On Christmas
December 26, 2021
Something about Christmas causes it to have an outsized influence on Western society. Theologically, Easter is the big holiday, but it comes and goes with little fanfare. Christmas, however, gets an entire aesthetic—its own music, movies, food. We spend at least 1/12th of the year preparing for Christmas, and often more than that. Christmas is a cultural juggernaut.
But as much as we bemoan the consumerization and commodification of the holiday, as much as we plead with people to “remember the reason for the season,” the actual reason for the season is harder to put our hands on and wrap our minds around. As is often the case, if we stop at the “historical fact” level, we miss what is actually going on. The reason for the season is not the historical fact of Jesus being born. We celebrate Christmas because of the many, many implications of that historical fact.
Ponder with me. What was it like for God to learn how to walk? When Jesus got frustrated with the Pharisees, did the Spirit prompt him to remember his experience of frustration at learning how to do carpentry? Or did it work the other way around—when the Father was frustrated with the Pharisees, did Jesus remind him of how difficult it was for humans to learn and adapt?
How crazy is it to think that God, God, would come into our midst as one of us? Not like the Greek gods, who come down as adults with perfect bodies so they can interact with us but then flee back to Olympus if anything bad happens. No, God entered the scene as a baby. A tiny, helpless baby. He had to learn to walk. He had to learn to talk. He had to mature from breastmilk to adult food. He had to be washed and cleaned, and learn to wash and clean himself. He had to learn to say “Yes, ma’am,” and “no, sir,” (or the ancient Aramaic equivalent).
If the God who spoke creation into existence can submit to life as the son of a humble carpenter, what does that mean for the goodness of other humans? What does that mean for the goodness of creation? God thinks creation is so good that he wanted to experience it the same way we do!
One of the striking things about Luke 1 is how confident everyone is about what God is doing. Jesus isn’t even born yet, and already people are saying things like, “He has helped his servant Israel,” and “He has raised up a mighty savior for us.” Past tense? Don’t Mary and Zechariah know about future tense? Simeon isn’t much better, as he holds this small baby and says, “my eyes have seen your salvation.” Those bold claims seem about 30 years too early, but these Spirit-moved people already see that God is going to do his great work in and through Jesus, even if they don’t fully understand what that means. Perhaps all of us are in that same boat when we look at the birth of God—we intuitively know something big is happening, even if we can’t explain it precisely.
—John Coffey
