leprous to clean, gang-infested to loving community, oppressed to free, homeless to well-housed, starving to nourished, bloody battlefield to peace on earth _ would I have allowed the card to remain on my computer screen?

It can be difficult to see our Christmas starting-place as God sees it. We want our children to have a little more, our families to be a little happier. We don’t as readily draw a contrast between despair and joy, between bondage and liberation, or between hatred and love, because we can’t bear to see despair, bondage or hatred.

We make do with incremental blessings _ the good getting a little better _ and miss the radical, breathtaking thing that God is doing.

The “shepherds” of our mental pageants are contented souls sitting on a hillside, not despised outcasts forced to endure cold and danger to guard someone else’s sheep.

The occupants of our mental “inn” are convivial folks enjoying a fire and quaff, not oppressed Jews forced away from their homes by Caesar.

The “angels” serenade a quiet sky, not a cacophony of parents shrieking at children, women hiding from their men, the unmistakable purr of privilege, the noise of poverty.

The “wise men” are smart guys getting a little smarter, not spiritually starved pilgrims leaving empty religiosity to seek God’s real thing.

The “rulers” of this mental scene are uninformed neighbors who will mend their ways at the sound of Messiah’s coming, not cruel oppressors who will pervert whatever can be perverted, grasp whatever can be grasped, and fight without mercy to keep Messiah’s arrival from taking hold.

So it is that the Christ child becomes a sweet baby, not God’s cry of hope in the darkness of despair. The birth scene becomes a peaceful tableau, not a brave young couple daring to obey God in a world resigned to obeying Caesar. The stable becomes an ironic antecedent to a glorious throne of victory, not a place of emptiness for God to fill, a place of lonely squalor for God to set a table.

These stark contrasts are difficult to see. Quite understandably, we want our lives to be almost picture perfect, just needing a few more items to make us truly happy.

But then, almost against our will, we see what God sees. We see the emptiness that only God can fill. We hear the noise, taste the salt, sit in doubt. For this instant, we aren’t tweaking the almost-perfect. We are on our knees, singing “Silent Night,” discreetly weeping at the astonishing news that God hasn’t been fooled by our pageants, but has come to us as only God can come.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

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DSB/LF END EHRICH