A message for the ages
For all the changes in Christmas over the centuries, all the varied traditions of different ages, cultures and families, the Nativity message remains simple and abiding — a summons to the ultimate second chance, a call to be our better selves.
It is the story and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, an event that changed the course of human history.
It led, both for better and for worse, to the largest religion on Earth. It led, in ways both sacred and profane, to the planet’s most popular holiday.
Quite likely, given the performances of Nativity plays through generations in church halls and school gymnasiums around the world, it is humanity’s most oft-told tale.
Strikingly, the Nativity story is at the centre of an enduring faith built from the flimsiest of known details.
No document survives from the first half-century of what is known as the Christian era speaking of Christ, his birth, his life or followers.
In the ensuing 50 years or so, much of what is now the New Testament was written, describing the Nativity with accounts from Luke and Matthew that don’t quite match up.
It wasn’t until the middle of the fourth century that Dec. 25 was even set as the date of Christmas, competing with the traditional pagan festivities and wassails to console against the chill and dark of winter.
The first rendering of a Nativity play is thought to have been St. Francis of Assisi’s celebration of midnight Mass with a scenic backdrop in 1223.
Since then, how many mothers, rummaging through linen closets for old sheets and pillowcases, have costumed how many childhood casts of lambs, oxen, shepherds, magi, Marys and Josephs?
How many harried elementary or Sunday school teachers have laboured to impose order on rapturous proceedings, or to console an angel who wet himself in excitement, or a miniMadonna guilt-ridden at dropping the doll serving as the Messiah?
For many one-and-done thespians, the year they played a wise man, giggling at the silly sound of gold, frankincense and myrrh, is among the most vivid of childhood memories, recounted for the rest of their lives.
The Christmas story is full of inherent drama that speaks to something in the human spirit in its account of guidance in the stars, renewal through the meekest, faith and hope in the most challenging of circumstances.
Down through history, Christmas has been celebrated by the faithful and has offered comfort as well to other creeds and the creedless through the universality of most aspects of its narrative.
In its story is an acknowledgement of our mortal failings and predicament. Why else a redeemer? In it is the necessity and possibility of a fresh start. In it are the glories of simplicity — a modest manger, a reeking stable, the lowly shepherds, the friendly beasts.
In it, the difference is revealed between our crafted exteriors of rank, wealth and status and our common essence as human beings, our uncertainty and wonder, our fears, vulnerability and need for one another.
Most intriguingly, there are the many paradoxes. A helpless infant as the Messiah. The poor made vital. Elites made humble. Strangers made kindred.
There is a reason that beloved rituals become so. They preserve a memory, fulfil a need, set guideposts. They measure the gap between aspiration and accomplishment.
They also deliver the repetition so evidently necessary to our species.
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said,” André Gide once wrote. “But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
So, each year, at Christmas time, ancient teachings are restated and inevitably found applicable to the current moment.
“There was no room for them in the inn,” said the Gospel of Luke.
Just as in our time social-media memes portray Mary, the child-heavy refugee, being led away from Bethlehem in handcuffs, and manger scenes in which members of the new family sit in separate cages.
The teachings of the rebel Jesus have proven difficult for men and women to live by. So each year, we get another chance at humility, at understanding, at wisdom.
We are taught again what experience and neuroscience continue to confirm.
That mere wealth or lucky circumstance cannot guarantee happiness. That genuine contentment is found in relationships and in giving. That real peace comes from purpose, from service to others, in deeds that match our words.
At Christmas, we are reminded once again of the perennial merits of compassion and charity, gratitude and goodwill.
We are reminded of what the child whose birth is celebrated this day would later admonish, that one of the two great commandments we are to live by is “to love thy neighbour as thyself.”
May everyone be blessed this Christmas with the peace, hope and love that is its essence.
Each year, at Christmas time, ancient teachings are restated and inevitably found applicable to the current moment