For each of the 12 days of Christmas, I’ll review and fill out one of the “12 Ways of Christmas” … 

The very nature of the Trinity shows a kind of interior modesty in God. Three Persons are at the same time One God, and it shows: The Father sends the Son to be worshiped; the Son goes to the Cross to glorify the Father. The Spirit drives the Son to his triumph in the desert; the Son sends the Spirit to complete his work.

The same God is at the center of the Christmas story: He draws attention to Mary and Joseph, not himself. He grows up in such a way that he is known as the carpenter’s son. He chooses human Apostles to build his Church for him.

God’s victories are nearly always the modest kind of victories where the real action happens behind the front lines. When God wins, he gives the vanquished all sorts of chances to save face. His wars usually play like John Paul II defeating the communists with Solidarity: A long crescendo before the cymbal clash. His Lepantos are few and far between. That may be why Lord of the Rings appeals to us. Two quiet hobbits stealing up a hill while the bad guy is looking elsewhere: That’s a very godlike way to win.

Thus our “eighth way of Christmas”:

“8. God is modest. We like things loud and bombastic. We like big special effects in movies. We like our heroes to stand tall and tell us the struggle is over, now that they have come. If we wrote the story, Joseph would have denounced and defeated Herod, and Mary would have had the baby in his palace. God isn’t like that. He works through the humble, in quiet ways we hardly notice. For his heroes, just enough — a manger — will do.”

— Tom Hoopes