As we approach Christmas, our minds turn again to images of a baby in a manger, an undisclosed number of Magi, sheep, shepherds and heavenly messengers, Jesus’ faith-filled mother Mary and his selfless father Joseph.
But is the season as simple and straightforward as it at first appears?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes Jesus’ mother as ‘the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin’. It says: ‘When the course of her earthly life was finished, [she] was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things.’
But this – to borrow a predominantly Roman Catholic word – tends to be anathema to most Bible-believing Christians.
Although we realise that the Lord was with her (Luke 1:28), that she ‘found favour with God’ (1:30), and was specially chosen to bear the Saviour, nowhere does Scripture describe Mary as being free from original sin.
Nor does it refer to her as ‘Co-Redemptrix’, ‘Mediatrix’, or ‘Queen of Heaven’, which are all Roman Catholic attributions.
The Catechism’s claims are not only at variance with Scripture, they’re also comparatively recent. The acceptance of Mary’s ‘Immaculate Conception’ was defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854, with the teaching of her bodily ascension into heaven only pronounced doctrine by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
Whether intentionally or not, such doctrines and teachings potentially diminish Jesus, giving Mary a far greater prominence than the Bible indicates.
Our pastor, referring to how teachings like these turn people’s eyes from the One who gives sight to the blind, said: ‘How amazing that Mary was carrying the eternal God in her womb, that she gave birth to the One who created the universe, and ended up feeding and clothing the One who sustains the world. How wonderful, too, that Mary would be able to hear the first words of the One who spoke the world into existence. ‘God is gracious to Mary,’ he concluded, ‘not by making her queen over all things, but by allowing her to hold in her arms the King of kings.’
But this isn’t the only wrong emphasis that can cause problems at Christmas – many of the things associated with the popular religious festival are generally crackers!
As someone who comes from a non-practising Jewish background, it always surprised me that we can’t be sure of the date Jesus was born and that the Gospels contain no mention of stockings, crackers, mince pies or greenery!
Nor do we know how many ‘wise men’ there really were – the number three relating to the gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense rather than the givers themselves. Givers who, centuries later, ended up with the Three Musketeers-like names of Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar.
Actually, depending on which part of the world you come from, the Magi are also known as Gaspar, Melqon and Balthasar; Hormizdah, Yazdegerd and Perozadh; Kagpha, Badadakharida and Badadilma; Larvandad, Gushnasaph and Homisdas, or Hor, Karsudan and Basanter – to name but a few.
Nor do we know where they actually came from, other than the East (Matt. 2:1-2). Some say Persia, others India, Arabia, Ethiopia or Yemen. The ‘three kings’ – it would seem – have more names and passports than a trio of CIA agents or MI6 spies!
Even more confusing is the fact that, according to the overactive imagination of the 19th-century American writer, diplomat and clergyman Henry van Dyke, there was a D’Artagnan-like ‘fourth man’ called Artaban who failed to rendezvous with the other three and couldn’t reach Jesus in time!
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eastern tradition gives the number of Magi as 12. That aside, even as a naïve new believer in Jesus, I was quite aware that the Bible didn’t mention Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, a chimney-descending Father Christmas, elf on the shelf or – an even more recent addition – a gonk*!
Though Jesus is supposedly ‘the reason for the season’, the season itself is brimful of potential distractions. A whole secular theology appears to have mushroomed up – myth-like – robbing God of His glory and helping people forget what Christmas is really about – Immanuel, ‘God with us’.
Take the red-faced, red-robed, red-nosed-reindeer-driving figure known in the West as Father Christmas. Known also as Santa Claus, though the two are actually quite distinct – he’s the one who, in some images, looks a bit like the Roman god Bacchus, the rosy-cheeked god of the grape harvest. (Perhaps that’s why people tend to drink too much at Christmas or sometimes leave an alcoholic drink out for Santa!)
The jolly, gift-giving figure is, like Bacchus, his Greek counterpart Dionysus, or the sun god Sol, often depicted driving a chariot – though today we’d probably refer to it as a sleigh. (The name Santa or ‘St Nick’ actually derives from the reputedly generous, gold-giving Saint Nicholaos of Myra, a 4th-century bishop who allegedly attended the Council of Nicaea.)
Another issue that tends to detract from the true gospel message of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us is a tendency to keep Christ in the crib.
Although Jesus ‘will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High’, will be given the throne of his father David, and will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever (Luke 1:32-33), at Christmas we tend to only see him as a helpless child.
Leaving Him in the manger rather than regarding Jesus as the Great High Priest who died and rose from the dead, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and is the image of the invisible God, and who will one day return in glory to judge the living and the dead, can again diminish our perception of the Saviour’s power.
By stripping the Incarnation of its life-changing, transformational glory, we paradoxically end up keeping the baby but throwing out the (baptismal) bathwater!
Perhaps we should read Revelation at Christmas as well as the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth.
And finally, there’s the date of Christmas itself, a festival which doesn’t of course appear in the Bible. Nor, indeed, do birthdays, apart from Pharaoh’s in Genesis 40:20 and Herod’s in Matthew 14:6 and Mark 6:21, though there are of course references to Jeremiah and Job cursing the day of their birth!
In fact, the supposed date of Jesus’ birth – 25 December – wasn’t officially settled on in the West until around 350AD. In the East, Jesus’ birth is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on 7 January (they use a different calendar), although other months were considered by churchmen over the years – including March, April, May and November.
There are also those who believe that, rather than coming to earth in the winter, God literally dwelt or tabernacled among us during the Jewish feast of Tabernacles – though others view a September/October Tabernacles date as being unlikely.
And, while we’re looking at dates, another development that’s attempted to rob Jesus’ birth of its significance is the increasing replacement of BC (‘Before Christ’) and AD (‘Anno Domini’ or ‘in the year of the Lord’) with the description BCE (‘Before the Common Era’) and CE (‘Common Era’).
Although the move to find a more ‘inclusive’ way of designating historical events dates back to the 17th century, its more recent manifestation represents a growing secular desire to not only take Christ out of Christmas but out of all world events!
And so, every Christmas, it’s as if some mischievous elf on the shelf takes on the role of unbiblical tour guide, taking people on a less than magical mystery tour from ancient Bethlehem to the colder climes of a contemporary North Pole. Here they are surrounded by an exotic cast of industrious elves, magic workshops, holly and ivy, mistletoe and wine, Yule logs and reindeer.
It’s a tortuous trajectory that somehow manages to throw A Christmas Carol, The Night Before Christmas – the latter written by Episcopal minister Clement Clarke Moore – ghost stories, the Grinch and the crossdressing annual pantomime into the mix.
The miraculous fact of the Saviour’s birth is, however, overlooked. The sign outside someone’s house might say ‘Santa, stop here!’ but Jesus, it would appear, is politely asked to move on!
Whether it’s heavenly queens, an unspecified number of Orient kings, obese gift givers, distracting dates, the Son of Man confined to his crib, or the non-biblical but lucrative trappings of tinsel, gift tags, stockings and trees, from all such distractions – to misquote Dicken’s Tiny Tim – may ‘God spare us, every one!’
The Bible makes no mention of three ships sailing by in landlocked Bethlehem and doesn’t even refer to Mary travelling on a little donkey. The only ass said to have been ridden by her appears in the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James – a 2nd-century infancy gospel that also describes her ‘Immaculate Conception’!
Nor does the Bible mention oxen and asses gathering around Jesus’ crib, though they do appear in another apocryphal text – the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. Also known as The Infancy Gospel of Matthew, it’s a non-biblical, possibly 7th-century text.
There are no halls decked with boughs of holly, noisy little drummer boys, or bleak midwinters (why would the Romans order a census at possibly the worst time of the year for travelling?).
Even the roomless ‘inn’ referred to in Luke 2:7 is more likely to have been a relative’s house with a ground-floor guest room than a lowly stable.
What there is, however, is the luminous glory of the heavenly throng, Jesus’ miraculous conception, Joseph’s dutiful acceptance, Mary’s servant-hearted obedience, the shepherds’ and Magi’s obeisance, and the eternal call for sinners to bow the knee and be born again.
Rather than accepting some of the white lies associated with a romantic ‘white Christmas’, may your experience of this blessed but problematic season not only be ‘merry and bright’, but filled with the light of God’s goodness, truth and love.
* A gonk is a Nordic gnome or hobgoblin with a long bushy beard and knitted hat that, because of its apparent resemblance to Father Christmas, has become increasingly popular.
** Krampus is a horned anthropomorphic figure who, in the Central and Eastern Alpine folkloric tradition, is said to accompany Saint Nicholas on visits to children.
