by Roland Wrinkle
Christmas Before I Became a Christian. Forty-seven years ago, I married a cute little Jewish girl. We had four kids. We celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah. I didn’t believe in Christ and she never heard of Torah. We were made for each other. We bought way too many toys for the holidays, celebrated joyously with our extended families, went thoroughly and embarrassingly overboard on all that attends these massive festivals of love, family, friends and craven materialism. Then…I read the bible.
Colossal Holidays With Feet of Clay. It didn’t take too long before I discovered that both
Christmas and Hanukkah—the pivot points of our calendar year–turned out to be relatively
insignificant to the writers of both testaments. I was pretty surprised. The attention we give to them is way out of proportion to their biblical witness. And I read that Jesus warned us that we “have abandoned the commands of God and hold onto the traditions of men” (Mk 7.7) Well, apparently that’s what has happened to Christmas and Hanukkah. Both are Gulliver-sized traditions of men, with Lilliputian biblical foundations.
“Pay No Attention To That Really Little Man Behind The Big Hanakah Curtain!” The real deal festivals in Judaism are the Big Three Pilgrim Festivals—Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost), and Sukkoth (Tabernacles)—and the High Holidays—Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). The bible records God declaring each “a lasting ordinance” and commanded Israel to maintain each as a sacred part of its covenantal obligations with YHWH. All sorts of rituals were established by God, and extensively recounted in large swaths of Torah (the first five books of both the Hebrew and Christian bibles). YHWH also convincingly and repeatedly explained why these observances needed to be observed. There was never any debate among biblical Jews as to how to fill out their holiday calendars. God did it for them.
So, as far as the bible is concerned, what actually constitutes the Hanukkah we celebrate in tandem with Christmas each year? Nada. Zippo. Nowhere to be found. Hanukkah actually celebrates the restoration and rededication of the Temple after it was rampaged and desecrated by the Syrian-Greek Seleucids during the Maccabean Revolt, all as recounted in two deuterocanonical books not found in either Jewish or Protestant bibles (but included, as deuterocanon in the Catholic bible), i.e., 1 and 2 Maccabees. As a relatively minor bit of the story, it is told that some menorahs burned far beyond the point when their fuel would have run out. A miracle…but a junior league miracle. Thus: modern Jews celebrate Hanukkah although it is not found in the Hebrew bible; have made a major holiday out of it, which is wildly disproportionate to its historical and biblical significance, especially when compared to the celebrations and festivals actually commanded by Torah; and focuses on a only a minor fragment of a minor story.
“The Christmas Emperor With No Clothes.” Now, what about Christmas? According to indefatigable Wikipedia, “Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration by billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year….” Billions? Central? It seems to me that the more scripture talks about something, the more highly that something should be regarded. It also seems to me that the greater the significance the biblical writers bestow upon events, doctrines, teachings, sayings and revelations narrated in the bible, the greater the significance we should give them. Let’s look at Christmas as a celebration
of the “birth of Jesus Christ.” It’s told in only one of the four gospels, i.e., Luke. Matthew counter intuitively introduces his take on the gospel by giving a critical genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth in order to show how he fits into biblical prophecy (including non-biological conception) and God’s plan of salvation…but only starts talking about the baby Jesus as of one or two years after he was born. This takes the Three Wisemen, their nifty gifts and the Star of Bethlehem out of all of our Christmas cards and carols. Matthew addresses the birth, but only so that it will fit into Isaiah’s prophecies.
That leaves us with Luke. I have no doubt that the singular story of the birth of Jesus as retold by the fastidious and reliable doctor is true and accurate. Nor do I doubt the virgin birth–or, at least that Matthew believed it. I simply question why a story found in only one of the gospels got itself propelled into the biggest, supposedly Christian holiday of the year. Mark and John are pretty much uninterested.
Paul never talks about it. Nor does he ever mention Mary, the mother of Jesus. Then why did it become “central” to “billions of Christians” (including Ricky Bobby)?
Did The Apostles Think the Birth of Jesus Story Was “Central”? It is of considerable significance to me that the apostles and the early church, while faithfully observing holy communion as Jesus and Paul had instructed, never saw fit to make a megálo théma (big deal) of the events explained in only one-third of one chapter of one gospel. I am a big fan of Reception Doctrine and Apostolic Priorities or Preferences, i.e., examining how stories and doctrines were received in the first and second centuries. This is when the apostles and other eyewitnesses were still alive to tell their accounts. This time frame also accounts for those who were associated with, or were taught by the apostles and eyewitnesses, and perhaps includes a touch of second or third generations. After that, the church started to become institutionalized. History began to get reshaped to serve other purposes, and the original sources waned in significance.
As far as I can tell, the biblical writers, apostles, apostolic fathers, principle leaders, acolytes, thinkers and influencers of the first, second and perhaps (first half of) the third century church(es) just didn’t place a whole lot of energy and emphasis on the birth of Jesus. We have access to a slew of sermons, writings
and recorded thoughts and teachings of church leaders in the first two centuries—as well as their thoughts, beliefs and teachings developed in response to various perceived heresies. The birth story of Jesus told in Luke, while certainly significant, didn’t seem to get a lot of attention or development. It never rose to anything we would consider as doctrinal. The Christmas story was simply not that megálo of a théma.
Then What Was “Central” to the Apostles? The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Story. What does Paul say the “gospel” is? He’s pretty clear about it in his first missive to the Corinthians: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures….” (1 Cor 15.3-4) That is: the crucifixion and bodily resurrection of the baby born of curious origins and low means after he grew up. Why is the gospel “good news” for us…and not just good news for Jesus? Paul goes on to explain: “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep….[I]n Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the first fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” (20-23) How important is the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (yes, born in squalor and mystery) as the precursor, prototype and predictor of our own bodily resurrection to the Kingdom of God in the New Creation? Paul, ever the comprehensive lawyer, gets as clear as anyone could ever
hope for: “[I]f Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (17-19)
So, why in the world do we celebrate, glorify and rejoice in the singularly most important event in human history, giving rise to the singularly most important social movement in human history, one day a year, after a 40-day run up period, and then put it all on the back burner so we can make a much more massive “Christian” holiday out of the birth of the baby Jesus, as important as that was and is? Responding to an early letter from the church in Corinth, Paul said he was “resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Cor 2.2) Of course, “to know Jesus the Christ” is to know the necessary historical fact that he was born, but that was never the emphasis that the gospelists, epistolists and apostolic fathers gave to the life, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as the first fruits of our own resurrection. Easter is King Kong. Christmas is Fay Wray.
1 As a mere aside, our celebrations of both holidays have a common history of getting piggybacked much later onto existing pagan celebrations, having never been recognized by the early church. At least Easter didn’t evolve into drunken brawls, get itself banned by the Puritans and only garner the steam to get to where it is now by virtue of its much bemoaned commercialization as a retail strategy for selling a lot of stuff to a lot of people in relatively recent times.