The Fake & Fraudulent Prophets Around the President
September 4, 2026 |
Daniel Henderson
The original live nativity happened 700 years ago on Christmas Eve. It has nothing to do with the spectacles put on by megachurches and very little to do with the children dressed in robes outside of City Hall.
There were no lasers. There were no drummer boys suspended on cables above the crowd. And there was absolutely no mention of the war on Christmas.
It happened in 1223, outside of a little city named Greccio, about 50 miles from Rome. And it was put on by a guy you may have heard of, called Francis—not the Pope. This was the O.G. Francis, a.k.a. St. Francis.
A man named Celano asked Francis to put this on. He said he wanted to see with his “bodily eyes the Babe born in Bethlehem.” Today, that request seems normal, but this had never been done before.
Francis got with his friend John, and they found a cave on a rock face where they were going to make this happen. The cave was about the size of a bedroom, spilling out onto a flat terrace about 30 feet wide. Behind that flat area was a sheer drop off the cliff.
This was going to be part of a midnight mass on Christmas Eve. It was dark. Francis and John lit the cave and the terrace with torches. When everyone came down to see it, they carried torches too. They packed into this little space, shoulder to shoulder, and the people who were there described it as disturbing—deeply disturbing.
Part of it was the torchlight, the shifting shadows, and the crush of bodies. People came from all over to witness this moment.
What was truly disturbing was how the birth of Jesus was being presented. There were no actors. It was just the ox, the donkey, the hay, and the manger.
Celano said that in this scene, “simplicity was honored, poverty was exalted, and humility was commended.” Another ancient writer said it showed “the Lord of Glory in utter poverty.”
You have to understand: medieval people didn’t romanticize poverty. They lived it.
Real poverty is terrifying.
It’s sickness and hunger and exposure and death. And the fact that Jesus’ poverty wasn’t hidden but highlighted shook people.
Then St. Francis got up and delivered what might be the most unsettling sermon in history.
It wasn’t unsettling because it was hellfire or threatening. It was unsettling because, as one ancient writer said, Francis was “bathed in tears.” Celano said his voice “trembled with emotion and his words caught in his throat.” Another writer said that when he said the word “Bethlehem,” he bleated it like a sheep because he was crying so hard.
St. Francis was ugly crying.
Imagine going to a Christmas Eve service where the pastor has been weeping the whole time, and doesn’t stop the entire sermon. That would be incredibly awkward today.
But in the medieval world, people did not do this—especially not priests, especially not at a high holy mass. These were moments where you said the right words with the right tone. The idea of someone crying openly, unable to compose himself, was profoundly unsettling.
There was no overwhelming display of wealth like you see in megachurches. There was no call to bring God back into politics in the city square. What was being communicated was simple and deeply subversive: Jesus was desperately poor. His family was so poor they couldn’t even find or afford a proper place for him to be born.
And that was the life God chose to live when God came to earth.
This was a massive pushback on the idea that the blessing of God is wealth. It declared that God is so concerned with the poor, with poverty, and with injustice that God chose to come and live in poverty.
It shook people back then. And it should shake us now.
