Christian Pathway

God cannot make mistakes, therefore everything that Jesus does in the bible is deliberate. Which is why knowing the back story to so much of the bible is essential to understanding the point  God is making.  The proper depth of the story comes from the context of it.

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These stories have become so familiar to us we sort of soften them as we are taught them as children by parents who want a nice comfy story for children

We are so familiar with our nativity story it all happens in an hour of a school nativity play,

Joseph has his mums tea towel on his head, Mary age about 6 sits on a borrowed donkey or one made in art class. This really minimises the effort and the danger involved. It really sanitises the story for kids. For instance, we sort of say oh he went from Bethlehem to Egypt like it was a trip to lakeside.  

The trip, it took 7-10 days with least amount of food they would have to carry  and as much water as they could , in scorching heat during the day and freezing cold at night. This would have been with little rest , with numerous bandits and wild animals. Like lions, leopards and hyenas’ snakes, and scorpions. The climate was back then much more like the African bush than desert think like the African savannah and you have it. Not in jeeps or fast cars with rifles as you would today, but with a child, a , sword , a club or walking staff to fend off animals maybe, with a  woman  and a baby, who would be a tasty snack for most of the wildlife , the humans that inhabited the regions would not be any friendlier.  Some would be in the pay of Herod who was looking for any child of Jesus age.  Then theres the heat and the cold either one severe enough to kill a small child



You must ask yourself how you fancy 10 days on a donkey in the desert, with a despot looking for your child and the wildlife looking for supper, , This is properly vulnerable,  to hunger, thirst, heat stroke, the dangers include the nighttime cold getting to your baby to disease, to capture, to wounding, death. Everything in this environment means you and your baby harm. You’re a baby, and so totally reliant on your parents’ abilities to navigate all this for your survival. Tourist hotels in the bush today in Africa have tunnels between the different parts of the hotel at night. These three slept on the ground , maybe attached themselves to a caravan and hoped nothing bit or ate them.
Herod dies when Jesus was 4  with, and then the trip to Nazareth about 400 miles of the same.   That’s about 30-40  days.
God CHOSE this entrance for his son? By sanitising it we sort of lose some of the affect of it, we negate what he was trying to say?

 I wanted to paint this picture to sort of remind ourselves HOW vulnerable Jesus has made himself?  The twee pictures on our Christmas cards have no relation to the basic, bestial, brutality of this journey.

We in our western society have reduced the risk through our lovely Christmas card pics, but it was horrible for all concerned, we have turned it into a sweet story but its more like adventure and danger and proper risk.

You have to wonder why?  Why did god choose this


God knew this story would reverberate through time, and people would tell it again and again use this entrance as a way to know something about this God. I mean imagine if he had come bragging while being carried by slaves, or ostentatiously at the head of an army?  Don’t scoff these are the things the enemy offered him in his temptations.  He refused them because he knew that would kill the story straight off?

The  power in the Christmas story and Jesus story is Jesus little families vulnerability. A God that could have come at the head of an army, behaving  like this? The whole story of Christmas is about a God that chooses to come as a vulnerable baby,  and go on perilous trips not a victorious conqueror.

so if we accept that Jesus taught by example, what do we make of that as an example to follow?

It’s a guide as to where true power lies, and the sort of power we should imitate?

As with everything about Jesus, he simply shows you who he is and leaves it to you whether you follow his example or not.  But you can’t not know it afterwards. Which is longer lasting than a command, and more troubling to people who have other ideas.

This little family is properly brave and properly convinced the story they are living is God’s story.  This meek and mild family that we see on our Christmas cards are quietly strong and devoted to God  enough to do this and this child? 

This shows us what bravery is something done in cold blood with s quiet determination to do what’s right.


When you know that, you can ask yourself  how much would you do for God?

The other thing about Jesus stories is you can find all the characters in them alive and well today? The way to be and the  way not to be. Which is why Christianity is either distorted or rejected or banned by the leaders that find themselves in the bad part of this story.  The leader in this story is so worried about his position that he kills every baby he can find, the despot willing to kill 100’s to stay in power.  These are around today, The only thing they care about is themselves.

I am avoiding drawing obvious modern-day parallels, but I do think that Jesus came this way precisely so that we would draw these parallels.
our Hebrews reading today sort of asks us too when it says

Hebrews 2: 10-end

 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

Here’s another thing, Jesus rules by grace by us being forgiven.  This fact makes it even harder for the despot and the angry leaders,  because if we cottoned on to how  Jesus leads by an example he hope we follow.  If this is the case then you have to ask yourself how does a God that came this way, that rules by love and grace want us to behave?

That’s the ultimate goal of the bible for us to  learn from, he doesn’t teach us by raw power he teaches us through being vulnerable, by being an example to follow

Jesus was and is vulnerable through this whole story.  The alpha male is Herod who killed all the children to save his position through a misreading of scripture.

Throughout this story vulnerability to the other is Jesus super power, and this idea gets rediscovered every now and then , Brenne brown a famous contemporary counsellor says  Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.” And “Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable.

So ill ask you, for you to work out the example here, did this God come in a way that protected what he had, or was he by our measure exposing himself to lunatic levels of danger.  Just so that we could learn how he wants us to behave and to care for and love each other.

This is where it becomes impossible to separate our lives and Jesus. Christianity is on many levels a series of ethical decisions.

Jesus guide you how we should behave in this situation or that use case?  Ethics in the dictionary are defined  as “moral principles that control or influence a person’s behaviour.”

Ethics are the principles and philosophy of what is right and wrong, guiding human behaviour and moral decision-making. They explore questions of duty, virtue, justice, and the good life, and are applied in personal, social, and professional contexts.

for us as Christians Our ethics as Christians are shown to us by the example of Jesus.  We should understand the ethics given to us by Jesus as the lens  Christians  should use to look at the world.

Using that lens on this story mean our ideas of right and wrong should not be  built by fear or anger  or power or greed or country or self-interest, because our lord chose to do something fearful, without power, not in his own best interest etc. Because he leads by example

for each story We have to ask ourselves what does that say to us about how we should behave, and if this story doesn’t resonate, look at all the other things Jesus does because he repeats his ideas a lot?

When we become Christians we are shown a new way of being, we worship  a god of paradoxes, a king that comes on a donkey, a lord that rules by dying, exalted by humility,  that wielded power through his vulnerability, that went to where the sinners were and died to save them. That gave himself to the point of death for you and all the other sacramental carriers of Christ made in his image, that’s me and you? Our Christian ethics should be moulded by these things?

These are the principles that we should extol and promote and be as best we can. 

Because our ethics our  morality—what people ought to do, what is considered good or bad, and how to live well is given to us? By his example?  One of the defining truths of Christianity is this isn’t a book of truths written by a wise man, this is an example and a set of ethics set by a person who lived it and by doing so invited us to follow.

So we have to think what does Jesus coming this way say to that?

is life about power or protecting what we have? Or is it better to be vulnerable and set an example that allows other to
know your love, and how much you mean to them?
But hear the challenge today, from his very first being with us , Jesus showed us how to behave, how to be in this world, an tipped ideas of power on their head. The thing to remember is every time Jesus tells a parable, or does a thing, what he is doing is setting  the template for  how we should behave.

That is how he taught us through the ages and despite the changes in the world, because the heroes and the villains in this s story are still about, we see them on the news every day.  Who we see as heroes and the villains, and who is who should be set by Jesus lens


What’s rarer are the Jesus people in this story.  The ones who do the incredibly rare  and properly brave thing of just giving and loving, sacrificing comfort and safety, and ideas of power to do the will of god, as described and shown by jesus example.

The bingo moment for all of us, comes when you realise?

That’s supposed to be me and you.