I heard a business owner at one time speak about the need to remain relevant as an organization. He seemed to indicate that it was a high value in their corporate culture. As I considered this I realized how, in much of my life, there is a deep desire to be considered relevant in the things I do and say. In fact, with greater age, I find myself trying even harder to remain relevant when the strength, beauty and creativity associated with youth are so often prized in this present culture. Yet, to some degree, relevance is also relative. What was relevant ten or twenty years ago may not seem relevant to the conversation today. With the amount of planned obsolescence that comes with technological change, no one would consider applying a twenty-year old owners manual to the repair of a new car, new computer, or any other new piece of equipment. It would just seem irrelevant to the present circumstances. Those things we deem as irrelevant are pushed to the side and are further marginalized as unimportant to our lives. In our preoccupation with the now many of the voices from the past can seem irrelevant. Historians will tell you this is not the best perspective and instead encourage learning from the past to better our future. An appropriate attention to history actually could be a path to greater wisdom. The relevance of history in our daily lives is supported by our desire to “never make the same mistake twice”. We want to learn from our success and learn from our failures. These lessons of history are not irrelevant, but highly relevant to making wise decisions in the present. When we choose to regard history as irrelevant we miss this wealth of wisdom.

The fact is that most of us choose what we deem relevant to our lives. When we hear news about global warming, the effects of high cholesterol, the dangers of driving at excessively high speeds, or other bits and pieces of information we make a choice. We choose whether to consider that bit of information as relevant to our lives. In the realm of spirituality there is so much that is going on out of the main stream of our lives that we can easily dismiss it as irrelevant. In the story of Christmas we are confronted with the fact that the baby Jesus was born in a place that many would have considered irrelevant to the major events of that day. The stable in Bethlehem was about as irrelevant to the times as was the city of Bethlehem. Neither were considered the main thoroughfare of polite or powerful society. The stable and the city were to some degree irrelevant to the larger conversation of Roman occupation, the royal city of Jerusalem or the reign of Herod. Yet it was in this stable that the Messiah was born, among the animals, the straw and the unsanitary. There He was born before an audience of shepherds, donkeys, sheep and oxen. This seems like a highly irrelevant place. Or take, for instance, the wise men from the east following a star to Bethlehem to worship the newborn king. I find that every day the stars in the night sky are shining in my world, in my life, but I don’t necessarily derive a relevant message there. I have dismissed the stars as irrelevant to much of my life. I take the stars for granted. But these wise men, these astronomers, were practiced in the art of attending to the sky. They saw the variance in the constellations and the presence of something out of the ordinary. They were attentive to what many would have considered irrelevant. The stable and the stars remind me that often those things that I consider irrelevant to my life may be of the greatest relevance for my life now and forevermore.

It is Christmas day and there may be the tendency, in the midst of meals with family and friends, the exchanging of gifts, the celebration of a holiday, and all the other aspects of our celebration, to dismiss as irrelevant Jesus, the true king, born in a stable. There in the midst of a night sky full of stars, one star can seem irrelevant to our lives. Yet it is Jesus, the bright morning star that shines with direction and hope in the darkness of this world.

On this Christmas day it is my hope that we will watch for Jesus in all that seems irrelevant in our lives. That we, like the wise men, would practice attending to the things that show up every night in the darkness of the sky without great fanfare, yet may signal a chance to meet the Savior of the world. It’s Christmas day and the One born in an irrelevant stable in a seemingly irrelevant town called Bethlehem has come to speak the truly relevant word we need to hear. On this Christmas day consider for a moment that Jesus would choose to be born in the stable of your heart, as irrelevant as you may feel. On this day may you keep watch for the humble and irrelevant places He may choose to reveal Himself. May this occasion remind you that you are not irrelevant in any way to Jesus, and may you be filled with and share freely this grace and peace with all you encounter.
Here is a song to further your attentiveness to Him as you watch for His grace this day.