My sense is that Jesus’ entrance in to the Holy City was probably accomplished unnoticed.

The oldest account in Mark seems to indicate that once he had arrived and taken a look around, he headed back out to the suburbs for a good night’s sleep.

It was only after those momentous events following his death that the writers decided to make sure that we knew that they knew who Jesus was long before anyone else. After all, what would people think if the very first Christians were as dense at discovering Jesus as we are?

They were, of course, and therein lies one of the great truths of the nature of our God.

She is always surprising us.

Think for a moment of the people God employed over the eons to announce the truth.

There was Moses, a murderer with a speech impediment. There was David, a shepherd boy without a chance. There was Amos, a hick from the country. And we mustn’t forget John the Baptist even though most of us would like to.

Still we have the audacity to assume, in countless daily ways, that we know precisely how, when and where God will appear next.

We really are no different than the folk back two thousand years who might have offered a passing glance to the fellow arriving on the donkey and then gone about their business.

The problem with our popular celebration of Christmas is that we think we can pin Jesus down to a plastic manger stuck out in the front yard when, I suspect, that is just about the very last place he is to be found.

Over forty years ago, J.B.Phillips wrote a little book of huge value. It is entitled Your God Is Too Small and it should be required reading for all of us, particularly at this time of year. It is a powerful reminder of the temptation to diminish God into our own neat little categories.

Surely this is what we do at Christmas.

We make God into something that we can hold and cuddle and even control.