It's no surprise to any of us that Christmas has become commercialized and trivialized. Even the stories — whether our favorite holiday fiction or our most precious spiritual reflections of Christmas — tend to become sweet, sentimental, nostalgic - good warm feelings of love and joy. As I read and reread the Scriptures about the first Christmas, I was struck by the raw reality of the times and the setting. It didn't start out like we want it to feel today. It was raw. It was rough. It was full of struggle. It could have been lifted from the front pages of our newspapers and the evening news.

God didn’t make a big announcement to the media, the powerful, or the wealthy, but to humble shepherds out on the night shift.

Think about it with me. Here are two teenagers of blue collar families, engaged and expecting a child. How could Mary explain this unexpected pregnancy? Who in her family or neighborhood would believe her as she tried to tell them about her encounter with the angel? With so much disgrace and disgust aimed at her for this pregnancy she leaves in haste and ends up at her cousin Elizabeth's home. Elizabeth believes her and takes her in, getting her through the first tough trimester of pregnancy.

Six months later Joseph and Mary travelled by themselves to register for a legally mandated census in Bethlehem. The hotels were full, at least the rooms they could afford, so they spent the evening in a stable (First century garage? Talk about a startup!) When the baby was born, God didn’t make a big announcement to the media, the powerful, or the wealthy, but to humble shepherds out on the night shift. Who would they be today — retail clerks, waitresses, construction workers, security guards?

Within the next days, weeks, or months this little family managed to find a house in Bethlehem. Meanwhile, a caste of wise men from the east set out on a search for this baby. The men don’t show up at the house to deliver their fabled gifts the night of the birth as is commonly supposed, but up to two years after the birth. We don’t know exactly where the “east” is precisely. It could be the regions of modern day Iraq, or perhaps further east — if they had been traveling for two years, they could have come from India or China! (The original language says they came from “the rising sun”…Japan?) It isn’t just today that a local event can have a global impact — this humble local event caught the attention of the world.

Herod, in his anger, ordered the slaughter of all the boys younger than 2 years in Bethlehem. This is a level of violence beyond school and church shootings. And he suffered no repercussions. Such horrific violence still exists in our world.

So the little family, warned by an angel, fled to Egypt for the next few years. We don’t know precisely, but they may have slipped into Alexandria, the second largest city in the Roman empire. Where better for some fugitives to hide? Egypt was more loosely governed by Rome, and under the direct governance of Caesar rather than a regional king like Herod. Why? Egypt supplied most of the grain to the empire and so Caesar personally needed to manage the delicate relationship with this chief supplier. (Does this sound like the relationships between modern nations and the OPEC countries?)

Out of this raw struggle, hope was given to mankind. True hope needs this kind of setting to be appreciated.

Alexandria was a very cosmopolitan city, with an undoubtedly large Jewish population there doing business. Joseph and Mary could have found some friends and work within this community, or they may have just melted into the large population. If Joseph had a tough time finding work, he at least had the gold, frankincense, and myrrh to spend, sell or trade. As a young family starting life in another country and culture, they were a prime example of a 1st-century global worker.

And so goes the story. The first Christmas didn’t take place in a Hollywood movie set, a retail store display, or a hymn-singing church. It was in the rough-and-tumble of two teenagers with little family support, living among strangers, struggling to make a living, fleeing to another country from unrighteous, powerful people. They struggled to survive, but I think that’s why I feel more overwhelmed this year by the Christmas message. Out of this raw struggle, hope was given to mankind. True hope needs this kind of setting to be appreciated. Today’s commercial messages, the trivial debates about what kinds of greetings are politically correct, the soft-hued and melodic religious services all seem to obscure the message of hope that can only be appreciated when it is set into the rough setting of that first Christmas.

And this message of hope was globalized when people from the east and west came into contact with a child who would be their king.

If life seems rough and raw to you this Christmas, know that there is a Hope that survived all the attempts of this world to disgrace it and kill it. And this Hope, this babe, is now your Savior. He is with you.

Merry Christmas.