Why Christmas?
Why do we, who don’t believe that Jesus is God incarnate, celebrate Christmas? Why do we show up at church for perhaps just this one time a year and listen with rapt attention to readings from a book not many of us consider holy, or at least only consider holy the way we consider many other writings holy? Why do we release ourselves from our skepticism and rational left brains that tell us about the impossibility of virgin births and the appearance of angels to shepherds in fields where they lay? Why do we, allow ourselves to joyfully sing with reckless abandon the carols that, shall we say, don’t exactly fit with our theology?
The reason we celebrate Christmas, even if we don’t believe that Jesus was the Christ, is because the birth of the baby Jesus reminds us to hope. Christmas reminds us, at the end of every year, when maybe our reserves of hope have dwindled to a small guttering candle, that hope is born and reborn not just every year, but every day, every minute, every second. With the birth of every child, but not just with a child. Every moment of our lives we have the power to choose hope. To birth hope within ourselves. Even when everything around us points to hopelessness.
This year, the story of the magi, the Wise Ones, reminds me particularly about the choice we have to give birth, or rebirth, to hope, to keep hope alive. The Wise Men stopped on their journey to pay homage to King Herod, as was the custom when one was traveling through a king’s realm. They met with Herod, and Herod, whose power was threatened by the birth of this child, said to them, “Hey, can you do us a favor?” He wanted the wise men to come back and tell him exactly where Jesus was so that he could get rid of his political rival. And the Wise Men nodded and told Herod what he wanted to hear, knowing that the evil despot had the power to hold them hostage or withhold his protection as they traveled through his realm. Then they went on their way, following the star. And when they found Jesus, they bowed down before the baby. And then they made a choice. They made a choice. They made a choice not to give in to Herod’s scheming. I imagine that they blew the whistle on Herod’s whole plot by telling Mary and Joseph that their child was in danger. And rather than passing back by Herod’s palace, they went home another way. In that moment before the manger, the Wise Men chose to protect the baby Jesus. They chose to keep hope alive.
This is the message of the Christmas story, and why we who don’t believe in its literal truth celebrate it, year after year. The message is that hope wins. That we can vanquish evil despots by choosing hope. That we can overcome fear by choosing hope. That no matter how dark the night appears, we can light a flickering candle by choosing hope.
So, once again let’s tell the ancient story and, after, go out into the cold, into the dark. Into a world that daily, it seems, becomes more brutish and nasty and mean. Let us take this message of Christmas with us, the message that there is another, better way. Let us, in our living, choose hope. Let us be the Wise Ones, who make the choice to keep hope alive.
