The original Christmas story reads more like the Game of Thrones than it does our seasonal Hallmark cards, church pagents, and sentimental retail versions. Indeed, Christmas is not a children's story. Sometimes English translations of the Bible can mask the bluntness of the original. Our contemporary Bible versions seem to tame many of its stories for the modern reader. But, not here in Luke’s Christmas morning story of the shepherds. This time, the narrative is very blunt. It is, then, left to December preachers to tame the story for Christmas messages that are G-rating and family safe. Almost every version, however, even the paraphrases, leave this text as it should—raw, straightforward, and blunt. And, we need to hear it this way. In Luke 2, these shepherds were afraid, frightened, and as the Greek indicates, “They feared a great fear.” I do not imagine a bunch of skinny, youngsters, mulling around the hillsides, holding quaint staffs, warming their hands over an open fire, and patting lambs on their heads. These were shepherds, men ready to fight off wolves, lions, and bears. The text doesn’t say they were startled or caught by surprise or even awed. They saw the Angel of the Lord, and their response: these men “feared a great fear.” As the translation here records, “they were terribly frightened.” I don’t know about you, but I would have been afraid to say the least, and I am hardly a burly shepherd. Problem is, we know the Christmas story all too well. Our version is tame, cute, winsome, merry, fit for a Christmas pageant at a church building. I call our churchy versions the Hallmark Card story of Christmas. It was going to take a lot to alleviate these shepherds’ state of being terribly afraid. Our sentimental versions would not have done the trick. The Angel knew: They needed a sign. Something big. Something bigger than the fear itself.
You have to be kidding! A baby? This is a twist I didn't see coming. There is a puzzle to the real Christmas story, a riddle, mystery, even some perplexity. The contrast is staggering. The brawny Shepherds fear was to be relieved by a baby lying in a cow trough in some barn, a cattle shed, out back of an inn in Bethlehem. Now that’s amazing. That’s how the original Christmas story is introduced. No tinsel or cute cherubs. No warm living room with presents under a decorated tree. No wonderful Christmas concert or pageant. We’ve come a long way in presenting the Christmas story, in taming it and relieving it of its mystery (its puzzle and irony, its realness). This is not a good thing. “But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Along with being way too familiar with the Christmas story, we are also too accustomed to the Christmas story as we celebrate it—that is, our own seasonal church and family habits. We now, without much thought, juxtapose the revealed story with the commercialism, tinsel, and lights of a holiday season made for our economy rather than our souls. Although America still boasts of a vast population of Christian believers and church-goers, society as a whole would prefer that we keep our “religion” and Jesus out of public life—out of school boards, out of government, out of the bedroom, etc. But, not out of the major retail season for the season. Even when the corporate-world seeks to take the word “Christmas” out of their stores, they still want to keep the “spirit,” the Christmas-grin from the invisible Christmas-Cheshire cat, to keep the retail flying off the shelves and showroom floors. They want just enough “belief” to treasure the concepts and images of a virgin birth, angelic choirs, and that baby in swaddling clothes in a manger to make sure people are inspired to buy, buy, buy. In an article entitled, “The History of Christmas,” G. K. Chesterton describes how it is that modern man has exchanged the wonder of the Christmas story for commercialism: “Moving step by step, in the majestic march of Progress, we have first vulgarised Christmas and then denounced it as vulgar. Christmas has become too commercial; so many of these thinkers would destroy the Christmas that has been spoiled and preserve the commercialism that has spoiled it.” We are in danger of exchanging the wonder of the Luke 2 Christmas story for lesser wonder of commercialism and a more pleasant, joyous path to church growth and fuller body count in our sanctuaries during the season. A story that saves retail, perhaps. Yet, we need a Christmas story, un-tamed, a story that frightens us—and a story where the only thing that alleviates our fear is that baby, the Lord of heaven and earth, come in a smelly, common cattle shed out back. Only the untamed Christmas story found in the Gospel narratives is able to relieve our fears and save our troubled souls.
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When we read the Christmas story in both Matthew and Luke, we should be struck at how unassuming and insignificant an occasion it actually was. The real Christmas story should destroy our paradigms that suggest bigger is better, leveraged popularity is the pathway for success, and privilege and numbers are needed to produce results and yield an effective rate of return for donated resources. Everything about the original Christmas story should shake the foundations of our modern business-centered, attraction-model, theater-like structured church experience. It should render celebrity and high professionalism dead or at least as nothing in light of God’s promises, plans, and ways. It should destroy our notion that numbers have a better scaling affect on mission than the small insignificant moments and occasions set by God’s (pre)determined plan. Mary could have started a movement; but the shepherds returned to their fields. Even the large magi entourage (and there were far more than just three wise men!) could have funded the project shortly left and is never heard of again. Reread the song Mary sung after she revealed to Elizabeth that she was with child by the Holy Spirit (how's that for explaining an illegitimate pregnancy in a shame culture). Listen for the lament and irony, how everything gets twisted and turned around:
A young couple, who was living with disgrace over what appeared to all family, friends, and onlookers to be an unplanned, pre-marriage pregnancy, had to endure ridicule and eventual banishment to a foreign country. Then shortly, numerous innocent children, two and under, were slaughtered (Matthew 2:16ff.) as a result of, by all outward human accounting, an illegitimate baby born in a dirty barn out back of a local, insignificant motel. The brief moments of rejoicing by shepherds quickly fade in the story and we are left with anguish and sorrow, and confusing mystery. Little about the story, as it is told in Luke and Matthew, is neat and proper; nor, is it a platform for success. It is messy, harmless to history, and is blatantly left mundane. Practically banal.
The Christmas story, nonetheless, is hopeful to every ordinary person, not because it is a spectacular church pageant, special evening production, or media broadcast, but for its insignificance. Like the poor, scandalous pregnant, unwed teenager sang (for Mary was most likely a mere young teenager in today’s standards), the Christmas scenes in the gospels are about God showing the strength of His arm in the most curious of ways and in the ordinary, messy life at the margins. And, then, right there in the actual Christmas story, God destroys the proud and arrogant thoughts of our hearts. Mary’s song is a lament for the arrogant and proud indeed rule the land and the rich are not empty-handed and too many go hungry—her lines lament the world as it is. It is praise also, for God’s Christmas story is his way in this world: a total reversal of what typically happens in “real” life; a reversal of what we are taught by those in power to expect—in life and, dare say, in church. Yet for a moment, in the biblical Christmas story, a small glimpse of ordinary life at the margins saves the day, bringing hope to all those who live upon the earth. Think more deeply about Christmas.
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AuthorChip M. Anderson, advocate for biblical social action; pastor of an urban church plant in the Hill neighborhood of New Haven, CT; husband, father, author, former Greek & NT professor; and, 19 years involved with social action. Archives
February 2024
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