Christmas Conceptions and Nativity Notions

 The Christmas season began yesterday with the celebration of the Birth of Christ for those using the Revised Julian Calendar. For others on the Julian Calendar, there are a few days yet until the celebration begins. Yes. Christmas begins on Christmas day...not thanksgiving or November 1st as the commercial interests around us would have us believe. But that's another blog entry.

Yesterday we celebrated at my eldest daughter's house. It was s wonderful day. All the kids were there, our grandson, and our two grandkids who will be making their appearances in 2023! It was a full house, full of warmth and love, great food and drink, and all the trappings of a wonderful holiday family gathering.

After the lovely charcuterie and amazing meal, we gathered in the family room where I put forth the following conversation-starter:

Setting aside all the cultural aspects of Christmas, and focusing only on the religious part, stated in it's most blunt terms: Christmas is the day we celebrate the birth of the kid God had to kill because He was angry about our sins.

 I then asked around the room if those present understood that to be an accurate statement or their understanding of the day. Not counting me, there were 8 others present. The responses ranged from flat out "Yes" to other variations uncomfortable with the bluntness of the phrase I used, or desiring to focus on some other aspect such as "the birth of the King," but nobody said "no, that's wrong." I rephrased the statement this way: "Christmas is Christ's birth, the point of which is to be sacrificed to pay God for the offense and injustice of our sin." This way of stating it was more palatable and got more agreement.

But it's wrong.

In the view stated above, first, God has been offended, or He's angry about something we did. This is not true because God is unchanging and it is impossible for me to change His countenance. I cannot make God angry because I cannot change God. 

Secondly, angry God demanding retribution for sin so He won't be angry anymore shifts the problem. It makes God the one with the problem and God is thus the one who needs to change. In reality, sin is my problem, and I am the one in need of changing.

Third, if God needs a payment, that implies that God is lacking something, which is impossible. In fact, a "payment" for a "debt" has never been the case. Why were there sacrifices in the OT?  Well, let's take a step back and ask what is sin? Sin is a stain on ourselves and on the creation because of our continual falling short of the original "good"-ness God pronounced on the completion of creation. Sin's stain is something that brings death. The Bible says that "life is in the blood" of living things. So the sacrificial system was for taking the "life-stuff" from the sacrifice and using it to smear or cover the "death-stuff." This covering system is a way to manage sin, but it's not a solution. It's a band-aid until you can get stitches. Furthermore, if sacrifice was a "payment," there would not be a sliding scale. Sin is sin and if the "payment" for sin was a goat, why were there provisions made for poor people to sacrifice birds instead? Or why, at passover, were families allowed to get together and share the lamb, and not mandated to each kill their own lamb?  Because the blood of the sacrifice covered those who ritually participated, it was not about payment.

So a sacrifice is needed, but it's not a payment or a punishment, and Christ's sacrifice on the cross was His own, voluntary sacrifice. His blood is the solution that wipes away all sin, and it was given by Him willingly.

So Christ was not born to suffer punishment in our stead or pay a price, as if God were some kind of sadist. He came among us to be with us, be one of us, to show us what it is to live in communion with God the Father and love our neighbor. By taking on our nature and our flesh and our life, He participated in every aspect of our life and sanctified every part of it, from conception, birth, childhood, maturing, adulthood, all the way up to and through death, He lived our experience with us and sanctified it for us. 

To distill it down, look at Hebrews 2, "he himself likewise partook of the same things [flesh and blood], that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." Christ came to open to us the way to everlasting life.

God is not angry. He removed himself from the Garden after the fall because he loves us and knew that it would be bad for us to be in his presence with the stain of sin. He barred us from the tree of life because if we ate it and lived forever with the stain of sin, we would be demons. He loves us too much to let that happen. He came in the flesh on Christmas because of love and he laid down his life because of love. Everything is because of His love for us, not because of his anger or need to beat up or kill someone. He did and does everything because he wants to be with us, forever. What a glorious thing!

These are the things I told my family. I hope this knowledge is uplifting. When I first contemplated it, I was nearly moved to tears.
Thank God for his unfathomable love.

For more expansion of Biblical concepts and perspectives you never considered before, I recommend the "Lord of Spirits" podcast with Fr. Stephen and Fr. Andrew, who greatly influenced this post.