Maybe you’ve played an angel or a shepherd, or, if you were one of the “chosen few,” you’ve pulled off a smiling Mary holding a swaddled doll. The Sunday School re-enactment of the Nativity is a part of every Christian kid’s growing rites.

Over the years, we’ve read – and re-read – the passages from the gospels about the angels and the shepherds and the wise men. We’ve heard it expounded from pulpits.  We’ve expertly arranged little porcelain figurines in a wooden manger on our living room shelf. We know the plot and the characters all too well.

As another Christmas awaits us, I wonder if we hear the story like it’s a feel-good fairy tale? If we’ve allowed the familiarity of the Nativity to numb us? If we approach the mystery of the manger with a casualness that leaves us unchallenged?

Perhaps, this Christmas, it’s time to revisit the familiar, and allow God to startle us with the wonder of that Holy Night.

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