Is. 9:2-4,6-7 Ps.96:1-4,11-12
Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-14
Lectionary Link
One might say that the Christmas Story is unbelievable and believable even as it message to encode the Sublime.
How is the Christmas Story unbelievable? It is unbelievable to us who live our lives by empirical verification. We live by the natural laws which empirical testable evidence provides for us. We assume that natural laws have always been operative and from this perspective we find many elements of the Christmas story unbelievable, like angel choirs appearing in the sky, fantastic helicopter-like stars which move like a gps tracking device to guide wise men to a specific location, and not to mention a Holy Spirit conception which became a physical birth. Yes, to the empirical mind the Christmas story is unbelievable.
How then can the Christmas Story at the same time be believable? It is a believable story from the perspective of literary criticism. It is an artistic and spiritual text that arose within communities which were providing community identity and the inculcation of spiritual practice within the various communities. As literary critics we can totally believe the communicative techniques of the Christmas Story writers. They deftly used the models of communication which were used within their contexts. They located their message of Jesus within the salvation history story that they received from the Hebrew Scriptures tradition including mysterious and marvelous birth tradition. The kings from the East bringing gifts tradition The flight to Egypt and return retraces the journey of Israel. The deaths of Holy Innocents mimics the story of Pharaoh's slaughter of male offspring. These elements present Jesus as the new Moses, and the relocation from Nazareth to Bethlehem lines up with the Davidic place of birth. The Christmas Story writers were aware of their readers who knew the traditions of the Hebrew Scriptures.
But they were also aware of their Roman Empire Gentile audience who knew the promotional messages which were published to promote the image of the Caesar. Caesar Augustus was miraculously conceived, he had celestial phenomenon that happened at his birth, he was called prince of peace, savior of the world, and the Roman senate designated the Caesar as Augustus, as divine or a divinized human being, and the divine Caesar's offspring was called the son of a god.
The writers of Christmas Story might even be charged with being subversive in appropriating language used exclusively for the Caesars for Jesus Christ. As such, the churches might be regarded as a subversive underground movement within the Roman Empire. The heavenly angels were like a higher body than the Roman Senate in declaring the divine status of Jesus.
I hope that we can appreciate from a literary critical perspective how the Christmas Stories were completely believable in how they appropriated effective contextual communication models to promote what they regarded to be their very highest value.
And this brings us to the ultimate point of the Christmas Story, the truth of the Sublime. And what was the Sublime? The constituting event for the early Christians was the sublime experiences of the Risen Christ, an event referred to as a New Birth, as spiritual birth, and as the realization of Christ in oneself as the hope of glory. The point of presenting the story of the birth of Jesus was to encode the spiritual birth of the Risen Christ within the hearts of all who wanted to know this spiritual realization.
St. Paul said the mystery of the ages was "Christ in you, you hope of glory."
And this now is the continuing truth of the Christmas Story: the sublime birth of Christ in us. To deny this truth is to deny the experience of countless millions of people for over hundreds of year. It is empirically true that this experience has been confessed by many people. The empirical proof of birth of Christ within us involves the transformation of lives to live lives of peace, hope, love, kindness, and justice.
And the challenge for us today is to make the birth of Christ believable in our time? And how can we do this? By living lives of love, peace, joy, self-control, kindness, and justice in our life situations. These manifestations are proof of the sublime truth of the birth of Christ.
May God help each of us to know the sublime truth of the birth of Christ today. Amen.
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