Christmas is my favorite Christian celebration. I basically celebrate it all year long in the sense the I am constantly playing Christmas music performed by my favorite choir, King's College Choir, in Cambridge UK, besides my other go-to musical selection of the entire works of Bach, which I cycle through during the year.
Now some might find my attraction to Christmas a bit baffling. Those who read my post are undoubtedly aware that I see the whole Christmas story as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke as a myth - something that didn't actually happen the way it is portrayed in those Gospels. I'm not going to go into all of why I believe that to be the case, only to say that I see myths as an attempt to get at something that is true about human nature and, in the case of the Christmas Myth, something true about all of humankind; that we are all the children of the that Being in which we live, move, and have our being - commonly referred to as God.
What I like about Christmas is that it reveals our common aspirations for world peace and goodwill among all people. Such aspirations transcend religious boundaries because at their core they are the aspirations that most humans throughout the world share, whether one considers oneself religious or not.
* * *
As a mythic story, the Christmas story transcends any sense or need to be understood as a historical event. There is something universal in its telling, as I mentioned earlier. That is not to say it doesn't involve history. It does. It's our history told from an ancient biblical perspective. Jesus exemplifies the mythic meaning of our life stories. When I think of the original Christmas story of Jesus' birth, I wonder how we would tell it in today's context.
For example. the Palestinian Christians in Jesus' biblical birthplace, Bethlehem, have done just that this year. With a war ravaging the Palestinian Gaza Strip, they canceled their traditional celebrations and instead created a moving and thought-provoking manger scene in the drab gray tones of the bombed out streets of Gaza. The holy family is not in a manger, but in a amid the rubble of a street that many Palestinians in Gaza are living in today. If memory serves me there is only one shepherd, not coming, but heading out, and one wise man whose gift appears to be a pall, suggesting the others are missing in action. Mary holds the infant Jesus, but you can't see him. Is he alive, or did he become a sacrifice to war before he could minister to the world?
What she is holding reminds me of the mothers and fathers in Gaza who are holding their slaughtered infants wrapped in the traditional white funeral sheeting, ready for burial. For Christmas 2023, this is the most poignant message of Christmas and it begs the question how we might write the story of Jesus' birth today? It seems to me that there are worse places to bring a newborn baby into the world than a manger with cattle and sheep and the presence of a caring and joyful mother and father. What of the mothers who give birth to their babies in a back alley, a bombed out apartment with no one to help or a hospital that has lost power and is a target for attacks. This year, Jesus being born in a barn, with his loving mother and father present and caring for him is both heartwarming and heartbreaking when considering how some children are being brought into the world today.
This Christmas has a Herodian feel to it. The slaughter of innocent women and children continues out of a sense of revenge and outrage at the events of innocent Israelis being killed and taken hostage by militant Hamas terrorist on October 7. The only safe place for the children of Gaza this Christmas, however, is Egypt, if allowed. The irony of that should not be lost on any Christian or Israeli.
* * *
Mary's question to Gabriel, "How can this be?" takes on a new meaning in light of the war in Gaza, the Ukraine, and elsewhere around the world. In the sense of the mindless dehumanizing and murderous behaviors that wars result in, Mary's question can be reduced to a one-word question, "Why?"
The Christmas story's proclamation of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all humankind is the template for diplomatic dialogue because if there is a universal meaning to be derived from the story of Jesus' birth it is that in his story we come to learn that we too, the whole of humankind are the children of God. The angelic proclamation of peace and goodwill on earth has always been and remains the trajectory of our evolution as a species. We should take it to heart that peace and goodwill amongst all humankind is more than possible, it is a calling we should embrace, now more than ever.
* * *
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
No comments:
Post a Comment