Our culture today is full of laments about the Christmas holiday. Some bemoan the ever earlier advent of the season.
Doesn't it seem that Christmas decorations line the aisles of stores earlier and earlier every year? Doesn't it seem that Christmas songs are piped into elevators earlier and earlier every year? Doesn't it seem as if all the fall holidays are melding into one long anticipation of Christmas? Before long, we might wonder if Labor Day will one day mark the end of summer and the beginning of the holidays. Some of us worry that drawing the advent of the Christmas season earlier and earlier in the calendar is motivated not by a wish to extend the real purposes of this celebration but to draw us to open our wallets more and more, earlier and earlier. If we only look at our local stores, we might be easily convinced that the primary purpose of Christmas is buying stuff.
Others point to a purported "War on Christmas," worrying that the meaning of Christmas is being lost as its cultural prominence is muted by the forces of political correctness. Some lament that cashiers are banned from saying "Merry Christmas." Some lament the substitution of "holiday" where "Christmas" properly belongs. Some lament the removal of religious songs from "holiday" celebrations at public schools. If we only listened to cable news or talk radio, we might be easily convinced that the importance of Christmas is quickly fading in American culture.
However, I don't worry all that much about these supposed threats to Christmas. If there is a war on Christmas, it is not being waged by supporters of political correctness. If there is a war on Christmas, it is not being waged by Walmart and Target. If there is a war on Christmas, I think the assault is both more subtle and more pernicious than these perplexed conspiracy theories. After all, can it be true that the Christmas season is both extending and under threat? Perhaps.
All these instincts are both right and misdirected. There is something amiss about the ways we observe this holiday season. In the middle of the bustle of shopping, the stress of travel, and the anxieties around family reunions, we sense in a deep way that something is awry. When the Christmas season begins with pepper spray and shoving matches on Black Friday, when physical altercations break out over parking spots at the mall, when we obsess about the language of Christmas rather than its meaning, then we have certainly lost our way.
But are the right perpetrators being blamed? As we point the finger of blame outside of ourselves, do we avoid a more difficult truth?
I wonder if we lose our way around Christmas when we forget its origins, especially the stories composed by Matthew and Luke that have shaped our imaginations in both subtle and explicit ways. The Christmas story is both familiar and strange. We know its basic contours and timeline. However, I think many Christians would be surprised at some of the forgotten details that end up on the cutting room floor of a Christmas pageant, those features of the narrative crowded out of a creche full of various animals and wise men.
Jesus Was Born Under The Roman Empire
The specter of Roman power is the first word in Luke's telling of the birth of Jesus. Luke narrates that Emperor Augustus called for a census. In Rome, a census is no mere demographic study but a way to make an accurate count of individuals so that the Empire would be assured that its coffers were full. A census is a crucial step in taxation. In the ancient world, taxes were profoundly oppressive, especially in an economic system brimming with individuals living on the edge of subsistence. In a world full of people living with very little to spare, the insatiable appetites of Roman military might and power cost ordinary people a great deal. The Roman peace came at a high cost.
From his very first days, therefore, Jesus' life is shaped by Rome's power. His very existence is threatened by a distant power. Indeed, this same empire will one day take his life. According to Luke, therefore, Jesus' life is bracketed not by a friendly government concerned with the rights of its citizens but by the willful exertion of Roman might.
Jesus Was Born In A Manger
That Jesus was born in a manger is well-known. Its significance is less known, however. Among biblical scholars, there is some debate about the nature of the scene Luke paints here. What is clearer, however, are the humble conditions that greeted Jesus in his first days. Rather than the regal halls of Augustus, it was a mere manger that received Jesus. In a sense, Jesus was born homeless, a wandering traveller away from his true home.
At the same time, however, he was certainly not bereft of a loving family. Like any infant, Jesus relied entirely on the love and care of Mary and Joseph for every one of his needs. Even the Messiah relied on parental love to soothe his cries in the middle of the night.
From his first days, therefore, Jesus is aligned with those who suffer most but still hope for much better, with those who rely on the kindness of family and strangers alike merely to survive. If Jesus were to be born today, he would likely be found in a tent city rather than the safety of a hospital.
WATCH Tent City
Jesus Was Born And Shepherds Noticed
The shepherds who first hear the good news of the birth of Christ are unlikely recipients of such world-shaking news. Remember that Luke begins by couching the birth of this homeless boy in an unremarkable part of the world within the machinations of one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. The news of Jesus' birth does not ring in the throne room of Caesar or not even the local political powers. His birth is not "breaking news" in prominent places. Instead, shepherds, ordinary though often maligned people are the first to hear the good news. From his first days, therefore, Jesus befriends those at the very margins of our world. The good news is first heard by powerless, anonymous individuals who yearned for true peace. As a recent cartoon noted, the "important people" were not present when Jesus was born.
In each case then, Luke's narrative of Jesus' first days are a stark reminder that this little child's life was always under threat but always received by those we would least expect to be recipients of God's good news.
Is There A "War" On Christmas?
As it is typically defined, there is no "War on Christmas." There is no cabal of conspirators seeking to take this holiday away from Christians. At the same time, something is being lost. But we avoid a hard truth when we look for some faceless external force that might explain all this.
Instead, we ought to look within ourselves.
Recently, Rachel Held Evans dealt with these matters noting, "Don't tell anyone, but sometimes I wonder if the best thing that could happen to this country is for Christ to be taken out of Christmas -- for advent to be made distinct from all the consumerism of the holidays and for the name of Christ to be invoked in the context of shocking of forgiveness, radical hospitality, and logic-defying love. The Incarnation survived the Roman Empire, not because it was common but because it was strange, not because it was forced on people but because it captivated people."
We lose our way around Christmas when we substitute abundance for giving, excess for the sufficiency of faith and family, our perfect plans for the messy and beautiful realities of our lives. We lose sight of the counter-cultural ways that Jesus entered and moved in this world when we demand that the surrounding culture recognize Christmas instead of expecting Christians to live as Jesus did. We fall into the trap of forgetting the significance of Jesus' humble, threatened birth even as we try to defend the most mundane expressions of the holidays.
After all, if we really followed Jesus as he walked on this earth, if we walked alongside the destitute and the homeless, if we were to see God in the broken and the lost, then all the tinsel, all the lights, all the wrapping paper, even the "war" on Christmas itself would suddenly lose their luster in comparison.
Editor's Note: ON Scripture is a series of Christian scripture commentaries produced in collaboration with Odyssey Networks. Each week pastors from around the country will approach the lectionary text of the week through the lens of current events, providing a religious voice that is both pastoral and prophetic.
Follow Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ericbarreto
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That said, there is nothing wrong with having a celebration of Goodwill toward all men....Let's call it a noble cause and event. I certainly understand why that would coincide with the solstice. It has been celebrated for millennia. It doesn't require Christ in it. In fact it is very unlikely that Jesus was born at this time of year. I do however understand the desire of the church to own this celebration for political reasons.
I understand your desire to reject the existence of God. You find similarities in “stories” of Pagan gods. However have you ever stopped to think that those stories might be pale shadows of the truth written on the heart of mankind? That truth being that a Creator made us? If there is a creation then there must be a Creator. It is a truth that one cannot escape.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
The whole point about religion is that it involves the belief in fables, in other word the supernatural.
Oh, I was born and raised a Christian... My parents are evangelical ministers... Never the less the facts remain that Christians invented reasons to celebrate during this season, and adopted and merged as many things as they could into their celebrations, while continuing to wrap them under the cloak of their religious beliefs.
I am not anti-Christmas... Everyone has the right to their own beliefs and traditions... But, we've all seen how overtly commercialized the season has become and how reliant businesses and retailers are on the senseless spending associated with the season. As a result I have become one who looks for the Christmas dial to be turned down.
See the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_of_Quirinius,
Censuses, whether ancient or modern, do not require people to travel to the place where a remote ancestor was supposedly from. There are many historical accounts of Roman censuses, nowhere else is there any sort of suggestion that Joseph would have been required to travel to Bethlehem because he was descended from King David. Censuses take note of where people live, not where their remote ancestors may have been born.
The nativity story of Luke is admitted to be totally unhistorical, ie untrue, even by Christian scholars who have studied history and it is not angelic appearances or miraculous births or such things which show that but the story of the census you refer to.
It would be better for Christians to admit that Luke's nativity story is a charming fable but has not basis in anything that ever actually happened.
There never was a census that required people to travel from their homes to the place where a semi-legendary ancestor some forty generations previously was supposedly from. The story is unhistorical and was invented to try to find a reason why Jesus, who was known to be from Nazareth, was supposedly born in Bethlehem, where some passages of Hebrew scripture were believed to prophesy the Messiah would be born.
the mathew story of the wise men destroys his point about the birth of jesus not being know by those in power.
do you wish to deal with the numerous conflicts between the luke and mathew version of the birth.
keep the x in xmas
The Gospels were written about 60 years after Jesus' death/crucifixion by those who were involved in Christ's ministry. Few people even knew how to write in those times so to have 4 different men write the story of Christ's life/teachings and to have so much in alignment was actually quite amazing. As far as the differences go, here's two things to consider: 1) SInce MOST historical events were passed down by word of mouth, when an event was recorded, it was more likely to have variations 2) as a writer myself, if I were to witness say, a car chase and subsequent accident from one corner of the block, and 3 OTHER people saw the same thing from different ends of the block/street and were asked to write down what they saw, inevitably, you would get variations in all 4 accounts.
Btw, I know that Christ's birth was actually in late March/early April. A number of "Christian holidays/celebrations" were taken from pagan celebrations - yes, it was a way for the church in ancient times to "convert and divert." Christians today had nothing to do with that and I do not care if you celebrate "Xmas" or "Winter Retail Madness" or "Christmas," it's your right to choose - that's what our country was founded on "the freedom to worship/believe as we wish OR not.
At any rate, have a Healthy, Happy New Year!