My Take on the Christmas Story--Part II (for children of an undisclosed age)

I want to tell you a story.

It’s a story about darkness and light.  All ancient people have stories of this kind.

The stories often involved primitive people seeing a  big golden ball rising above them to give heat and light.  Then they saw the ball slowly fall until it disappeared and it was dark and cool.

Some Chinese do an exercise called ‘the sun and moon exchange.’ They raise one arm up to the sky and spin it around and look up at the sun.  They lower that arm and raise the other so they can observe the moon rising.

At times the light and warmth stayed for as long as did the dark and chill.  But as time passed  there was less and less light and more and more darkness.  Then all of a sudden the time of light began to be longer than the time of darkness.

The people  would wait and wait through many cycles, appearing and disappearing,  sometimes doubting that the sun would ever return.  They thought that maybe they would live in the dark forever.

Finally, when they saw that the sun began to be around longer, the remembered it as a very important day, a day of celebration and joy.

This story I am going to share with you is about a young woman who was waiting for the light.   She had learned by then that you didn’t have to be afraid of the dark.  She also knew that the sun coming up didn’t always make things better.  

She wanted light that would help her to understand her life better,  because it had become so puzzling to her.  She didn’t know what to do.   She was going to have a baby but had no husband. She was poor and her neighbors were going to ignore her.   Her name is Mary.   Her heart was troubled.  It had darkness in it.

This is a story about how the darkness of her heart became light for her and for others.

A good man in town saw her troubles and offered to become her husband.  His name was Joseph.  Some mysterious voice came to him in a dream that gave him courage.  He was told that the baby that Mary would have would be very special.  So special that he would be called the people’s King.

Now that was really pretty wild.  How could a tiny baby be the King?  King’s were usually powerful and did not like poor people like Mary and Joseph.

The King of the people at that time was a strong, not so nice guy named Herod. He was ordering poor people like Joseph and Mary to sign up with the government so the King could collect taxes, get money from them to make him and his friends richer and more powerful than they already were.

It was a dark time for Mary and Joseph and for their families. Kings had been ordering them around for hundreds and hundreds of years.  They only wanted their own place to live and their own people as their leaders.  But this never happened.  Every time they tried to get rid of the bad king, they were defeated. There was no justice.

Mary and Joseph’s great, great, great, great grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens had been waiting for this new King, the King of the Jews, their people.  But a King never came that favored them or Mary.  How long could they wait for kindness and justice to appear?

So seeing no choice in the matter, they would have to register to pay taxes.   They had to travel a long way from their home, from out of the way, small town Nazareth to Bethlehem, the center of government.

When they got to Bethlehem every place to stay was taken.  There was no room anywhere for them to spend the night.  Mary’s heart was troubled.  It was still dark. Where was the promise of light to come from? 

But when they had lost all hope, an Innkeeper who had no regular room for them to stay pointed them to the back of the Inn where they could lie down with the animals.  They settled in to do the best they could in this not too nice place.  In some ways they couldn't imagine being more lowly.

And then it happened!  Mary’s baby was born.  It was a boy.    She and Joseph were relieved and happy.  Mary wrapped him up securely in some old blankets. Suddenly the future seemed bright.

But many people, mostly poor and ordinary people, including some tending their sheep, saw the light coming from the stable and rushed in to see what had happened.  They heard Mary’s story and went out across the country to tell everyone that a new King was born.

They named the baby Jesus which means ‘one who saves’ or ‘one who brings the light.’

The light was not only for Mary and Joseph and the shepherds.  It was for all who looked for a different kind of King.   Could poor Mary and good Joseph be the parents of such a great person?   It may sound silly for a baby to be a King,  but these people didn’t think so.

Light, a great light,  had finally come into their lives.  And the Darkness was overcome.  That’s why we tell Mary’s story at the time of year, when more light appears day by day.

Mary became the bearer of ‘the simple truth.’  Every person is special. No one is better than anyone else.  The tiny, the weak and the poor are precious. For a small group, he became their king and everything for them was changed forever.

My Take on the Christmas Story--Part One

It’s Christmas time.  The holiday was named to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but behind this celebration is a long history of story-telling and ritual. Several stories get repeated during this season.  In the United States the dominant story is the story of the commercial rush. Buying stuff fits most easily into the story of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus is the Dutch translation) kept alive by the anonymously written poem, “The Night Before Christmas”. Christmas in the United States is an amalgam of many traditions.

Of course, there is Charles Dickens’ Scrooge, It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas Story, the Nutcracker, and more.  Stories that create a mood of joy and community.

Each way we celebrate the holiday stands or falls on its own merit.  Combining them or looking for a common theme can water down the meaning of each of them.

The stories of the season are many and varied.  It is sometimes difficult to sort out the value of the differences among them.  *Though not agreed upon totally by scholars, it seems that it took almost 300 hundred years after Jesus’ birth, for part of the Christian church to chose December 25th as the day to dedicate to Jesus’ birth.  Another part chose January 6. (simply the difference in calendar changes.) Either way may have been a way of blunting the pagan meanings attached to that time of year by Saturnalia, a wild display of ‘freedom’--drunkenness, nakedness and sometime persecution of minority persons.

Our national and global context is radically different from the history that created Christmas as a given for everyone.  People in our time have seen and experienced too much evidence of a wider more interrelated and interdependent world to accept without question the story of the birth of Jesus as ‘the’ objective Truth.  That is troubling to many for whom this account from twenty centuries past has become a central meaning in life. 

As Christianity has become a part of a larger world, it is not necessarily true that its essential meaning is lost.  It does mean, however, that articulation of that story and its meaning has no leg up on any other tries to represent truth.  It is what it is, nothing more and nothing less.

The depth meaning of the Christmas story will not be advanced by insisting on it being the only story.  In fact, that weakens its potential significance.  Like any communication there must be first a relationship that can receive something in an open way.  If it is useful to the hearer,  meaning will come from announcing and sharing the story itself, not in trying to prove its worth by dismissing the experience and stories of others.  Even though Hanukkah is not a major Jewish feast, it does show up this time of year.  There is much to learn from the history and practice of the Jewish people.   Kwanzaa  has also been developed to be a way that all people, but particularly African-Americans can lift up core values.  These neither need to agree with one another nor contradict the other's claims.

Each story rises and falls on its own telling, hearing and action. It is not a question of competition but rather a question of purpose, meaning and significance for our personal and social living.

The story of Jesus has its own meaning.  We all know that mere repetition and ritualizing of it is not enough.  The challenge facing the Christian church is how to tell and share that story in a simple way that communicates the power the church believes the story of Jesus possesses. It need not be forced on others nor should it be marginalized because the other stories are more modern, entertaining, or satisfying. What is each story’s contribution to our common search for truth?

The story of Jesus’ birth (apart from the rest of his living and dying) is a simple story of human beings trying to find new life and light in the midst of death and darkness.  In that sense it bears a consistency with the many stories world-wide that over thousands of years attest to overcoming the dark forces of despair with light and the power of hope.

While a section of the scriptures of the Christian church tell two stories of the birth of Jesus (Matthew and Luke), they are told from two different perspectives. Not surprisingly differences exist between the two in sequence of events, those persons and places mentioned and not mentioned, and the author’s point of view--different angles on the same story.   A third ancient story teller, Mark, doesn’t mention Jesus’ birth at all. A fourth, John, uses the metaphors of darkness and light to communicate the meaning of Jesus in the world.

The popular re-telling of the story of Jesus’ birth usually melds these very different accounts and adds or subtracts certain emphases to make it a good story.  Martin Luther’s take, ‘the babe in the manger is the man on the cross’ suggests that to grasp the meaning of the birth, one must also see where this birth went.

Therefore, the telling of the story today is always one of picking and choosing.  One could argue that a consistent narrative has emerged that most of us recognize.

 A young woman, pregnant by mysterious means is without a husband. But a good man named Joseph agrees to marry her to avoid her disgrace in the community.  An enigmatic messenger (angel) tells Joseph not to be afraid because something special is going on here.   Joseph and Mary’s family have been summoned by Roman Emperor Augustus to be enrolled as citizens so they could pay taxes.  The ‘King of the Jews’ is the regional prelate named Herod.  They traveled a long distance  to pay taxes in their regional center, Bethlehem.  Upon arrival they search but do not find a place to sleep.  An innkeeper offers them a place with his animals in a stable.  It is there that Mary gives birth to Jesus.  She wraps the baby in ‘swaddling cloths’ and lays him in a manger ( trough for feeding animals.)  The word travels pretty widely though by shepherds who are tending their flocks outside the town. They are drawn, they say, by a light that guides them to the stable.  Through messengers named Angels, Joseph, Mary and others hear that this baby will grow up to challenge the oppression of King Herod and to bring a new kind of freedom to the Hebrew nation. The Wise Men show up later having to travel from long distances.  They seem to represent the whole world coming to recognize Jesus.

He is given a traditional Jewish name Jesus a transliteration of the Greek.  The older form is similar to Joshua, a Jewish hero that took the torch from Moses to lead Israel into the Promised Land.  Jesus can be translated as ‘one who saves.’

'Christmas' stops there.  Going beyond that is 'the rest of the story.'

Jesus is called the ‘Christ’ later in his life, a word that means ‘the anointed one.’ It is the role he plays, like Bob the Builder, Jesus the Christ. Christ is not his last name, the son of Joseph and Mary Christ.

The Hebrews, also called Jews and Israelites, have a 2000 year history of waiting for a new King, a Messiah who will throw off the slavery they experience and provide a path to a new way of living.  Some welcome this ‘good news’ while others doubt, are cynical and reject this claim of Kingship.   We are still discussing these differences today.

Can a baby born of questionable parenthood provide a new profound understanding of power?  Is there power in weakness, humility, and is that a truth that serves us more than the power of politicians, military leaders, and power brokers?

The simplicity of the story is its humanness and the truth of life it sets forth. While the world and its citizens find themselves oppressed, possibility exists when anyone can claim their own uniqueness and power.  It’s a long shot kind of hope, but when realized it carries with it a significant message about living.

Of course, as we know the story of Jesus does not stop with the story of his birth.  He teaches, preaches and heals throughout his life.  He walks among the poorest of the poor and challenges the establishment at every turn.  He eventually is killed, but becomes the central figure in a movement that is some years later named ‘Christian.’ 

This is only the beginning of a story that has been used for good and ill since its inception.  At its heart, it is a story that recognizes the gifts and possibility of every human regardless of privilege, culture, and economics.

The Jesus’ story offers one way to view life.  From the bottom up.  Some think that is the most important message in life.  Others on hearing the story might find it useful for their journey.

The past twenty centuries are filled with incidents where so-called followers of Jesus, including its leaders, have committed horrible atrocities in his name.  It is never beyond the stretch of human beings to distort a message to serve an evil purpose. These distortions certainly don’t help the case for the value of the Jesus’ story.  When these misinterpretations and uses are stripped away from the essence of the story, is there stil an essential human truth worth living and sharing?

Is it ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’? Only you can decide.  And if this isn’t, what is?

*this article is not intended as a scholarly dissertation on the subject. It is the author’s attempt to cut through all of the ways we use to miss what the story seems to be about. Any proven historical accuracies will be acknowledged.  If they serve to change the author’s conviction about the story, he will take those into consideration.

+The author is using this article as a way of answering, partially, the question, ‘who is ‘Jesus’ for me today?’

Searching for a Response

Newtown, Connecticut.  There are few things that move us to the center as quickly as the death of the innocents.  It begins with those closest to the victims as mother, father, sister and brother.  The circle of concern moves out from that to near neighbor and distant neighbor.  Because of media others of us are instantly present, drawn into the pain and suffering and inexplicable nature of such events.

The wise ones throughout the history of humanity have recognized that such happenings create in us a vacuum.  We who have or think we should have answers for everything, have answers for nothing.  All of the research and explanations of certain patterns of behavior helps not at all.  Understandable outrage over such tragedy leaves us facing the abyss.  To pretend otherwise is simply to pretend.

But all events have a context.  Experiences vary, of course, from individual to individual.  Because of the increasing number of events (Columbine, Aurora, Milwaukee,  Atlanta, Ft. Hood, Phoenix etc.) in a short period of time, at least in the short term, a whole nation is momentarily confronted with questions of identity and meaning.  We want to know more about those who commit these horrendous acts, but even discovering that is part of our own inner quest to have more of a sense of who we are as human beings and as human beings in relationship.

As shocking as Newtown is (images of 6 and years olds being shot multiple times) a school principal in Oakland, California reminds us that literally hundreds of young people are shot and die monthly and annually on our playgrounds and in our neighborhoods across this nation.  These deaths spur us to rhetoric, but not to action.  For the 22 names we hear, there are 2220 that we never hear.  The deaths in our cities becomes so commonplace and so off the radar that there is little expectation nor call for something to be done.

However, as much as we ignore some deaths and pay attention to others, Newtown may provide us with another opportunity to address things we can do something about.   Newtown's image is quintessentially American, a model community of church, school and civic peacefulness.  Perhaps it takes a shattering of that dream place to awaken us to the need there and everywhere for things like sensible regulation of firearms and high quality preventive and treatment of those with mental illness.

As we have seen in the handling of our nation's economy, too often our lawmakers do not seem to understand what is at stake in our communities.   I just don't know how and why many of the people we vote to be our leaders seem so removed from the daily life most of us experience.  Their lack of the sense of urgency is appalling. We wildly celebrate one one senator or representative here of there who actually says something.  Mayor Bloomberg of New York City has sounded a clear call for action and has articulated that action.  He speaks common sense with conviction and it seems like a voice crying in the wilderness.  Where is everyone else?

It's remarkable that only a few speak out. That there is no powerful voice from our leaders to stop the violence and for us to be responsible citizens is disconcerting at best.   I would think that majority of our elected representatives would join Mayor Bloomberg.  If there is no leadership on this challenge, why would we expect any national vision on any aspect of our lives to come from them.  Perhaps, they are momentarily stunned into uncharacteristic silence.  What does this 'silence' teach?

We are loving the movie 'Lincoln' partly because he led the nation in a way that was indecisively decisive. That is he moved ahead with fear and trembling, but his resolve moved the nation by presenting an alternative direction, a larger vision.  Who has done this since Martin Luther King, Jr. and that was 40 years ago!  With President Obama's repeated phrase, 'we are the United States of America', he has the platform to lead us into a new understanding of our national purpose.  It is not clear that he will do that.

He has certainly done what is necessary and appropriate in response to the families, city and nation to create a space for conversation about the future.  And he has done it well.  I do not think that he should have called for policy changes immediately.  Now, however, by appointing Vice President Biden to bring together a commission to produce proposals in a month is a good step forward.

Then there is us, there is me.  We are citizens. There are many existing channels though which we can give our energy and our support to stir action.  Some of these are direct advocacy channels to lawmakers.  Then there are other groups pointed more to rallying the troops, signing up and presenting a mass number of supporters to register more loudly and clearly what needs to be done.

There are groups of parents hearing the call to be more present and useful in their local schools.  There are gatherings that are discussing the violent nature of our culture and steps that can be taken in our families and neighborhoods to teach non-violence as a way of life.

Finally, however, this is not a problem to be solved.  It is a reality to be understood at ever deepening levels.  Utopian wishes and plans help us think differently, but the human condition is such that disagreement, hatred, irrational behavior and senseless violence will not disappear.  Some tragedy cannot be avoided and we learn to move ahead somehow.  On the other hand, there is so much we can do in our own personal relationships.  We can create laws that serve us all better.  We can present the human stories that underscore non-violence.  We can become more aware of the wide-spread mental illness in our country and strengthen our care system.  We can reduce the easy option that people have to obtain firearms.

In short, we can put ourselves on the other side of the fear that leads to both arming ourselves and hiding from the need to build more healthily neighborhoods and communities.  When we do not name and face our fears--of one another, of sickness, of community responsibility--we create a culture that lives in retreat from reality.  We try to avoid any experience of dying.  That direction has no good outcome.  That's the heart of the matter.