The True Meaning of Christmas

I was scrolling through Instagram, and I saw that a friend had reposted the following tweet to his story:

Christmas is about believing what a woman said about her sex life.
Christmas is about a family finding safety as refugees.
Christmas is about a child in need receiving support from the wealthy.
Christmas is about God identifying with the marginalized, not the powerful.
Merry.

And I think that this bears a response because it somehow manages to be wrong in both little ways and a fundamental way, so let’s go point by point and then get around to the big picture at the end.

1. Christmas is about believing what a woman said about her sex life.

This is simply untrue. Nothing about Christmas requires you to take this message away, and a reasonable interpretation of this would lead one to the opposite conclusion.

1. Mary’s miraculous pregnancy is a miracle, and one that has not been repeated since. If a woman says that she’s pregnant but hasn’t ever had sex, assuming that she is telling the truth because God is being once more incarnated in that woman would be heretical (either there’s a fourth person of the trinity or Christ ceased to rule at the right hand of the Father) and gullible.
2. Mary’s miraculous pregnancy is so unbelievable that Joseph is visited by an angel. That wasn’t because he was failing to gather the message of Christmas because he didn’t believe all women, it’s because for him to believe Mary’s claim without divine intervention would be foolish.
3. Christmas is about Jesus’ incarnation, not the human reaction to Mary’s pregnancy.

2. Christmas is about a family finding safety as refugees.

This is a stretch at best.

1. This ties Christmas and Epiphany together in a way that fits the popular conception of the season but isn’t the same. Whether or not they visited 2 years after Jesus’ birth or 13 days later, the point remains that Epiphany and the flight to Egypt isn’t a core part of the Christmas story.
2. They weren’t refugees. They were traveling from one part of the Roman Empire to another. That’s like saying you’re a refugee from Idaho if you go into Wyoming. There is no reasonably applicable parallel here.
3. Christmas is about Jesus incarnation, and if you want to find meaning here, find it in the fact that the rulers of the world sought to destroy Jesus, not that He found safe haven in a different territory of the same empire, 200 miles away.

3. Christmas is about a child in need receiving support from the wealthy.

Still not the meaning of Christmas.

1. Everything I said about Epiphany still applies.
2. Even granting the relevance (sure, the visit of the magi is tied into the narrative), the message of Christmas isn’t that Jesus was a needy child whom the wealthy of the world owed support, the takeaway is that wise and powerful men recognized a King who was worthy of homage. The gifts of the magi aren’t charity, they’re tribute. The kings of the East weren’t there to food the orphans of Jerusalem, there were certainly enough of those back home. Those kings were there because the Child in Bethlehem was far from an orphan; He was the Son of God.
3. There’s not sufficient evidence to suggest that the Jesus was a child in need.
4. This is directionally correct, insofar as Christmas is the gift to those in need, from the wealth of love that is God, of Christ himself, though the great work had only begun, it would be completed on Easter/at the eschaton.

4. Christmas is about God identifying with the marginalized, not the powerful.

This is right, with a stretch. Christmas is about God taking on human flesh. If you want to describe that form as marginalized, you’re on thin ice, but if you want to take that, and further say that the marginalization was self-inflicted by sin, I still think that you’re stretching things a lot, but sure, why not, if that’s the best vocabulary you’ve got, have at it.

Here’s the thing though, that isn’t what’s being said. What’s being said is that the reason Jesus was incarnate in a stable is because it was an explicit condemnation of earthly power. Maybe, but the better explanation is that God is creating an image of Christ as weak rather than the strong.

As stated earlier, there isn’t reason to believe that Mary and Joseph were any more marginalized than any other Jewish citizens (who were marginalized by empire, but also Jesus had to come from David’s line, so that was a given). What we’re left with, when we modify marginalized to reflect a more appropriate term is a greater appreciation for the image of humility that is already so present in the incarnation itself.

The difference between Christ as the son of a powerful ruler, surrounded by attendants and resplendent in gleaming robes of purple and gold and Christ raised by a craftsman and mother is miniscule between the difference that is between Christ pre- and post-incarnation. There is no comparing the two.

Christmas isn’t about laundering class and identity politics into religion, it’s about how “today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.”

Merry

And so I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, because here’s what Christmas is about: Christmas is about how Jesus has come. Christmas is about how even though the people have walked in darkness, they have seen a great light. Christmas is about how God moved first. Christmas is the great invitation for us to look to Jesus as the answer to all sin, all evil, all anxiety, and all injustice in the world. Christmas is an invitation to come to Jesus, to come to the God who came down to Earth, who shone His face on the earth, not because of anything worthy that the green marble’s denizen’s had done, but because He loved us, and anyone who tries to dilute that message, who writes about how Christmas is actually about modern politics, progressive or otherwise, anyone who tells you that the reason for the season is anything but Christ, well, I hate to say it, but they’re wrong.¹

Footnotes

1. This is both wonderfully long and probably a run-on, but I’m sure it’s fine ↩