Whitebread Jesus

The white, Protestant, mass-affluent Jesus of my youth has some very unrealistic standards for His birthday

Jesus of Suburbia.

When I was a kid, I was taught that Jesus was a blonde from West County.

I mean, I wasn’t specifically taught that. 

I knew that He was Jesus of Nazareth, and that wherever Nazareth was, it wasn’t off of I-64.  I understood that He lived a long time ago.  That He was older than my parents.  Older than the Chesterfield Mall.  

I didn’t know that much about architecture, but I could gather that most of Town and Country had been built post-Jesus. That the 4Runner might have been redesigned once or twice since His birth. That our Lord and Savior might not have specifically lived in Missouri; that He might have lived in Overland Park, or Carmel, or even somewhere exotic like Mountain Brook, or Flower Mound. 

But still.  I knew about Jesus.  And it was obvious that Jesus looked like everybody else I knew.  

There were posters of him everywhere in Sunday School.  

Blonde.  Blue-eyed.  Smiling.  

Nobody ever specifically mentioned the socioeconomics of the whole deal, but I’d learned enough about what was good and bad to put two and two together.  I’d gathered that both trailer parks and 15,000 sq. ft. houses were considered morally suspect; that if Mary and Joseph were good parents, it probably meant they lived in a house kind of like mine.  

Maybe a little nicer.  

But not like, nicer nicer.  

Nothing flashy.  Nothing trying too hard to be understated.  Just a regular nice house.

I always got the impression that when Mary and Joseph got the big news, they went out and prepared in the way that all good families do—that they read consumer reports, traded in the fun, sporty donkey for something with good crash test ratings, and started weighing rather to splurge on parochial school, versus sending Our Lord and Savior to Parkway West.  

I figured they signed Him up for soccer when the time came.  

I figured He took swim lessons every summer, and maybe went to baseball camp at Mizzou once or twice. 

Basically, I assumed all of the normal trappings of a whitebread suburban life.  

…

I go into this bit of history because, this time of year, Whitebread Jesus weighs heavily on me.

I think Whitebread Jesus weighs heavily on a lot of people.

Whitebread Jesus isn’t just the Messiah, He’s also hanging out on Instagram.  

He has a 3,000 sq. ft. house, a great family, and some fantastic birthdays at the Christmas tree farm.  I think He just bought a new Volvo XC90.  His life is pretty idyllic, aside from the whole eventual crucifixion thing.  

This also means that He’s a lot to live up to.  

I mean, regular Jesus is hard enough to live up to, but He’s just busy being the holy son of God.  

He doesn’t have a YETI cooler or anything like that.  He doesn’t have a sweet LAX flow.  

Whitebread Jesus does.   

He never powered through sick days when he shouldn’t have, either.  He didn’t spend His 20’s slaving away in some office tower.  He lives near a Whole Foods.  He always gets plenty of vegetables and protein.  He always gets plenty of rest and fresh air.  He’s not tired and creaky like everybody else.   

He has more energy for fun stuff.  

And because of this, for all of the talk about “Keeping the Christ in Christmas”, nothing about celebrating Whitebread Jesus is cheap or easy. 

Nothing.

The only way to truly honor Whitebread Jesus is with a trip to meet Santa at the country club, followed by Zoo Lights, a ride on The Polar Express, tea with Santa at The Four Seasons, professional family photos, a carriage ride, lights at the Botanical Gardens, nine dozen varieties of Christmas cookies (all baked from scratch), and a minimum of 28 Christmas parties.   

Anything less than that?  

Whitebread Jesus is not impressed.  

…

Whitebread Jesus might not send anybody to hell for forgetting the professional photos and carriage ride, but I feel like this is why Valley Park exists.  

“You tried to honor MY birthday with Little Debbie cakes and a $50 Walmart tree?!?!  You are hereby banished from the promised land!  No more granite and vaulted ceilings for you.  Pack up the Volvo; you’re going to the Middle Class Ghetto with all of the people who wore mismatched pajamas on Christmas last year.”   

The pressure is incredible.  

There’s just no way to fit it all in.  

A person could start working on the holiday spreadsheet in March, but all it takes is losing one night of cookie baking to the sniffles, and boom.  

Whitebread Jesus is going to be disappointed.  

The whole family is getting sent to Valley Park.  Goodbye holiday enchantment, hello Enchanted Parkway.  Where dreams go to die. 

…

I average a meltdown a week every December because of this. 

I think a lot of people do.  It’s just…so much.  And nobody ever talks about the work. 

On social media or in real life,  Thanksgiving through New Years’ becomes an endless stream of happy, well-dressed people doing expensive things that all fall on the same two or three weekends.  And it’s always cloaked in the same language.

“Making precious memories with the family”

“Enjoying the most wonderful time of the year”

“There are some things money can’t buy!” (A caption that, ironically, only appears when the activity in question costs more than the average American’s monthly salary.) 

Come December, other people, apparently, no longer waste resources on such frivolity as sleeping for eight hours a night or buying groceries.  Things like jobs, and doctors’ appointments, and traveling for un-fun things like funerals, or to go visit a sick aunt?  

Those all disappear in December.  

According to social media, I am the only person in the entire world for whom the normal obligations of life don’t vanish the moment that the calendar turns to December 1.  

…

The thing is, Whitebread Jesus isn’t real.

Jesus Jesus is, but Whitebread Jesus isn’t.  

Whitebread Jesus was invented by the same people who brought everyone Elf on a Shelf.  

Whitebread Jesus is a fever dream based on bourgeois insecurity, a Hallmark Movie, and nostalgia.  Whitebread Jesus is here to package 18 years of fuzzy childhood memories into something that’s both beautiful and impossible to live up to—”Oh man, remember Christmases when I was a kid?  We did every single Christmas activity, and it was incredible!”

No, Todd.  You didn’t.  

You played Jingle Bells on a $3 flute recorder for the school Christmas pageant, and the family went out to McDonald’s afterward to celebrate. That was…about it.  Zoo Lights were in ‘92.  Going to see The Nutcracker was in ‘95. 

Actual Jesus?  Actual Mary and Joseph?

That’s where things start getting relatable.

A teen mom making a long journey to have her kid in the equivalent of a foreign parking garage?  

I can feel that.  

I mean, I count myself lucky.  

In my case, the whole abstinence thing played out in the way it usually does, but I can still relate.  

My Decembers almost always feel like an endless cycle of driving to boring places, finding out that the store is out of what I want, learning that I should have purchased tickets for XYZ back in October, realizing that I don’t have nearly the time and money to do the things I want for the people I love, and sobbing alone in parking garages. I’m lucky that I don’t even really have to leave the metro to do this, but still.  West County. Jerusalem.  Same thing.  

 

Mary and Joseph’s journey was also a bit more important—they were giving birth to our Lord and Savior, whereas I’m usually looking for Christmas tree tinsel or trying to pick up a couple of gift cards—but again, the similarities were still there.

Mary and Joseph were not living out the Christmas that Whitebread Jesus enjoys every year.  

They did not pile into a Grand Cherokee to head over to St. Luke’s West; Mary’s birth plan organized in a color-coded binder on the floor board.  

They did not have a four-bedroom house in Des Peres.  They did not have a 12 ft. tree in the foyer, or a Christmas village with a model train.  Baby Jesus did not go to Cookies With Santa at The Waldorf Astoria.

…  

No, they were busy living the other kind of December.  

The kind that’s often stressful and terrifying.  The kind of December that most regular people have had a few of…minus the Immaculate Conception part. 

They were…real.  Real people.  

Real people who were probably absolutely scared out of their minds, since nothing about JV tennis practice or Future Homemakers of America prepares a person for giving birth to the Messiah next to a trash can and a rusted-out Neon. 

They were not ready.  

God did not hook them up with a financial planner who could crunch the numbers and assure them that there would be plenty of money for college.  I’m not sure what Mary’s five year plan looked like before God came to her, but I’m guessing that wasn’t it.  I’m guessing she had the same regular, mundane dreams for her future as everybody else, and that those plans were pretty important to her.  

She might have been dreaming of curing cancer, or she might have been dreaming of Cancun with ten of her best friends, but either way, those dreams were what she was working towards.  Those dreams mattered to her.  And no matter how much joy she felt, those things couldn’t have been far from her mind.  

Joseph, either. 

Again, I don’t know that much about the interiority of his life.  I don’t know if he was planning to start a construction company, or if he was more interested in college football and weekends hanging with his bros. But either way.  Talk about being asked to step up to the plate.  There’s no way that becoming the stepdad to the literal Son of God was anywhere on his to-do list at the beginning of 1 BC. 

And yet, they did it.  They made it through December.  

There were no dreamy family portraits to show for it.  No fun memories of The Polar Express with Baby Jesus.  Just a…really hard and stressful month that probably didn’t get much easier when January rolled around.  

Take out the miracle of Christ, and it was simply a more extreme version of everybody’s holidays.  Tiring.  Stressful.  Lots of complicated emotions.  Lots of problems that will still be there after the twinkle lights come down. 

It was December. And Jesus was both the Son of God and the son of man.  

He wasn’t Whitebread Jesus.  

Mary didn’t have a mommy blog.  The bible makes no mention of Mary’s culinary skills, the family’s home decor, or Jesus finding the keys to a new Tahoe under the Christmas tree when He turned 16.  

No, Actual Jesus probably knows a lot about sold-out tickets and crying in parking garages.  

Because He lived here on earth.  

With actual parents who were just muddling through life the best that they could.  And an actual body that still needs sleep in December.  And actual boring errands to worry about. And all of the trials and tribulations that come with being an actual human being. 

And, as I sit here with my regular life, feeling all of the pressures and balancing all of the obligations that come with being an actual person, this is worth remembering.

…

Whitebread Jesus?  

He doesn’t get it.  

He’s flying out to Vail the day after His birthday.  

It’s no wonder I’m letting Him down; the guy has spent His whole life in a Hallmark movie.

But Mary?  Joseph?  Jesus Jesus. They get it.  

They know the struggle is real.  And they also know that real Christmas miracles are both far more wondrous and far more complicated than any neighborhood tree lighting ceremony.