Christmas is the most important day of the international calendar, both for cultural and economic reasons. In spite of this, the actual meaning of Christmas remains largely hidden.
Occasionally we see posts of, “Put Christ back in Christmas,” but the origins of such crankiness seem more of cultural conservatism than Christianity. In any case, I suspect the demand passes in one ear and out the other of non-Christians. They may not believe in a Christ but they have no intention of missing out on the lights, gifts, and festivities because of some Grinchian technicality. Certainly retail businesses will not turn their backs on Christmas any time soon. The day after Halloween, ornaments and stocking stuffers spill into store aisles while humans, ordinarily fussy about personal space, concede to the bump & bustle of the Christmas Spirit. The mood is reinforced by Alvin and the Chipmunks, squeaking out “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” and other hallowed classics.
Editorials about commercialism are dusted off and distributed every Christmas season—more predictably than the snow. But the ritual complaints are ritually trampled by the dawn attack of Black Friday, the passionate hordes armed to the teeth with Smart Phones and Plastic.
Yes, we all want to bring joy to the people we love, especially when they expect it of us. But there is a difference between being generous with the people we love and being generous with Bank of America. Pressure to buy at Christmastime often results in financial disaster. People don’t need a lot of stuff; most of us have too much of it, and we don’t even know where it all is. One in eleven Americans spends more than $90 per month for self-storage services. This is a red flag. Perhaps we need some resource redirection. Are we missing something of the essence of Christmas? Is there something more to it than frenzied consumption? Perhaps we should turn back to the original Christmas and consider what took place there.
Most people acknowledge Christmas as the celebration of Jesus’ birth, and that gift-giving is a reference to God’s gift of Jesus. But even for those who believe this to be more than a myth, the perspective is only a half-truth. The baby Jesus was not the gift—he was the initiation of the gift. The gift was the man, Jesus. And the gift of Jesus was wrapped in sacrifice.
Jesus’ mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, but her pregnancy would have “proved” she had engaged in sex before her wedding. Joseph knew he was not the father, so, no doubt, the thoughts he had about her when he learned of her pregnancy were not happy thoughts. In Matthew, chapter one, we read, “Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” What was Mary going to say to Joseph, “The Holy Spirit impregnated me. I really, really mean it! If you loved me you would believe me!” Mary’s consent to being impregnated was an act of trust and obedience to God, but it also represented a terrible threat to her earthly status and well-being.
Joseph had his own private interview with an angel. At this interview he was informed that scientific knowledge is an eternity of discovery behind God’s knowledge (or something along those lines). So Joseph took Mary to be his wife. Their assignment of being parents to the God/man-Messiah was a great privilege…and a great deal of trouble.
Not long after Jesus was born, magi came to honor him with gifts. These men meant well but, in their search, they sought help from Herod, king of Judea. Herod was a narcissistic, paranoid despot, which is to say, a cliche’ among earthly rulers. He lied to the magi, saying he would like to join them in worship of the young king they sought. But when the magi later rode quietly out of Bethlehem, avoiding a second encounter with Herod, Herod acted decisively to eliminate the child he saw as a threat. All the boys, two years and younger, in the Bethlehem area were murdered.
The Bible quotes Jeremiah as prophetically speaking for the people of Bethlehem: “A Voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” The boys of Bethlehem were collateral damage, adding early to the sacrifices associated with the Christ.
Mary and Joseph escaped the Bethlehem massacre. Having been warned, they fled to Egypt. Though they were spared the murder of their child, they experienced hardship, isolation, and terror, as refugees on the run from political oppression.
Many years later, the mature Jesus began his ministry. For three years he taught about the Kingdom of God and performed many miracles. His ministry was, itself, a slow exposure of the Christmas Gift. When the wrapping was entirely removed, the Gift was shocking and, initially, unwelcome. The Gift was Jesus sacrificially offering up his own life. It was a costly gift. You could call it the ultimate extravagance.
Crucifixion was intended to demonstrate the helplessness of the individual against the mighty power of the State. Jesus would have been stripped naked, to emphasize his shame. In his weakness he would have had little control over his bodily functions. He would have hung awkwardly on the cross, laboring to avoid suffocation, every effort more feeble than the one before. The word “excruciating” literally means, “out of crucifying.” Little doubt, most who were executed on crosses cursed their cruel judges. Jesus’ unwillingness to curse was a crucial act of grace. If he had cursed, it surely would have been the end of the human race…and much deserved.
Instead of cursing, he blessed. For this is the nature of God.
There are some who scoff and say, “Well, it’s easy enough for God to sacrifice his son! Doesn’t this prove that God is heartless rather than gracious?”
It’s an interesting question, but it fails to account for the Trinitarian nature of God. The Trinity is generally understood as God being of three distinct persons but of one essence. This idea has caused many a headache, since it seems in and of itself illogical. But it is not illogical; it is merely unfamiliar and complex. The apparent lack of logic stems from the insufficiency of human vocabulary. A blind man would have a similar difficulty describing color. Should we be surprised that God’s nature exceeds our experience and language? What kind of god would he be if our words could encompass him?
The point is, while it was clearly the man Jesus who was crucified, it was also God who was crucified. “In him [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” – Colossians 2.9. The Father offered up the Son; the Holy Spirit offered up the Son (notably, Mary became pregnant through the Holy Spirit); the Son offered up himself; God offered up himself.
We celebrate Christmas because of the profound gift given by God to all humanity. “God so loved the world…” goes the famous verse of John 3.16. The “so” could be understood as, “in this manner”, but I think a better rendering is, “so much”. “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son…”
How do we take joy from sacrifice? The crucifixion was a disaster, but God resolved the disaster through the resurrection. Christ conquered death and became its master. Christ’s resurrection became the pathway to resurrection and the promise of resurrection to all who would trust in him as Lord of Life. Christmas, then, becomes a celebration of life. Those who were captive to wickedness and death are set free from both and are set free to relationally healthy life. And it is not like the life we now know, that blossoms and fades, but it is life that is ever young.
So we celebrate with thanksgiving the Creator of the universe, who could have been a super-powered Athenian brat-god; or an impersonal, quasi-conscious Hindu Amalgam; or a dour, brutal Allah; or scientific materialism’s god of the Grand Meaningless Accident, or humanism’s Narcissistic Cacophony. We thank God with tears that he is none of these.
The gift of Jesus makes it clear that the Creator of the universe is a powerful, loving, gracious Father who is with us and is for us. Jesus is called, “Emmanuel”, which means, “God with us”. Paul writes in the book of Romans (8.31): “If God is for us, who can be against us?” All the chaos and terror out there? Like the ocean waves, powerful, relentless, and dangerous, they are permitted as far as the shore.
Those in God’s Kingdom are granted the right to live with a sense of mission patterned after God’s heart. He sacrificed for our sakes because he considered us precious. And if he sees us as precious, we see others as precious, no matter whether they are delightful to behold or hideous.
The celebration of Christmas demands living sacrificially for the sakes of others, and trusting that our sacrifices will not be frustrated or fruitless. Christ did not dance a jig on the road to Golgotha. In the Garden of Gethsemane, shortly before his trial, he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” – Luke 22.42. The passage goes on to note that Jesus was in agony and that sweat fell from him like great drops of blood. The discipline of Jesus was astonishing. He could have called legions of warrior-angels to obliterate his oppressors but he mastered the impulse. In obedience to his Father, he remained passive. The result of Christ’s obedience was his Coronation.
So those who would properly celebrate Christmas do not curse others; they bless them. They do not go onto Facebook and proclaim others idiots for expressing ideas contrary to “the facts”. They do not drive about, pistol-in-pocket, seeking the first person who crosses their rules of decent citizenship. They don’t rake the historical muck of their ideological opponents, seeking means to disgrace them from their positions of power.
They do not treat others as means for their own pleasure. They do not seduce others into doing their will. They do not eliminate the unborn even when they are unready and unable to care for them. They do not abandon their children once they are born; they make the care of their children a life-long priority. They do not abandon their marriages. They do not abuse their spouses, physically or verbally or psychologically. They do not manipulate their spouses. They recognize the critical importance of faithful marriage and that, even when their spouses do not deserve their faithfulness, they remain faithful out of a sense of indebtedness to God.
They give of themselves in their churches and in their communities and in their nations and in their world, in order that the needs of others might be met. They don’t succumb to the “dog-eat-dog” mentality. They are humans who treat other humans with deference and respect. They don’t believe the “ends justify the means”. Rather, they recognize that the means are seeds that produce fruit according to their kind. Where wheat seeds are sown, wheat is harvested; where ragweed is sown, the harvest is ragweed. They know “a sucker is born every minute,” but they don’t embrace that awareness as justification for exploitation. Rather, they see it is their responsibility to protect the weak. They see the primary purpose of government as the protector of the weak. They do not use their powers to exploit others; rather, they act fairly and seek just treatment for all. They are honest in matters large and small, when they stand in the glaring lights and when they are hidden. When they ask the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” they nod their heads and say, “Yes, I am. I am my brother’s keeper.”
When we say, “Merry Christmas,” it means we are full of thanksgiving to the God who loved us when we were indifferent to him. Such pursuing, sacrificial love is the greatest love. The merriment of Christmas finds its source, not in the twinkling lights, not in the colorfully wrapped gifts, not through enthusiastic imbibing, nor even in the fellowship of good friends and family, however appropriate all of these things may be. The merriment of Christmas comes of a hard-fought victory over a foe that needed vanquishing. It is the joy of being loved relentlessly by the Jesus who came as a baby and who reigns as Lord over all creation.
May your every day be filled with the merriment of Christmas!
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