Chaplain's Corner

One week from today the much anticipate day will arrive. Christmas 2008 will come and it will go. It will last the same 24 hours as every other day of every other year since the creation of time. Depending on the calendar one uses and overlooking the intellectual debates over the exact date of Jesus’ birth, it will be the 2008th time (give or take a few) that this event has been celebrated, the first thirty-something times it was whatever celebrating a Jewish family may have done as a family member ages. For most of the next 350 years the church did not recognize a holiday nor celebrate any feast associated with the birth of Christ. In 221 A.D. a fellow named Sextus Julius Africanus popularized the idea that Christ was born on December 25 in his Chronographiai, a reference book for Christians. However it wasn’t till around 400 A.D. that this date seemed to be generally observed by Christians. However history finds Christian leaders denouncing the celebration at the same time the Chronographiai was published and there have been regular denunciations of the celebration of this day to this very day. A cursory internet search will yield many articles decrying Christian participation in this holiday that many believe to be secular and pagan rather than Christian.

Yet for the most part, the church continues to set the day aside for the celebration of the birth of Christ and for the most part many Canadians seek each year to recreate Currier and Ive’s like scenes although in reality Christmas day is more along the lines of the Grinch who Stole Christmas. In most of our homes we will simply go through the motions of our holiday traditions with most of us feeling more than a bit disappointed by the failure of all these traditions to meet our deepest needs or to live up to our idealized expectation.

Not unlike the shepherds who were the first to receive news of Jesus’ birth, we long for the angels message of “Glory to God in the highest and peace to men on whom his favor rests” to be our own experience. Instead, the familiar carols sung by the same musicians that we heard about having an affair on Entertainment Tonight last week just ring so hollow. Who can take seriously the words, “Joy to the world the Lord is come…” when they are being sung by the same country western singer who sings about drinking with the boys and having his way with some woman? How are we to make any sense out of a Presidential Christmas Greeting from a man who has led our neighbor to the south into war on two fronts against “enemies” that are as illusive as the “butterfly of love” that Bob Lind sang about back in the 70’s? How are we to watch CNN on any day of this past year and imagine for a moment that we will ever experience anything remotely approximating “peace on earth”? Such pursuits are part of the delusion of our age, an almost universal state of denial that must constantly be patched and repaired as the obvious impossibility of peace on the earth as we know it becomes obvious to us every day.

Is it any wonder that some people are choosing to divorce themselves from the whole mess and are refusing to engage at all in the “Christmas season” as it exists these days? Is it possible to recapture the true significance of the event Christmas commemorates while continuing to engage is the shopping and gift giving and celebrating and parties that are the Christmas of today? Many Christians are asking themselves this question. Never has there been such a wholesale loss of spiritual significance as has taken place around the commemoration of one of the most significant events in all of human history.

The birth of Jesus is more important than the invention of the wheel, or the harnessing of the atom. It is more important than the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. It is more important than the signing of the Declaration of Independence or the Magna Carta or our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is more important than the defeat of the Axis in WW2 or the hoped for capture of Osama Ben Laden. It is more important than the enlightenment brought to the world by Albert Einstein, of infinitely greater importance than the work of Sigmund Freud. The Industrial Revolution and the revolution created by the invention of the micro-chip pale in significance to the coming of Jesus to earth. Christ’s birth makes NASA’s progress in space travel look like little more than a boy playing with Tinker Toys on the living room floor.

Laying aside debates over whether or not Christians should even engage in the December 25th celebration of the birth of Jesus, and those debates are legitimate and worth having; the birth of Jesus around which the Christian Church has built this holy day is one of most significant events in all of human history. I say that for several reasons.

First, because unlike any other person ever born, Jesus existed eternally before his birth. The event in the stable of Bethlehem that we read of in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospel is not the beginning of Jesus’ existence, the claim of the Scriptures is that Jesus existed eternally with the Father and the Spirit. This birth is called the incarnation which means that God took on a human body and to quote the Apostle John’s Gospel, “The Word (this is Jesus) became flesh and dwelt among us…” This is quite a mystery, for it is beyond our comprehension how the infinite God could become a man. Embracing such a truth can only be done if we implicitly trust John’s words to be inspired by God himself.

A second reason I believe the birth of Jesus is one of the most significant events in human history is that this birth took place precisely as God planned it prior to the creation of the world. Although all of human history seems to have been conspired against this event, it took place precisely as God planned it. This birth, having been prophesied centuries prior to it taking place, happened despite many, many unwitting attempts to insure that the prophecies would prove to be false. If one needs any evidence that God providentially and sovereignty controls human history, one only need reflect on how often and how dramatically attempts were made to prevent this event from taking place. Any examination of this reality will point in only one direction: God’s plan will be executed and no one and no thing will be able to thwart it.

A third reason I believe the birth of Jesus is one of the most significant event in human history is that it signals that God’s redemptive plan is soon to be completed. The angel told Joseph, “You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people form their sins.” Humankind’s only hope is redemption: a God designed, God initiated, God executed plan to rescue humans from the certain fate of their depraved inclinations, from their sins.

Frankly, I care little for most of the trappings of the season and see them merely as cultural traditions with little connection to my faith. My wife decorates our home seasonally and I see the Christmas decorations simply as winter decorations. I fear that for most Jesus is little more than a trapping of tradition and this upsets me. If you are kind enough to read these words, thank you. I have no expectation that you will agree and I certainly do not write to convince people that I am right. It is not that I do not hold some things as incontestible truths, but I understand clearly that I posses no power to change the hearts or convictions of others. I write more to reflect personally on issues that stir my heart and if my reflections stir you to reflection, that is all I can hope for. All the rest in my understanding of things lies in the hands of the Almighty. I trust these thoughts will stir some of your own, and if they do I want to encourage you to give some thought as to why the Incarnation is one of the most significant events in human history and consider how you might personally acknowledge this in your heart.