C

hristmas is the most wonderful

time of the year. But for the
Christian, it’s not the gifts
under the tree, the twinkling lights
illuminating downtown, or even the
festive feasts with loved ones that
define it. It’s when we contemplate
on the birth of Jesus Christ--Son of
Man and Son of God--and the greater
purpose of His existence.

In this book, you’ll find a range of

reflections on the Christmas story and
season from our regular contributors,
including Scot McKnight, Josh
Daffern, Ben Witherington, Gene Veith
and more.

We wish a Merry Christmas to you

and yours and hope this collection
will bring deeper meaning to your
holidays.
[From an old WORLD column]

A
ccording to conventional wisdom, Christmas had its origin in a pagan winter solstice festival,
which the church co-opted to promote the new religion. In doing so, many of the old pagan
customs crept into the Christian celebration. But this view is apparently a historical myth—
like the stories of a church council debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or that
medieval folks believed the earth is flat—often repeated, even in classrooms, but not true.

William J. Tighe, a history professor at Muhlenberg College, gives a different account in his article
“Calculating Christmas,” published in the December 2003 Touchstone Magazine. He points out that
the ancient Roman religions had no winter solstice festival.

True, the Emperor Aurelian, in the five short years of his reign, tried to start one, “The Birth of the
Unconquered Sun,” on Dec. 25, 274. This
festival, marking the time of year when the
length of daylight began to increase, was
designed to breathe new life into a declining
paganism. But Aurelian’s new festival was
instituted after Christians had already been
associating that day with the birth of Christ.
According to Mr. Tighe, the Birth of the
Unconquered Sun “was almost certainly an
attempt to create a pagan alternative to a
date that was already of some significance
to Roman Christians.” Christians were not
imitating the pagans. The pagans were
imitating the Christians.

The early church tried to ascertain the

actual time of Christ’s birth. It was all tied
up with the second-century controversies
over setting the date of Easter, the
Medieval painting of the Nativity by the Master of Vyšší Brod,c. 1350 commemoration of Christ’s death and

3
resurrection. That date should have been an easy one. Though Easter is also charged with having its
origins in pagan equinox festivals, we know from Scripture that Christ’s death was at the time of the
Jewish Passover. That time of year is known with precision.

But differences in the Jewish, Greek, and Latin calendars and the inconsistency between lunar and
solar date-keeping caused intense debate over when to observe Easter. Another question was whether
to fix one date for the Feast of the Resurrection no matter what day it fell on or to ensure that it
always fell on Sunday, “the first day of the week,” as in the Gospels.

This discussion also had a bearing on fixing the day of Christ’s birth. Mr. Tighe, drawing on the in-
depth research of Thomas J. Talley’s The Origins of the Liturgical Year, cites the ancient Jewish belief
(not supported in Scripture) that God appointed for the great prophets an “integral age,” meaning
that they died on the same day as either their birth or their conception.

Jesus was certainly considered a great prophet, so those church fathers who wanted a Christmas
holiday reasoned that He must have been either born or conceived on the same date as the first
Easter. There are hints that some Christians originally celebrated the birth of Christ in March or
April. But then a consensus arose to celebrate Christ’s conception on March 25, as the Feast of the
Annunciation, marking when the angel first appeared to Mary.
Note the pro-life point: According to
both the ancient Jews and the early Christians, life begins at conception. So if Christ was conceived on
March 25, nine months later, he would have been born on Dec. 25.

This celebrates Christ’s birth in the darkest time of the year. The Celtic and Germanic tribes, who
would be evangelized later, did mark this time in their “Yule” festivals, a frightening season when
only the light from the Yule log kept the darkness at bay. Christianity swallowed up that season
of depression with the opposite message of joy: “The light [Jesus] shines in the darkness, and the
darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

Regardless of whether this was Christ’s actual birthday, the symbolism works. And Christ’s birth is
inextricably linked to His resurrection.

4
T
he Christmas classic Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer invents an Island of Misfit Toys. These
rejects garner sympathy and eventually Rudolph prevails on Santa to give them to children.

This was cruel of Rudolph.

The “misfit” toys are in toy classes: some are just different, but others are broken. A “jelly squirt gun”
might be clever, but a train with square wheels is going to be disappointing. If Rudolph were kind,
he would have the Elves whittle down the wheels of the square-wheeled train and make it work
properly. If this were  not possible, the solution was not to pawn the broken toy off on a kid stuck
with a broken train when he wanted a working one, but to find some other use for animate toys that
did not work well as toys.

If there ever was a time when conformity was praised and being misfit was difficult, this is not that
time. We all claim Misfit Toy status, not so we can be repaired, but so we can lord it over all the
“normal” toys. I am a misfit and am sorry for it. I ask Jesus to make me a fit for his Kingdom. May I
become less a fit for this age and more a fit for the age to come!

Moderation, a virtue ancient philosophers thought might be the greatest, is boring. We are radical
for everything: including Jesus, except when that radicalism would cause us to call for holiness or a
virtue that implied someone was a misfit. The only way I know to “fit in” in my academic sub-culture
is to cultivate foibles and to accept the foibles of others.

Against this stands Christmas. Christmas with its vast traditions, the same year after year, is an act
of conformity. We put up a tree and decorate it with decorations from the past. We read the ancient
story as our Fathers and Mothers read it before our time. If we follow the Church calendar, then we
moderate our appetites in the Advent fast. This is as it should be since God Himself took on human
flesh and conformed in all ways to our nature.

He was not a misfit, but fully and utterly a human. The misfits killed Him for it rather than face the
hard truth.

Are there still pastors brave enough to preach, in conformity with history, the Second Coming as

5
a prelude to our memory of the First? At that Great and Terrible Day, if we have not let the Spirit
whittle down our square wheels, we are likely to be put with the goats and not with the sheep. Of
course it is true that our sinful natures cannot change, if we are ourselves we are misfits for Paradise,
but that is why God gives us the chance to get a new nature. Someday our old nature will once for all
be truly dead and our new nature fully conformed to His divine, good, and beautiful nature will live
forever.

I do not want to conform to my culture, my political party, my class, or my times. I want to conform
to the Will of God. How to know that will? I know it by reason, experience, and sacred tradition.
If I veer too far from the ancient ways, and pretend to have found a new one, then I am like those
trendy souls who are always improving Christmas only to see their holiday innovations (Socko the
Snowball!) fade with time.

The day will come when “Rudolph” will vanish as the holiday innovation he is. The Christ child and
the manger will remain. Christ is born! Glorify Him!

The Misfit Toys from the Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Movie. A Rankin and Bass Production (1964)

6
C hristmas has one more glorious day: the
Twelfth Day. Jesus is born, angels have
appeared, shepherds come to Bethlehem,
and now the wise make it to worship the new
King.

The creche is complete at last as is our feast. We

end in twelve . . . and that is fitting. We will,
after all, end history with Twelve Patriarchs and
Twelve Apostles and end this holy season after
twelve full days of celebration. Yet a glorious,
super-abundant God finishes one good thing just
to start the next. All the way to Candlemas after
the feast of Epiphany, the churches of the world
encourage jollification.

We work and play in holiday times. We turn our

minds to the triumph of the Church, victory in
Jesus, and the beauties of the cosmos and the
paradise to come.

If times of Advent and Lent must come before Jesus shows us the entire finished work, the Church
reminds us that the fast is for the feast. The Church, after all, gave us more holidays than most of our
workplaces or the state!

Yet still this feast, my personal favorite, is finishing up and that is bittersweet. It makes me thirsty for
more, though I know that I cannot stay here. There is good to cleaning up the decorations and doing
some deep cleaning. Yet still it would be the greatest wonder if having gained Twelve, we can stay
under the rule of the wise: apostles, patriarchs, and King Jesus on the throne. That would be the best
finish and it is surely coming.

Jesus says: “It is finished” on the Cross, but the phrase also occurs in Revelation:

7
 6
 And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the
End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. 7 All who are
victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.

8
 “But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft,
idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second
death.”

Jesus completed His work on Earth by giving up His life on the Cross, but the day is coming
when we will all see the total work Jesus finished.

As my dad says at the end of a visit or any party: “All good things . . . ” and we know to fill in “must
come to an end.” This is true in time. Jesus came and then He finished His work. All good things . .
. but Jesus was not just man (though Jesus was fully human), Jesus was God. When He finished His
work, Jesus made possible this hope: we can inherit blessings that will never end.

God will be our God and we will be God’s children!

He has taught us to thirst and will provide springs of waters of life.

Note, however, that if we sate ourselves, then we will never be thirsty for that good water. Cowards
save their lives and so lose the life to come. The corrupt sell their morals for money and so get their
reward now and have none in the Kingdom. Every vice we use to avoid the real world, finding false
gods, doing tricks, refusing reality for our fantasies, will damn us.

If we will not thirst, then the living water of life will be to us a fiery lake of burning sulfur. To the
sated man even honey is bitter and the water that should give life will give death if we demand it.
Everyone can say “no” and God is good, so “no” means “no.”

The best news is that reason, experience, and beauty can unite now and we can avoid such a fate. If we
have spent our lives refusing to feast or fast, refusing to become thirsty and drink the living water,
there is still time. As I write this, there is still time for me. As you read, there is time for you. Let’s
keep the feast one time well and like the wise men bow to reality and find His rule, given to us by
Twelve,  this blessed Twelfth Night.

8
R
elics and indulgences weren’t the only casualties of the Reformation. So was Christmas.

Christmas was an important feast and saint day in the centuries leading up to the
Reformation. Its saint, Nicholas, the bishop of Myra in the early fourth century, loomed large in
the Middle Age imagination. In fact, according to Gerry Bowler, Nicholas was the most powerful
male saint on the church calendar. He was the patron saint of apothecaries, Austrians, bakers,
barrel-makers, boatmen, Belgians, boot-blacks, brewers, brides, butchers, and button-makers. This
abbreviated list only gets us through the B’s!

Over the next millennium, St. Nicholas gradually became

associated with gift-giving more than beer and buttons. In
the twelfth century, nuns began placing gifts in the shoes
of little children on St. Nicholas’s Eve. The saint became
an enchanting night-time benefactor—kind of like today’s
Santa Claus, except with religious overtones.

The Reformation, however, nearly killed St. Nicholas’s

association with Christmas. On Christmas Day in 1550, an
irritated John Calvin saw a larger-than-usual crowd at his
church in Geneva. He said, “Now I see here today more
people than I am accustomed to having at the sermon.
Why is that? It is Christmas Day. And who told you this?
You poor beasts. That is a fitting euphemism for all of you
who have come here today to honor Noel.” Calvin was
saying that his parishioners had been duped by Catholic
superstition into thinking that Christmas was more
important than any other church gathering.
Sinterklaas — courtesy of Gaby Kooiman and
Wikimedia Commons Other reformers agreed. Under Farel, Viret, and Zwingli,
Geneva abolished all feast and saints’ days. According to
one historian of the Reformation, “All special days sanctioned and revered by Rome were set aside.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith similarly stated, “The acceptable way of worshiping the true

9
God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped
according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible
representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.” Christmas, a relic of the cult
of saints, was just too Catholic in its extra-biblical prescriptions.

Martin Luther, a less-dour reformer, rescued Christmas. Wanting to transfer attention from the
Catholic Saint Nick to Jesus, he depicted the Christ Child as the bringer of a very special gift. “No
secular gift is strong enough to make the heart content,” he wrote. “Money or wealth can not do
it, nor can sensuality. But whoever believes in (the miracle of Christmas), must be happy from
the bottom of his heart.” To commemorate this gift, he gave his children toys and honey cakes at
Christmas. Merchants, purveyors of the Protestant work ethic, loved it.

Catholic dissenters in the Netherlands also kept the tradition alive. At St. Nicholas fairs, vendors sold
toys and big cookies in the shape of the saint. Despite orders by Protestant clergy to close them down,
parents persisted in delighting their children. In America, Anglicans kept Christmas, even as the
Puritans and Presbyterians refused to recognize the holiday.

We now live in the midst of an evangelical-Catholic détente. Many evangelicals, recognizing the
beauty of smells and bells, are turning to Rome and Canterbury. Jamie Smith calls us to recover
meaningful cultural and religious liturgies. Progressive evangelicals hail Pope Francis. Evangelical
culture warriors make common cause with traditionalist Catholics. And we all give thanks that the
excesses of the Reformation didn’t kill Christmas in the end.

10
I
f you’ve ever heard the Christmas story retold or watched it dramatized on film, you may not
have realized how many myths were added to the story found in the Gospels . In this piece, I
address some of them.

The Date of Christ’s Birth

Jesus was born “before Christ” (B.C.). Probably 4 or 5 B.C. As for His birthday being December 25th,
this is unlikely. For the church’s first three centuries, the Lord’s birth wasn’t celebrated in December.
If it was observed at all, it was lumped in with Epiphany on January 6th.  While it’s possible that
Jesus was born in the winter, this is uncertain. In short, the exact day of Jesus’ birth is unknown.


It is for this reason that the early Christians ended up confiscating a pagan holiday to celebrate the
Lord’s birth, thus redeeming the day – December 25th – for Christ. The early writers of the church
disagreed on the Lord’s birth date. Some like Clement of Alexandria argued that He was born on May
20th. Others like Hippolytus argued He was born on January 12. Other proposed dates were March
21, March 25, April 18, April 19, May 29, November 17, and November 20. The eventual choice of
December 25th was chosen as early as A.D. 273.

No Room at the Inn

Luke’s phrase “there was no room at the inn” is often taken to mean that Mary and Joseph couldn’t
find a local Hilton in town. But this is highly doubtful. Bethlehem was a very small village with no
major roads. So a traveler’s inn would have been extremely unlikely. In addition, Luke doesn’t use
the common word for hotel inn (pandeion) that he uses other places. Instead, he uses a word that
means guest room (kataluma). It’s the same word that he used to describe the place where Jesus took
the last supper.

It’s far more likely that since Bethlehem was Joseph’s ancestoral home, he had relatives there. And
because of the census taking place at the time, none of his relatives had any room in their guest
11
quarters. Guest rooms were typically in the front of houses and the animal shelters were in the back
of the house or the lower level (in a cave). In the family shelter, the family animals were fed and
protected at night from the cold, thieves, and predators. So Joseph and Mary were lodged on the
lower level or in the back of the house—the animal shelter. Most likely, the animals were removed
while the couple lodged there. (There is no mention of animals in Luke’s or Matthew’s account. St.
Francis is credited with building the first manger scene complete with live animals.)

Three Kings

You’ve heard the line “these three kings.” Well, there were no kings in the Gospel story of Jesus’
birth. The Magi were not kings as commonly understood. They were oriental priests schooled in
esoteric arts, dream interpretation, astrology, reading animal parts to predict the future, etc. They
were consultants—counselors and advisers to royalty. Their search for Jesus could only bring them
to Jerusalem. They needed divine revelation to take them to Bethlehem. The Magi came to honor the
new born King were probably in shock when they discovered He would be born in the place where
animals were kept.

Also, we are not sure how many of the Magi visited Bethlehem to honor Jesus. The text only says
that they brought three gifts. It does not say that there were three Magi. In addition, Matthew tells us
that they didn’t arrive until after Jesus was born. They may have arrived and/or stayed well after the
birth since Herod was concerned with male infants that were up to two years old—so much so that he
ordered their deaths. (Josephus tells us that Herod had several members of his own family murdered
around the same time because he was paranoid of plots against his life.)

The Death of the Hebrew Infants

In nativity films, we have the image that when Herod ordered
the deaths of all the male infants, that thousands of Jewish
mothers were wailing because of the loss of their babies. But
this is unlikely. Because Bethlehem was extremely tiny, the
number of infants that were up to two years old was very
small—perhaps less than 10.

After the census, Joseph, Mary, and the child probably moved
from the animal shelter and stayed in one of the guest rooms
with their relatives when the Magi arrived. Matthew 2:11 says
the Magi came to a “house” and found the baby there. The
Magi’s presence at the Lord’s birth in giving gifts and honor The Flight into Egypt
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937)

12
seems to foreshadow that this Jewish Messiah would also be Savior to the Gentiles.

The Virgin Birth

Perhaps greater than the supernatural phenomena surrounding the birth of Jesus (the way the Magi
were led, the chorus of angels praising, etc.) was the miracle in the way that Jesus was conceived. We
often hear the phrase “the virgin birth.” While a virgin did give birth to the Messiah, the real miracle
was in the conception. We are in full agreement with the ancient Christians that Jesus Christ was born
of a virgin (Matt. 1:18-22; Luke 1:34).

For details on this question, see Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13 (WBC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1993), 21; Craig Keener, A Commentary on Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 81-95; Craig
Blomberg, Matthew (NAC; Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 56-61; Ben Witherington, “The Birth of
Jesus,” Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1992).

The Old Testament prophets were not silent about our Lord’s birth. They predicted that Jesus would
be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). That He would be born from a virgin (Isa. 7:14), He would crush
the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15; Matt. 16:18; Rom. 16:20), and He would be a blessing to all the
nations (Gen. 22:18; Gal. 3:16). He would be the root and offspring of David (2 Sam. 7:12ff; Acts 2:30;
2 Tim. 2:8; Rev. 22:5) and come from the royal line of Judah (Gen. 49:10; Rev. 5:5). He would be a son,
a child, and sit on the throne of David forever (Isa. 9:6-7). They predicted (foreshadowed) that He
would be called out of Egypt by God, His Father (Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:13-18), and He would be raised in
the despised town of Nazareth in the fameless region of Galilee, for they prophesied that “he shall be
called a Nazarene” (John 1:46; 7:52; Matt. 2:23).

Let me end this somewhat longish post with some comic relief. Click here to listen to my favorite
Christmas spoof song.

13
T
he message of Christmas is the message of Impossible Odds.

Advent is the time of waiting for Christmas, for the incarnation of God in Christ, for the long-
awaited hope of God’s kingdom, and for peace and justice and love and wisdom.

But our longing often enough misses the Impossible Odds of what God was doing.

Take Joseph. Matthew’s Gospel, for the 1st Century Jew, tells the story of a righteous man (a zaddik),
Joseph, who was known for three major requirements: Joseph new the Torah, Joseph knew the
interpretations of that Torah (called sometimes the “traditions” or “rulings” or the “halakhah”), and
he lived the Torah as it was interpreted in the traditions. That way of life gave Joseph a reputation as
a “righteous man” (Matthew 1:19).

Then take Mary. Luke’s Gospel tells us that this young woman was profoundly devout — an angel
visited her, an angel announced to her she would be the mother of God’s Son, Mary consented to this
promise and reality, Mary then sang a song that is nothing
less than a breathtaking romp through Israel’s hopes for the
kingdom of God creating a mosaic of Jewish hope for God’s
kingdom — justice for the poor and holiness for God’s
people all rooted in God’s utter faithfulness to the promise
to Abraham.

Take Jesus. No, before we get to Jesus, let’s go back.

Joseph is visited, too, by an angel and the angel announces

to him what he told Mary: Mary would be the mother of
the Messiah and that would mean he, Joseph, would be the
father of the Messiah. But this is where it gets to Impossible
Odds.

One. Joseph chooses to marry a disgraced woman (pregnant

before marriage). He knew the Torah well enough and the
The Annunciation
Luca Giordano (1632–1705)

14
traditions well enough that many would question his commitment to the Torah and would devalue
Mary as disgraced.

Two. Mary would be forever known as a Jewish girl pregnant before marriage. Disgraced. One of
Israel’s 1st Century Hester Prinns. Scarlet letter or not, she was disgraced. The villages were too
small not to know — and surrounding villages would also have known. The rumor mill would have
wondered if she had been raped or seduced. Either way, many would have thought she was unfit for
a righteous man.

Three. Jesus. He would be known among his peers and the families of Nazareth and surrounding
villages as a mamzer, an illegitimate child.

Three people with less than a top notch reputation in social circles: a righteous man who chose to
marry a disgraced woman; a woman pregnant before marriage; and the child, forever classed as
illegitimate. Notice the seeming slur at work in this line: “son of Mary” [not “son of Joseph”] (Mark
6:3).

But right here, among this little trinity of troubled stories, God begins kingdom work.

Those are Impossible Odds because none of us would choose these conditions to create a spiritual,
religious, and social revolution. A kingdom revolution begun in a family seen as anything but an
ideal family in Galilee.

Christmas is a message that God has entered into the depths of our condition in order to redeem us
from our condition. No matter our conditions, God’s been there and brings hope.

This post is part of a special Patheos conversation: Modern Magi on the Meaning of Christmas.

Featuring Nadia Bolz-Weber, Billy Kangas, Kyle Roberts and yours truly. 

Here are their blog links:

Nadia Bolz-Weber:  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/

Billy Kangas:            http://www.patheos.com/blogs/billykangas/

Kyle Roberts:            http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unsystematictheology/

15
 C hrist is born and the fast of Advent is done.
Today the party’s just starting with ten
day of Christmas untouched and yet to
enjoy! Yet today in her wisdom, God used history
to remind us that the party will end.

Jesus was born, lived, died, and then rose from the

dead. He ascended into Heaven and His friends
were empowered by God to enter the Kingdom
of Heaven. Things were very good in the early
church.

Sadly, nothing is so good that somebody will not

be offended, worried about their power, and ready
to ruin the party. So it was with the early Church
and Saint Stephen. His main job was to distribute
food to widows and the poor. This shouldn’t
have offended anyone, but he was also very, very
smart and eloquent.

The establishment decided he was better off dead.

1476 — The Demidoff Altarpiece: Saint Stephen —Image
by © National Gallery Collection; By kind permission of
the Trustees of the National Gallery, London/CORBIS
martyr of the church.
The problem for the establishment is that Stephen
was better off dead. They took a good man and
made him a great man. They found Deacon
Stephen and made him Saint Stephen, the first

The mistake that tyrants always make is to kill a fine man and make him a legend. Ask Cromwell
with Charles Stuart or Lenin with Nicholas II. Don’t kill the man, because you leave him to God and
God can always do more with a dying man than a living one.

Why? We fail so often because of time. Time wears us down and we make bad choices that we

16
otherwise would not make. When we are focussed on one choice at the singular moment when we
are either in or out of the Kingdom of God, we tend to throw ourselves on the grace of God. At that
moment, when we have freely given our will to God, divine power can transform us. Years of work
can be done in a moment.

The martyr can live a lifetime in one moment and gain the holiness of decades in one key choice.
Saint Stephen was beaten down with stones, first He saw God, and then he gained the power to love
all of humanity. He forgave those killing him. He saw Christ and then Christ was born again. As the
last stone hit him, and Stephen slumped to the ground, his next waking thought was Jesus and the
glory of the Kingdom of God.

There was no more pain, no injustice, only a feast.

God is reminding us today that all they can do is kill us, but that the real Holiday will never end. 

17
H
old off with the pitchforks and burning
crosses for a moment. Let’s talk. Churches
are in a quandary this year, as Christmas
falls on a Sunday. Because of the high amount
of travel and family nature of this special day,
churches are asking themselves: do we still have
Sunday services on Christmas Day? The few blog
posts I’ve read so far unequivocally say ‘yes,’ and
either subliminally or outrightly dare anyone else to
cross this imaginary line of heresy. I guess it makes
unsplash.com
some feel better to puff their chests and look down
at the lesser than’s that caved to society and compromised the gospel by canceling services.

Well, here’s the counter argument. Here’s the other perspective. Here’s why our church is canceling
services this Christmas day. It’s not because our theology is liberal (we’re more conservative than
most). It’s not because our church is dying (we’ve baptized close to 50 people this year and we’re
baptizing two more next Sunday). And it’s not just because it’s the rebellious thing to do. We are
different, but we’re different on purpose. Here’s why we’re canceling services on Christmas day:

1. We traditionally give our church the last Sunday of the calendar year off. Our tradition is to give
our church one Sunday off a year, the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s. Traditions aren’t
necessarily a bad thing, as long as they don’t become everything. Traditions are meant to serve you,
not strangle you (that’s tweetable right there).

We give our folks one Sunday off because we believe in the Sabbath. We’re a volunteer heavy church.
We don’t just have a few key volunteers. We find a place for everyone. We ask everyone to attend
service for one hour and serve one hour on Sunday mornings (and attend a LifeGroup during the
week). Because we ask so much, we take one Sunday off as a way to honor them, to give them a rest,
to let them know that we don’t take their service for granted. It also has the benefit of resting and
recharging them for January, which is always a high attendance month. We want our folks fired up
and ready to go come January, not wore out and on fumes. Canceling church on a traditionally low
attended Sunday has benefitted us greatly in that respect, and this year the last Sunday of the year is
December 25.

18
2. We’re holding multiple Christmas Eve services. Obviously celebrating Christ’s birth during the
time associated with it is an opportunity for spiritual impact. Although we don’t know when he was
born and most scholars agree it probably wasn’t December 25, the Christmas season is an opportunity
that shouldn’t be squandered. So we’re not. One of the highest attended services of the year is not
Christmas day but Christmas Eve, which this year falls on a Saturday. So we’re leveraging that high
attendance event to present the hope of the gospel in Jesus. Because it is a tradition but not a biblical
mandate to meet every single Sunday morning (that would be awkward for all the Saturday night
services out there), we’re not going to guilt our church into showing up 12 hours after Christmas Eve
services for another round. Our celebration and remembrance happened on Christmas Eve. We don’t
feel it’s necessary to show up again the next day just to say we did.

3. We want to be as pro family as possible. One blog post I read suggested that if churches cancel
services on Christmas and use the excuse of family time that it would be making family an idol. Well,
when you throw in a nice buzzword like ‘idol,’ no one wants to do that. But what’s the idol in that
scenario: family (ordained by God starting in Genesis 2) or a worship service held in a bricks and
mortar building (a Christian tradition for centuries on end)? The family is the first institution created
by God, before government, before nations, before religion itself. We can trace the majority of the ills
of society to a break down of the family unit.

So as a church we’ve decided to be as pro family as possible. That means we don’t clutter our
calendar with programs just to day we did. We want to leave time for families to be together. That
means we have programs where families can interact together and not immediately separate into
their different age groups upon entering the church building. And it means we honor the quality
family time that happens on Christmas morning. Lord knows families don’t spend enough time
together. I believe it honors God just as much for families to be together at home on Christmas
morning as it does for them to load up the car and attend a service in a brick and mortar building that
we think is the church (come on now, we know the church isn’t a building, don’t we)? Family time is
increasingly scarce these days. Christmas morning is one of the few days left, and we want to honor
it, because we want to honor the family unit.

So, that’s why we’re canceling services on Christmas day. We’re not doing it simply to thumb our
nose at church tradition or to ‘stick it to the man’ (which would be Jesus I guess in this scenario and
highly unadvisable). We’re doing it for very specific (and we would argue meaningful) reasons. If you
want to hold services on Christmas morning, rock them out. But there’s no need to judge those who
hold a different opinion. We’re all on the same team here.

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INCOGNITO

He came in incognito,
A thinly veiled disguise
The not so subtle son of man,
A human with God’s
eyes.

The messianic secret,
Left many unawares
A God had walked upon the earth
And shared our human
cares.

We did not see his glory,
At least not at first glimpse,
It took an Easter wake up call,
Before it all made
sense.

The truth of Incarnation,
Of dwelling within flesh,
Shows goodness in creation,
And Word of God
made fresh.

Standing on the boundary
Twixt earth and heaven above
A Jew who hailed from Nazareth
But came
from God’s great love.

Born of humble parents,
Installed inside a stall
This king required no entourage
No pomp or falderal

No person was beneath him
No angel o’er his head,
He came to serve the human race
To raise it from
the dead.

His death a great conundrum,
How can the Deathless die?
But if he had not bowed his head,
Life
would have passed us by.

Though we are dying to be loved,
And long for endless life,
He was dying in his love,
And thereby
ending strife.
Perhaps the incognito
Belongs instead to us,
Who play at being human,
And fail to be
gold dust.

But there was once a God-man
Who played the human’s part
And lived and died and rose
again
Made sin and death depart.

Yes now through a glass dimly,
We see the visage royal
And feebly honor his great worth
And his

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atoning toil.

We cannot see his Spirit,
But moved by its effects
We are inspired to praise his worth
And pay our last
respects.

Yet that too brings him glory
That too makes a start,
The journey of a million miles
Begins within
one’s heart.

And someday we shall see him
And fully praise his grace,
Someday when heaven and earth
collide
And we see face to face.

He comes in blinding brilliance,
A not so veiled disguise
The not so subtle Son of God,
A God with
human eyes.

May Day 2005

THEOLOGICAL MUSINGS

How many times do we hear these days— ‘just make it simple’, or ‘put the cookies on the bottom
shelf’ or even ‘dumb it down’? Whatever you may think of this sort of approach to pedagogy, it
certainly does not comport with Jesus’ approach to self-revelation, or for that matter the Gospel
writers’ approaches. They were all about teasing one’s mind into active thought, rather than over-
simplifying things. They were all about forcing the audience to reach for it, so that their reach would
extend further than their grasp. They were all about forcing us to concentrate, or as Jesus put it “let
those with two good ears, hear”. Revelation of profound things, as it turns out involves mystery,
incognito, and secrets revealed at great cost and in amazing ways. It requires boiling up the people,
not boiling down the revelation if it is to be understood.


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It is doubtful that there was a widespread expectation in early Judaism for a messianic figure who
would call himself ‘the Son of Man’, and almost certainly no one was expecting a crucified and risen
Son of Man. Jesus, it would seem did not come to meet people’s expectations, but rather their needs,
and in so doing he decided to reveal his real nature and God’s real plan in his own way, on his own
terms, without conforming to pre-set or simple formulas. Indeed, one NT scholar, Eduard Schweizer
once said Jesus is the man who fits no one formula, the man who can’t be stereotyped or pigeon-
holed. It is thus not surprising that Jesus is not always, or in every way easy to understand. In fact
one can say that while many profound theological ideas and truths can be stated clearly, this does not
mean that they are easily understood.

There is a further problem as well, of which Paul is cognizant and refers to in 2 Cor. 3. He speaks of
the veil over the human heart which prevents people from seeing Christ as he is, seeing his glory. But
not only do we have to deal with our own spiritual obtuseness, there is the further problem that we,
as fallen creatures, often are not ‘ourselves’ or better put not our best and authentic selves. We play at
being human, we pretend to be honest and forthcoming, but much of the time we are actually hiding
behind one persona or another, one incognito or another. We have a hard time letting people see our
real ‘face’ indeed we have a hard time facing it ourselves.

In this sort of darkness, and dealing with truths that take us clearly out of our depths, Karl Barth’s
wisdom becomes all the more clear when he said that God, even God in Christ, can only be known
as he reveals himself, and even then there must be a transformation and indeed conversion of our
imagination and understanding if we are to understand the revelation as well. In other words
revelation without transformation of our understanding and our hearts avails for nothing. One more
thing. While we clearly understand Jesus better now with the benefit of hindsight than at least some
of the disciples did before Easter, it is also true that even we only know in part. There will come a day
when faith will become sight, but for now only believing leads to seeing, not the other way around,
when it comes to the divine incognito.

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I
was looking at one of the nativities in
our house today, and thinking about
how different it is from what Mary and
Joseph actually experienced. As I did, I thought
about the song Away in a Manger, and the
unbelievable lyric The little Lord Jesus, no
crying he makes…

I’m pretty sure the baby Jesus cried. A lot.

The glass figurines in our little manger scene

look so calm and peaceful as the light catches Photo Credit: Ryan Lokkesmoe
them. A lot of nativities look like that. But
that’s not how the Bible describes the birth of Jesus. It was not a tranquil scene.

It was a hectic one.

First of all, a dictator named Caesar forced Mary and Joseph to pack up and travel 70 miles on foot
from Nazareth to Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-5). This happened right before Mary was due to give birth. It
was a long, arduous, and dirty trek – to say nothing of the constant danger of being robbed.

I’m sure Joseph loved having to tell Mary about their upcoming road trip. “Hi honey, I know you’re
in your 9th month of pregnancy, but how about a nice long bumpy ride on the back of a donkey?”

On the heels of all the social controversy over Mary’s mysterious pregnancy, I’m sure that little piece
of news was the icing on the cake.

Mary and Joseph would have been completely worn out when they finally stumbled into Bethlehem.
After they did, Mary went into labor and they had the incredibly stressful (and time-sensitive) task
of finding a place to deliver God’s Son. As the Bible records in Luke 2, there was no room for them
in the inn, so they had to improvise. That meant that they would be meeting their son in the ancient
equivalent of a barn. What about the manger itself? Well, it was not some cozy little bassinet for Jesus
to rest in, that’s for sure. It was a feed trough for animals. It was dirty, and smelled, and probably had

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half-eaten food in it. Joseph would have had to swat flies out of his face as he delivered his adopted
son.

If that wasn’t enough, some strangers wandered up in the middle of all of this, asking to meet
the baby. They happened to be shepherds – people at the bottom of the totem pole in that society.
Shepherds were not well-respected people at the time, and probably lived their lives just barely above
destitution. They worked outside, alone, for long stretches of time. They probably smelled too.

Not exactly the kind of regal guests you would expect at the birth of God’s Son. You see, the real
manger scene was a stressful one. A smelly one. A humble one. An unexpected one.

No one would have expected the Savior of the world to be born into a poor, relatively unknown
family from a backwater town like Nazareth. No one would have expected God’s own Son to make
his first appearance surrounded by the smell of animals.

No one would have expected God’s angelic heralds to make the glorious,
earthshattering announcement of his Son’s arrival to a bunch of lowly shepherds. But as they were
watching their flocks like they did every night, the majestic angels appeared with this spine-tingling
announcement:

Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town
of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find
a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host
appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace
to men on whom his favor rests. (Luke 2:10-14)

Those are the circumstances in which the Son of God made his appearance. As the Apostle Paul wrote
to the Philippians, Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made
himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. (Philippians 2:6-
7) Jesus being born in that manger was our first, real glimpse at what God “making himself nothing”
actually looks like. Jesus made himself lower than we would ever expect, and through his death and
resurrection three decades later, rose higher than we could ever imagine.

But it all started with Mary and Joseph’s difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and the stinky,
stressful little manger scene that awaited them. 

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