5 Myths About Christmas

Christmas Day 2012

Proper I
Isaiah 9:2-7, Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

In the Washington Post you’ve probably seen the weekly segment where they list five myths about a certain topic.  The segment claims to debunk myths about anything from tax reform to sleep – pretty much whatever issue is in the headlines.  Its official title is “Five Myths: Challenging Everything You Think You Know.”   Maybe because the tag line is so assertive, I’d always assumed that this debunking of myths was reliable and trustworthy. 

But then last year around this time, they ran one called “Five Myths about Christmas.”  I read it and was so surprised that I cut it out and kept it, and happened across it last week.  The basic gist of it was to downplay Christmas’ significance to Christianity.  Christmas is ok, the article said essentially, but Easter is the main event.  It argued that Easter, when Christ rose from the dead, has more religious significance because it holds out the promise of eternal life for all who believe.  And it ended by saying, “Anyone can be born, but not everyone can rise from the dead.” 

When I first read it, I was surprised and a little mad at the newspaper.   Here we were in the season leading up to Christmas, when pretty much everything in the newspaper is an ad promoting materialism and undermining the purpose of Christmas, and they had to add this, too?  Just what the Church needs – another reason for people not to think deeply about the meaning of Christmas.  But then I looked closer and saw that these so-called myths were actually written by a Jesuit priest.  What was he thinking?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Easter is great.  I love that we Christians are Easter people, meaning that we trust that our God of love, and not death and pain, has the last word.  But Christmas as religiously insignificant?  The baby Jesus as just anyone being born? 

            The only way we can conclude that is if we aren’t paying attention.  Which is actually pretty easy to do.  We’ve heard this story so many times we could probably recite it along with Linus.

            Lights please.

            And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, “Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men.”

            Most of us know the words and storyline of Luke’s nativity scene so well that it is hard for us to listen.  They just sound like more words, too familiar.  And so I offer my own take of Five Myths About Christmas:

Myth #1:  Jesus’ birth was so sweet and romantic.

False!  We have completely domesticated the Christmas story, picturing something more like last night’s church pageant, with sweet sparkly angels, fluffy white sheep, tender shepherds, happy parents, and a stable set in a safe and beautiful space.  But in reality, the angels inspired fear and terror in everyone who received their messages.  The shepherds in Jesus’ day were seen as lowlifes – disrespected, untrustworthy, dirty castoffs from society.  It’s entirely possible that Mary and Joseph had never been in close contact with anyone like them before.  Mary and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem to be registered was a long and miserable journey, especially for very pregnant Mary; at least 80 miles, much of it through risky and unfriendly terrain.  The stable was a smelly and unsanitary place barely better than an outdoor camp.  It was a scary and unfriendly place for Mary to give birth to her first child.  The Holy Family was dislocated and far from home.  For them, this would not have felt like a warm and fuzzy event.

Myth #2:  Jesus as Messiah was no surprise.

False!  We’ve turned Christmas into a time to look at pretty lights, sing feel-good songs, smell our fir trees, and shop ourselves silly.  And forgotten that what happened on Christmas was (and continues to be) a shocking new thing.  While everyone in their right mind was expecting a political leader or a military giant or a noble ruler to be the one-day Messiah, God chose a vulnerable newborn baby born in a shabby manger in a backwater town.  Baby Jesus was God’s call for complete and utter social upheaval – a call to action and change.  God bypassed the proud and powerful and chose the lowly, outcast shepherds to be the first to hear and see the good news.  And that is the way of Jesus’ ministry forever after, including now, turning everything upside down. 

Myth #3:  God is really just about universal truths and principles.

False!  God isn’t just “love”.  “Doing unto others” does not sum up the whole Christian story.  And Jesus isn’t “just anyone” being born to show us a good way to live.  This is God coming to be one of us.  To walk our earth, experience our joys and our struggles.  This child is born for us, to us, and with us.  God has come smack dab in the midst of human history.  This one person living in the first century in an unimportant province of the Roman Empire is the revelation of God.  God is particular in time and space and history.  The manger shouts both that God is capable of dwelling among the people and that that is exactly where God wants to be.

Myth # 4:  Christmas is really an event in the past.

False!  All Advent we’ve been preparing ourselves to enter the mystery of Christmas.  We’ve been waiting along with Mary and Joseph for the baby to be born; preparing the way of the Lord along with John the Baptist; hearing the promises of the angels along with the shepherds; journeying with all of them to Bethlehem to adore the new born Emmanuel.  And then we arrive at the moment and aren’t sure what to do.  The safest thing is just to think about Christmas as a sweet past event whose power is over.  But what if it’s more than that?  What if it’s actually a present event with lasting importance in our lives?  How can we continue finding God with us in unexpected places?  How can we keep knowing a particular God who is for us and with us? How can we keep turning the world’s expectations upside down?  Christmas continues.  Things will never be the same because of it - for any of the players in this age-old story, or for any of us. 

Myth #5:  If we want God in our lives we have to work for it.

False!  We Americans are do-it-ourself-ers.  Our first instinct is to think of spirituality as what we do to find our way to God.  If we (meditate, go to church, help the poor, … you fill in the blank), we will find God.  It is up to us to find a connection to God by making ourselves worthy.

But what if Christmas is real?  What if God is forever Incarnate; for all time taking the initiative and coming to the world, coming to us, just as God did for Mary and Joseph and the shepherds.  What if God is always reaching toward us, trying to get our attention through nature, creativity, the people and circumstances of our lives.  Meeting us exactly where we are, working in us just below the surface of all our strivings.  God does not need us to be complete, to be successful, to be organized, to be presentable.  Christmas is God’s promise that God chooses to dwell with us – the incomplete, the imperfect, the lost.

So have a wonderful and merry Christmas.  Enjoy the good food and the flurry of present unwrapping and the joy of being surrounded by people that you love.  But don’t forget to reserve some awe for what is really at the heart of your celebration.  Don’t forget that that baby in the manger is full of both challenge and promise.  God is waiting to enter into your business-as-usual and turn it upside down.  Amen.