The last 100 years have redefined holidays like Christmas. Today we look at Christmas through very different eyes than our grandparents and great grandparents. What used to be a more solemn religious time focusing on the Christmas story, has become a mostly secular celebration with friends and family. The rise of Santa Claus and his evolving story of magical transportation and ability to “see you when your sleeping” (my son says, “that sounds creepy”) effectively drowns out and replaces the original manger story.
So what is the meaning of Christmas today? Is it important to celebrate Jesus’ birth? Or is it another secular holiday that offers some time off from work and days with our family? Would you be open to a deeper meaning of Christmas?
First, we need to recognize that the early church did not celebrate Jesus birth for at least 250 years, until the teachings of Jesus fell on harder and harder hearts. Ancient worshippers of evil and dark mysticism carried out celebrations of the darkest day of the year (northern hemisphere) complete with human sacrifice, in some cases. The authorities at the time sought to counter these dark festivities by inserting a celebration of the birth of Jesus. So what if we let go of the “let’s celebrate Jesus’ birthday” program as we would an eight year old child’s? What does that leave?
I believe what gets lost in the tinsel and ribbon is the worldwide revolutionary paradigm shift that God decided to author. God, not only in the Jewish understanding, but in most every religious culture throughout the world, was seen as a transactional god. IF you follow this way, IF you do these things, IF you say these prayers, IF you form a priestly group of leaders, then you will mollify the anger of god(s) and keep them from punishing you in this life and the one after death. The “give me worship and then I’ll be nice to you” transactional god was all the people, especially the Jews, ever knew.
packages… presents… holidays…
Would you be open to a deeper meaning of Christmas?
However, by sending Jesus to this earth, not as a conqueror or king to rule his subjects but as a baby in a manger birthed to an average low-income family, clearly the intention was not to make a big splash and impress everyone with God’s grandeur. The stories of the announcement of the angels to the shepherds and leading the wise men from the east do little to counter the obvious conditions of his birth in relation to government, prestige, and world reaction.
In sending Jesus as a baby to an unwed virgin of a very conservative religious culture, God and Jesus were beginning something much more revolutionary than providing a feel-good story of underdogs winning. The purpose of Jesus coming was to establish a new relationship with humankind, a relationship of Love, Peace, and Forgiveness. This relationship would create a unity and an identity between God and mankind, tear down the long-standing ways of worship and replace them with a chance for us to voluntarily follow God; the chance to follow simply for the Love and the Life that He is and not out of a seeking for advantage or profit. This relationship by nature is viral because it seeks replication in us toward others. In this one historical act, God not only changes the narrative, but creates the reality of a people who become awakened to a completely new Way of Life! We become a people drawn so tightly together with God that He lives within us and us within Him. This Unity of our Creator and His Created is now the deepest and most clear expression of Who God is and Who we actually are. Jesus, born in a manger, was the beachhead for this grand and seemingly impossible quest: that God and Mankind would become One, that Healing became available to all, that Peace was offered to all, that Love would guide us. This then could manifest in a genuine and authentic life, the realization of that which we were sent to this earth to live out even before we were born.
This message was and still is very difficult to accept and participate in. The old ways drag us into the ancient ruts of worshipping false gods – gods who must be appeased, gods who by nature are distinct and separated from their creation, gods who care about themselves and their egos at the expense of their creation, gods who are so mystical and ethereal that they are hard to believe they exist at all. Many of us were born and raised with these paradigms. Our egos are quick and eager to argue, with the help of our human reasoning, against any ideas of God other than these.
We stand at moments of decision like Zachariah and Mary before the angel who told them what would happen to them. One said, “How can this happen, it’s impossible”. The other said, “I believe you and am curious how it will happen”. Can we believe in Him and His Way of Life? Can we claw out of the old thinking patterns and reach up to embrace a completely other experience of God and Love and Life? Intellectual ascent is one thing. Inner conviction and the adoption of a new purpose for living is completely different.
The greatest miracle of the Christmas story is not that God was born in a manger or that Jesus was born to a virgin, or to all the associated stories of wise men and shepherds. The greatest miracle is when men and women lay hold of the new world of God and His Cause in response to Jesus’ coming. The angels proclaimed to the shepherds that night, “Peace on earth, goodwill toward all of mankind.” Do you hear them now?
