Merry Christmas! The Nativity and Celebrating Christmas Well
Christus natus est! Christ is born! More than 2000 years ago, in a cave in Bethlehem used to stable animals, God became man to save us from sin.
The story of the first Christmas is so rich, so full of food for meditation and thought. The God-man was born a Jew in the ancient land of the Israelites, the Messiah promised to Adam and to all the Chosen People (Jews) afterwards. The first people to hear about the birth of the Messiah (see Luke 2) were the shepherds, humble and poor working men. They were in the fields when angels brought them the good news that the millennia of waiting were over—the Messiah had come, he was there in Bethlehem! And so the shepherds came to adore the Divine Child. But we must remember that though shepherds were humble folk, King David, the greatest king of Israel, was a shepherd before he was a king; just as Jesus, of the line of David, was both a poor laborer and a king.
But Jesus did not come only for the Jews. Pagan kings came (see Matt. 2) to see and adore the God-man. Before they had adored creatures, but now finally, through a star, they found the Creator. Rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, gathered around the rough manger where Mary gently placed her Son. The kings brought expensive and valuable gifts of gold (for a king), frankincense (used in worship), and myrrh (associated with death). Jesus was the God-king born to die—and rise again. Joseph and Mary, the shepherds, and the kings all encountered God that first Christmas as no other human had ever encountered Him. History and mankind would never be the same.
Below is the lovely troparion prayer that we sang this morning at my Byzantine Catholic church:
Your birth, O Christ our God, has shed upon the world the light of knowledge; for through it, those who worshipped the stars have learned from a star to worship you, the Sun of Justice, and to know you, the Dawn from on high. Glory to you, O Lord!
We can learn a lesson about celebrating Christ’s birth from a beloved holiday tale. In Charles Dickens’s classic novel A Christmas Carol, the ending sums up how the former miser Scrooge was inspired to change his life totally by the visitations of four ghosts. Scrooge was mean and selfish and greedy, but after seeing the mistakes of his own life and the goodness of others at past, present, and future Christmases, he learned how to become charitable and joyful. There is one line in particular which I highlighted:
“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”
Celebrating Christmas well means not only being kind and joyful one day out of the year, or even just for the twelve days of Christmas that follow Dec. 25; it means carrying Christ in our hearts and bringing Him to others every day in the year. There will be those who laugh at us for our faith in Christ, but we must heed them no more than Scrooge did in the book.
Scrooge learned to work to bring peace on earth and goodwill to men every day of his life, which is why it was said he kept Christmas well. “May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”