Changing up Christmas: The Jesus Birth
Story – In July
A thought occurs to me that we should, as Christians
attempting to be true to the 1st century Jesus and the Cross in the
21st century world, move the celebration of Jesus’ birth to some
other time of year and leave December 25th to the celebration of
family, friends, and giving. It can even
stay “Christmas” and all its involvement of Santa and presents can be all of
what it is: giving, being kind, generous, thoughtful, celebrative, together.
Rather than feeling something is hollow about a Christmas without Jesus or
giving a modicum of Jesus, a certain sugar that makes the cake taste better, we
should allow it to be wholly whole on its own and appreciate it for what it is
and not denigrate it for what it is not.
But at the same time we should insist
it be authentic and true to what it has become, a celebration of family,
friends, love that is not connected to God and the Jesus Story.
I know, of course, the Jesus story however sentimentalized
and maudlin or given over to religion as some accounting of how misery
(humanity) loves company (sympathy, even empathy, assistance, divinity!) and
“isn’t it wonderful that at least we are embraced in our misery,” is so
intertwined, enmeshed in the December 25th celebrations that a
December 25th without Jesus may have a hard time standing on its
own. But I think perhaps it actually could. Kind of like Memorial Day for most
people if it is any observance at all it is for some kind of idea of military
service to country (if not idealized recognition) but divorced from the actual
dead on the battlefield. December 25th would be aware of its roots
but that heritage would not be the driving force of the celebration nor would
it impede. It would be cultural history to appreciate (or not to color it
positive, to simply acknowledge).
So, why divorce the Christian celebration of the birth from
the cultural celebration of love and giving? And what would that divorce look
like?
First, why.
For one thing (and perhaps the only thing) it would help us
tell the story of Jesus to Christians who do not know it. The focus would not
be on non-Christians or “Nones” or the unchurched, although they may pick up on
the vibe. Even as we attempt, in our current kerygma and didache, to tell of a
Jesus who is God who is with and for the least, last, lost, little and dead and
is nothing more (!) than humanity in its fullest and truest expression, now in
this cultural mix of Santa and salvation, it is hard to tell the story through
all the noise. And so much preaching and teaching over the past years has been
trying to use giving and love and presents and family and caring for the less
fortunate as illustrations if not expressions of Jesus – a certain trying to
get to Jesus through our best selves (or as Martin Luther would have it:
“through what is in us”). Maybe that’s it – that we preachers simply try to use
the noise and we end up providing more noise, more food to feed the beast of
how wonderful we all are so as to fend off the darkness with light rather than
transform the darkness with a light that has nothing to do with our agency bur
everything to do with divine intervention and embrace.
It is of course possible to tell the true story of Jesus at
Christmas time without using the Christmas of love and giving, but we preachers
haven’t been very good at it. So, taking the birth story away from our cultural
Christmas (to give it a name but not trying to put down culture in the process
– maybe better would be “our current and contemporary Christmas”) could
possibly be of value simply to force the preachers and teachers to tell
the starkness of the cross (shorthand
for life, death, resurrection of Jesus) where God doesn’t save us from the
nihil and death but rather in it all.
Secondly, what.
Well, perhaps most dramatically and solely, take way all
church worship on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. No telling and celebration
of the birth. Christmas Day, December 25th, would simply be observed
by Christians much like non-Christians who participate in traditionally
Christmas celebration activities: trees, lights, family gatherings, cultural
recognitions and observances, parties, gift-giving, cards, shopping, the whole
thing. We would just stop the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day worship. One
could even keep the liturgical season of Advent and let it be that of which it
actually is but miss because we currently have the December 25th at
its conclusion: the celebration and the anticipation and hope of the “second
coming” or return of Christ and the completion of all creation.
When to celebrate the birth? I have intimated the month of
July because that’s just to pay on our current observance, by some, of a
“Christmas in July” giving time (of which I have no idea of origin!), The
actual time to celebrate might actually be September – the summer months are
too traditionally vacation time and thus, perhaps, hard to people to gather (a
technical but not incidental consideration would be the Revised Common
Lectionary cycle of Scripture and the tradition of the Christmas Cycle and
Easter Cycle which tells of birth, life, death and resurrection before turning
to life teaching and life activity of Jesus. But I’ll leave that to the
liturgical scholars. They are smart people and can figure something out. Most
of us can walk and chew gum as the same time so taking the birth story and
putting it as part of a different sequence is something most could
handle). Also, doing this change of
calendar actually has an added benefit: it would take the telling of the birth
and place it in it’s original place: a telling that is told because the subject
Jesus was deemed after his death and resurrection to be of divine significance
and so an origin story was created and written, a fiction, to mythologize, in
the best sense of that word, and thus elevate Jesus’ status and position.
Church leaders today give particular attention – time,
money, energy – on what is called “church renewal.” It’s an attempt to engage
the deflation of significance of the faith traditions, if not the faith itself,
in so many practicing Christians and an attempt to make others interested in
the faith. But, famously, culture eats strategy for breakfast (and lunch and
dinner) and so often the strategy for renewal is actually just a shining up of
the old silver. In other words, church renewal that is actually adaptive change
has to fight hard against the traditions that comfort the heart and expenses
(both fiscal and otherwise) that dampen the interest and ability to change.
And, church renewal so often is not adaptive change at all but rather technical
fix and so will not have a chance in the long run of allowing the organization
(church!) to sustain and thrive. So, all
that being said, would changing the calendar of Christian observance of the
birth story be something that would actually be of any benefit or aid toward an
invigorated church? Would it be adaptive change or technical fix or neither or
both? I’m not sure, but the more I think about it, it may be more adaptive than
technical: we would be using what is not common knowledge (Jesus was not born
in the winter and his birth narrative is a legend, not actual event, told to
further and celebrate his status and not to deliver a record of a factual
account) to change perceptions and understanding of Jesus and the whole
Christian enterprise that follows him.
How could we do such a thing – this changing of the calendar
of celebrating Jesus birth? It might begin with a conversation in any given congregation
about just what is lost in the current calendar tradition and what is gained
therein. And the same with a new calendar tradition. It’s a lot to consider and
I’ve likely not covered it all here. But it would be good for dedicated
followers of Jesus to consider.
Christmas in July indeed. Or September. Or any time other
than December.
Glory to the newborn King!
