It's a season of stories.
There's the story of Rudolph and of Frosty; there's 'Twas The Night Before Christmas and The Polar Express; and of course there's White Christmas as well as A Christmas Story and inevitably there's National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Not to mention A Christmas Carol, and The Nutcracker, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. Just for starters.
These stories are wonderful, offering messages that fit quite nicely under the rubric of "Love thy neighbor" and "do unto others." They are fun and they are entertaining and they are very often inspiring. (literally meaning "embodying the Spirit.")
The best of them offers that mystical component that transforms something from earthly common sense into heavenly bliss; what people of faith call Divine Presence.
The Real Deal
Even so, the "true meaning of Christmas"--which these stories often refer to as if they have it all figured out--is more than "wouldn't it be nice if everybody was nice" as Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault points out in her book The Wisdom Jesus. (Although actually that would be nice; a starting point, anyhow.)
For most Christians, the phrase "Christmas stories" refers to what theologians rather pretentiously call "the birth narratives."
There's Matthew's version (chapters 1 and 2), told with Joseph in the foreground as the primary mover and shaker, King Herod's minions raging around the countryside, and the wise men tracking the star. Action-packed and male-centric.
And there's Luke's version (chapters 1 and 2), probably better known than Matthew's, thanks in no small part to Linus's monologue in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Luke's story is more of a musical featuring five songs: the opening line of The Rosary, plus the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Gloria, and the Nunc Dimittas. Mary is center stage, the holy family journeys to Bethlehem to pay their taxes, and the shepherds keep watch over their flocks by night. No wise men in attendance and no star glittering above.
John's gospel offers a very different but very lovely nativity story; in some ways it is my favorite:
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
(John 1:9)
In their book, The First Christmas, Jesus scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan compare Matthew's and Luke's versions of Jesus' nativity, and reach several conclusions.
* The stories are far more alike than they are different.
* The stories are penned with the definite intention of demonstrating that Jesus' divine conception is more significant in every way than that of the so-called "divine Augustus" himself.
* Most importantly, Borg and Crossan conclude that:
...claims of divine conception (mean) that
this child has brought or will bring extraordinary or transcendental benefits to the human race.
And therefore, the proper question is not about the biology of the mother, (is she a virgin or not) but about the destiny of the child.
What is that destiny and, once you know it, are you willing to commit your life to it?
To Caesar the Augustus, for example, or to Jesus the Christ?
Your Story; My Story; Our Story
The true meaning of Christmas is something that will never be named in even the most moving of secular dramas, for it is
the well-coming of God among us;
our God who has come before--
our God who is here with us now--
our God who will come more fully and more completely--
let us make space within for the divine arrival.
The Advent mystery is
the beginning of the end
of all in us
that is not yet Christ.
Thomas Merton 1915-1968
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