“Every Who down in Whoville liked
Christmas a lot …
But the Grinch, who lived just north of
Whoville, did NOT!
The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole
Christmas season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite
knows the reason.
It could be his head wasn’t screwed on
just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes
were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason
of all,
May have been that his heart was two
sizes too small.”
Dr. Seuss, How
the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957)
Me: I
love Christmas.
Her: I
hate Christmas.
Me: I
love carol services, and everyone being off work, and pretty lights all over
the place, and carol services, and all the exciting only-this-time-of-year
comestibles, and wrapping presents, and carol services, and updating my special
Christmas playlist, and carol services…
 |
| Ooh, pretty lights... |
Her: Blimey,
did you mention carol services yet?
Me: All
right, there’s no need for that tone. I like carol services, OK? We did three of
them last Sunday and it was great.
Her: It
was hard work, you mean. Do you even realise how many Christmas carols are
absolutely choc-a-bloc with lyrics that have practically nothing to do with the
actual wonder of the incarnation?
Me: Actually,
I tend to leave that sort of thing to you, my dear Internal Theological Snob.
You are, after all, awfully good at it.
Her: I
try to be. Frankly, by the end of last Sunday, I was so burnt out I was barely
paying attention to what we were singing. Only my most basic heresy filters
were running properly. All that rubbish you’d been having us affirm about snow
and silence and stables was clogging the system.
Me: Look,
I hardly think we can call the suggestion that it was snowing in Bethlehem when
Jesus was born heresy. I mean, I’ll admit it’s not very likely from a
historical standpoint, and it’s not in any way Biblical either…
Her: You’re
really not selling this. ‘Not in any way Biblical’ sounds to me like the
beginning of a very slippery slope heading somewhere in the direction of, oh,
let me see, heresy. But besides that, the key thing to grasp is that it’s
missing the point. The meteorological situation in the Bethlehem area is of
literally no importance to the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ birth.1
This is God becoming man we’re talking about, the very second Person of the
Trinity through whom all things were created and are sustained taking on the
entire nature of a puny human being, giving up reigning over every atom of the
cosmos in eternal, unsurpassable love and joy in order to go through all the
unpleasantries and indignities of fleshly existence, in order to suffer and
indeed die, to undergo hell on behalf of the very human beings who variously failed
him, betrayed him, ignored him, or hated his guts, that they might be inducted
into the very eternal love and joy he had given up, not according to their own non-existent
merits, but by the free gift of Jesus’ own moral perfection, in accordance with
the Law that everybody else broke, whereas he endured and obeyed and triumphed
over all the evils of the present order and on that account is crowned with the
highest honour in the universe and will return to set all things to rights, in
unspeakably great glory, yet still bearing the human form he took on, such as
it is having been raised imperishable, and –
Me: You
might want to take a breath at some point.
Her: But
do you see my point? We could be singing about that, and instead we’re
singing about how terribly cold and snowy it was (or rather probably wasn’t) in
Bethlehem. Who cares?
 |
| Angels: highly relevant. Snow: not relevant in the slightest. |
Me: Yes.
I do see your point. Believe me, I do. I do listen to you, my dear Internal
Theological Snob, and you talk a lot of sense.
Her: You
think so, huh? Let’s see. Thoughts on the innkeeper everyone goes on about?
Me: In
all likelihood didn’t exist. κατάλυμα (katáluma) suggests a guest-room in a house more than an inn.2
Her: Very good.
And the stable?
Me: Possible, certainly,
but there’s no mention of it in the Bible. Some early traditions feature a
cave.3 I reckon the most likely possibility is that the
feeding-trough Jesus was laid in was in the main room of the same house whose
guest-room was too full.4
Her: I’m
impressed. And what about the idea that Mary went to Bethlehem on a donkey?
Me: An import
from the Infancy Gospel of James,5 which we can be pretty sure wasn’t
in fact written by James, and is in any case about as canonical as that dreadful
poem about footprints in the sand.6
Her: I don’t
get it. If you know all this exactly as well as I do, why on Earth do you put
up with having these superfluous improbabilities chucked at you over and over
again as if they’re what Christmas is all about?
Me: Well.
Sometimes I wonder. The emotional high of the festive atmosphere, much as I
enjoy it, can only make up for so many annoyances. I was exactly as frustrated
as you were when someone mentioned that ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ had been voted
the nation’s official favourite carol,7 or when I realised that one
of the verses of ‘Past Three O’Clock’ is literally about cheese.8 I
get as wearily, hollowly sad as you do when I realise that many parents who
would tick ‘Christian’ on the census will spend more time this December telling
their children lies about a fictional character loosely based on a
fourth-century bishop from part of what’s now Turkey9 than truths
about their Lord and Saviour. I’m exactly as sick as you are of the
commercialisation, the endless adverts promising that some elusive ‘perfect
Christmas’ is attainable if only one spends enough money on the right things, the
vacuous popular music pumping from every shop’s sound system, the ludicrous
overspending and overeating all excused on the festival’s account. Don’t think
I don’t notice it. I’m pretty sure we all do. And it’s positively maddening.
Her: So you
were lying earlier. When you said you love Christmas, you were lying.
Me: No, I wasn’t.
And part of that is, yes, I really enjoy the festive atmosphere, and I relish
the opportunity to partake in seasonal activities like eating mince pies and
listening to Pentatonix’s version of ‘Mary, Did You Know?’10 that
for some reason aren’t socially acceptable at other times of the year; their
very shortlivedness lends them an extra layer of delightfulness. But another
part of that is, if one is prepared to wade through the superfluous
improbabilities of snow and silence and stables, there are moments that make it
worth it.
Her: I’m not
convinced about that. An example, if you please.
Me: Certainly.
One of the reasons I like going to as many carol services as possible is to
encounter as many obscure verses of lesser-known carols as possible; some of
them express the marvelousness of Jesus’ birth in very lovely and startling
ways. So, if you remember, the second carol service we were at last Sunday featured
‘See Amid the Winter’s Snow’, which includes the following:
Lo, within a manger lies
He who built the starry skies,
He who, throned in height sublime,
Sits amid the cherubim.
What do you make of that?
Her: Oh wow. So
my brain is going, like, Isaiah 6 and that whole amazing glorious vision of God’s
utter majesty and how Isaiah totally fell to pieces at the notion that such a
sinner as himself had seen YHWH, and then how a chunk of that chapter is quoted
by John, who states that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory specifically, and the
very thought that a God as great and powerful and awe-inspiring as that could
take on such a small and unimpressive form as a baby in an animals’
feeding-trough … oh, the humility of Christ, and now I’m all over Philippians 2
as well, and scooting back to Isaiah and the burning-coal-on-the-lips thing,
his power to cover over our sins so that we might be able to stand in the full
glory of his presence…11
 |
| “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.’” |
Me: I know,
right? Not such a bad song once you get past that first bit about snow, is
it?
Her: Well, no,
but you have to put up with all that rubbish to get to the good bit.
Me: And there
is manifest the trouble with you, my dear Internal Theological Snob, namely
that you might talk a lot of sense, but you’re a right misery-guts. You do it
all year round, not just at Christmas: picking apart every statement made by
anyone that drifts onto even slightly theological territory in order to assess
its Biblical soundness –
Her: Hey, it’s
called discernment.
Me: And
discernment’s great, and I’m very glad you do it, but I often think you take it
too far. You’re too critical, too inflexible, and too judgemental of brothers
and sisters in Christ who haven’t reached the same conclusions as you. You’re a
snob, Internal Theological Snob. All that stuff about the innkeeper and the
stable and the donkey – you’re concerned with presenting yourself as clever as
much as with preserving Biblical truth. You think you’re always right and you
like to show off.
Her: Oh, confusticate
and bebother it, I do. I am a snob. God forgive me.
Me: He has.
The fact that you know you need it is why I keep you around.
Her: Thank you.
Though I should probably tell you I still hate Christmas.
Me: And I don’t
blame you. Maybe one of these years I’ll get fed up enough with all the bits I
don’t like that I’ll stop bothering trying to pick out the bits I do. But this
year has not been that year.
Her: Well, I’ll
keep trying to persuade you, I’m sure. But in the meantime, shall we end with
another obscure verse of a lesser-known carol?
Me: An
excellent plan. Did you have one in mind?
Her: Indeed,
namely the much-neglected last verse of the Calypso Carol:
Mine are riches from your poverty,
From your innocence, eternity,
Mine forgiveness by your death for me,
Child of sorrow for my joy.
Me: Top
choice. A hearty amen to that.
Footnotes
1 A point also
made in hilarious fashion by Lutheran Satire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR67HSs4RPI.
2 This is the
word often translated ‘inn’ in Luke 2:7. There are two other occurrences of it
in the New Testament, in Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11; in both these cases it
refers to the room where Jesus ate the Passover meal for the last time and
instructed his disciples to take bread and wine in remembrance of him.
3 This was
apparently the view of Justin Martyr and of Origen, and is preserved in some
church traditions today.
4 For a full
rundown of the basis for this view, as well as some more detail on the previous
point, this article is pretty top notch: http://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-was-not-born-in-a-stable/.
5 If you fancy
some more information or a peer at the actual text, this seems as good a corner
of the Internet as any: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/infancyjames.html.
The document also contains another manifestation of the
Jesus-was-born-in-a-cave tradition.
6 Adam4d will
tell you exactly why it’s so dreadful: http://adam4d.com/footprints-sand/.
7 Admittedly, I’m
not sure where said someone got that information, because Classic FM puts ‘O
Holy Night’ in the top spot: http://promo.classicfm.co.uk/nations-favourite-carol/.
‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is only a couple of places behind, though.
8 Verse Five, to
be precise. I’m not kidding. Look: http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/past_three_a_clock.htm.
9 Namely Santa
Claus, in case that wasn’t clear. It’s quite good fun reading up on his
history; the following seems as decent a place to start as any, should you feel
so inclined: http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/HTML/Santa_Claus.htm.
10 This is
probably my favourite Christmas song and nobody does it better than Pentatonix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifCWN5pJGIE.
11 If you don’t
know what my Internal Theological Snob is on about, go and read this jazz. And
even if you do, go and read it anyway. It’s so important to get our heads
around the fact that the baby in the manger is the same being as the Lord on
the throne. So here’s the Isaiah, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+6&version=ESVUK,
and the John, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+12&version=ESVUK,
and the Philippians, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil+2&version=ESVUK.
(And yes, I realise that Isaiah talks about God being enthroned between
seraphim rather than cherubim as in the song, but I tend to feel the point
still stands.)
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