birth: the visited planet, part 1

Throughout this Christmas month, I’ll be posting an entire chapter — in parts — from Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew. I’m always so grateful for his books, for the different perspective he gives, for how he doesn’t try to gloss over the hard questions, for how he refuses to speak in the Christian platitudes I SO despise.

Anyway, I love this chapter from this book. I can’t remember when, exactly, I first read this book, but I remember how much this chapter enriched my perspective on Christmas. I read it every Christmas and I think it lifts out pretty well.

So here’s the first part:

Sorting through the stack of cards that arrived at our house last Christmas, I note that all kinds of symbols have edged their way into the celebration. Overwhelmingly, the landscape scenes render New England towns buried in snow, usually with the added touch of a horse-drawn sleigh. On other cards, animals frolic: not only reindeer, but also chipmunks, raccoons, cardinals, and cute gray mice. One card shows an African lion reclining with a foreleg draped affectionately around a lamb.

Angels have made a huge comeback in recent years, and Hallmark and American Greetings now feature them prominently, though as demure, cuddly-looking creatures, not as the type who would ever need to announce “Fear not!” The explicitly religious cards focus on the holy family and you can tell at a glance these folks are different. They seem unruffled and serene. Bright gold halos, like crowns from another world, hover just above their heads.

Inside, the cards stress sunny words like love, goodwill, cheer, happiness, and warmth. It is a fine thing, I suppose that we honor a sacred holiday with such homey sentiments. And yet, when I turn to the gospel accounts of Christmas, I hear a very different tone and sense mainly disruption at work.

I recall watching an episode of the TV show thirtysomething in which Hope, a Christian, argues with her Jewish husband, Michael, about the holidays. “Why do you even bother with Hanukkah?” she asks. “Do you really believe a handful of Jews held off a huge army by using a bunch of lamps that miraculously wouldn’t run out of oil?”

Michael exploded. “Oh, and Christmas makes more sense? Do you really believe an angel appeared to some teenage girl who then got pregnant without ever having had sex and traveled on horseback to Bethlehem where she spent the night in a barn and had a baby who turned out to be the Savior of the world?”

Frankly, Michael’s incredulity seems close to what I read in the Gospels. Mary and Joseph must face the shame and derision of family and neighbors, who react, well, much like Michael (“Do you really believe an angel
appeared ….”).

Even those who accept the supernatural version of events concede that big trouble will follow: and old uncle prays for “salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us”; Simeon darkly warns the virgin that “a sword will pierce your own soul too”; Mary’s hymn of thanksgiving mentions rulers overthrown and proud men scattered.

In contrast to what the cards would have us believe, Christmas did not sentimentally simplify life on planet earth. Perhaps this is what I sense when Christmas rolls around and I turn from the cheeriness of the cards to the starkness of the Gospels.

to be continued …