There is a home near ours that boasts a spectacular Christmas display in the front yard each year. There is Jesus, of course, in a manger surrounded by Mary, Joseph, shepherds, angels and assorted farm animals. Also present are Santa and Mrs. Claus, the sleigh and reindeer. Frosty the Snowman, the Grinch, the cast of Peanuts, and dozens of other fictional characters complete the display.

The entire scene is blazing with lights, and I'm sure the astronauts can see it from the space station. Cars line the street to drive past, and glimpse the holiday menagerie.

This display gathers the symbols of what has become of the Christmas story in the American imagination. The baby Jesus is not enough. The miracle and mystery of God taking human form doesn't contain enough of the special effects that we now call entertainment. We've created the legend of Santa Claus and an entire civilization at the North Pole. We've added snowmen and Grinches to the story. And, of course, we've added lights --- lots of lights on our homes, in our yards, and on our trees.

Of course, the original Christmas story of the Gospels has none of these elements. If it was up to you or me to script the arrival of God into the world, we would probably have done something a little more dramatic than an empty barn in the middle of nowhere. I mean, we would hire Steven Spielberg and do something breathtaking. Jesus would arrive in a stadium perhaps, with explosions and fireworks, or a ticker tape parade, welcomed and applauded by world leaders.

If you travel to just about any major city in Europe and visit a museum, you will likely see hundreds of paintings depicting the Nativity and other scenes imagined from the New Testament. For centuries this simple story was a source of awe and inspiration for artists, citizens, kings and cardinals. The idea of eternity in the form of a child, homeless and helpless, is mind-bendingly brilliant. No electricity or supporting cast is needed to make so.

God had something else in mind in scripting the arrival of Jesus Christ into the world. God arrived unlike a superhero or rock star. God arrived in the form of the most vulnerable of all humans --- a infant born to a wandering family in a forgotten corner of the world. God becomes human and put the Messiah in human hands, unable to fend for himself. This is the life that has split history in half, and caused to think of the world as before and after his arrival. It begins with little attention or fanfare.

This is what we ultimately celebrate at Christmas --- that in Christ God became human. Not for attention. Not for adulation. Not to compel allegiance. But because of love.

There can be no mistake. God become human out of love for humanity. God's love could not be contained in the heavens. The Christmas story is not here to entertain us but to transform us. The story does not need to be embellished. It needs to be lived, by you and I, from December 26 to December 25 each year.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.