Christmas In Utero

“And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” Luke 1:41-42

Jesus Christ, in utero, is, without question, the most popular fetus in the history of the world. Even the recent “royal baby”, for all of the attention granted him while he was still growing and forming in his mother’s womb, can hardly be mentioned in the same sentence. True, while still forming he was the subject of a fair number of front page stories and endless speculation, one can hardly expect Prince George’s birth to ever be celebrated as an international holiday. It would take some strange sort of madness to think that any nativity scenes will ever be replaced with ceramic figures of a Prince and Princess, giving birth in a modern hospital, surrounded, not by Magi or Shepherds, but by doctors, nurses, pain medication, and, of course, the flash bulbs of the media.

Jesus is hardly in danger of being overshadowed by any modern birth, for He was born. And perhaps one of the reasons for this is that we no longer see birth as we used to, but for isolated moments when it is a birth that extends some famous or royal bloodline.

Christmas is undoubtedly a season that is a celebration of childbirth—and as such, it is a time that really ought to make out society a bit more anxious. It is remarkable just how capably we can come together as a nation, erecting trees in our living rooms, hanging lights and gaudy, colorful ornaments upon every visible limb, without any semblance of recognizing the irony of a nation with no reverence for children, suddenly coming together to revere a child who spends much of His own story as a fetus.

Christmas is undoubtedly a celebration, not just of the birth of a child, but the anticipation, from the very moment of conception, of a child. It is not hard to believe that, if the miracle of the incarnation was to be repeated today, God would have to be exceedingly careful in deciding whom to bestow with the gift—should he choose another unmarried teenage girl, there is a very good chance that the child will never be allowed to come to term, as even an angelic announcement can be swept aside as a trick of the imagination or a schizophrenia-induced vision.

Do our modern sensibilities cringe when Elizabeth speaks of Mary’s fetus as if it was something more than a lump of tissue? If they do not, they certainly ought to. Do we think it strange that Elizabeth should call Mary “Blessed among women” when really she is just an unwed teenager who never really chose to become pregnant? We really should.

To those unable to fathom why anyone should ascribe any human value to a child in that murky area between conception and birth, it really would be best to simply ignore the story prior to Luke 2:6 and pretend it doesn’t exist. Forget the announcement of John the Baptist, who was destined to prepare the way of the Lord—until he is actually born, it is all just speculation anyway. Forget the angel coming to Mary and Joseph. Certainly forget the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth, where the author (who had the audacity to consider himself a medical doctor) makes far too much over a couple of fetuses.

Until that very moment that the child is actually laid in the manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a bed of straw, there is no Christmas story—there is only the potential for a Christmas story. Nothing is real until then—the moment the story begins in earnest.

If it happened today, we might consider the fact that Jesus even survived long enough to be born one of his greatest miracles.   

And as the story progresses and the first couple years pass, the further Jesus gets from the womb the more valuable His life becomes. When Herod, in an attempt to destroy Jesus, orders the murder of every toddler in Bethlehem, it is recognized with universal scorn and contempt. It is called “The Massacre of the Innocents”, even by those who would take great offense to the same term being used to describe the present plight of the unborn.

The Christmas story is about new life, but this should only be a source of true joy to those for whom new life really is cherished. Christmas is a delight to those of us who recognize that Christ truly came into this world, not on the first Christmas morning, but 9 months earlier, where already He was recognizable, even by other infants.

Expectation and Uncertainty

  

My wife is now eight months pregnant. Our first child is set to be born within a week of Christmas Day. One could certainly say that our state right now is one of eager expectation, and I would like to believe that this anticipation—which is what one must call that emotion that seems to turn hours into days and days into months as that blessed day grows slowly nearer—allows me to at least somewhat understand the expectation of Mary (or, more accurately, Joseph) as that first Christmas morning approached and the child grew steadily in that young womb.  

  

But expectation is not always joyful; often expectation is more clearly defined by uncertainty. 

  

In the case of Mary's cousin Elizabeth, whose own child was born perhaps just months earlier, the expectation was surely different. Mary was young and had not yet begun thinking of children; Elizabeth was old and barren, and all hope was seemingly lost. Elizabeth's life, like Mary’s and my own, was turned upside-down by a miracle—the miracle of conception, which, make no mistake, is as much a miracle if performed by human means as by the Holy Spirit. It is a miracle doubtless performed for good, but one that often leads to some disquiet, for human hearts are rarely prepared for the miraculous.  

  

Just as I have lately experienced a deep, often overwhelming, uncertainty over the changes to come in my life, so, certainly, did Elizabeth, who must have wondered if, at her age, it was even safe to carry a child. Mary, whose blessing was surely accompanied by an uncertainty the likes of which I can't begin to imagine, must have felt honored to have been chosen, but quite offended at what God had done to her. Her village must have shunned her; she was almost certainly treated as a harlot despite her alleged purity, even as God, the very embodiment of righteousness, grew within her. Both of these expectant births had been announced angelically (the announcement of my own child’s conception, sadly, came through more traditional means), though how much comfort this truly allowed is difficult to know. It is hard to believe that either expectant mother was truly at peace about her situation.   

  

Israel, meanwhile, was also expectant. She was awaiting her Messiah. Generations had come and gone since the promise was first made, just as generations came and went between God's promise to Abraham and the taking of the Promised Land, and yet, Peter could honestly write that "God is not slow in keeping His promises, as some count slowness...”. But what was supposed to be an age of anticipation had almost certainly turned into an age of apathy. Whether or not they truly believed in the coming Messiah—He who was to save Israel (though in a completely different sense than they understood)—there was little real hope left. Gone were the Assyrians and the Babylonians, in their place were the Romans. Year after year, decade after decade passed, and, while pockets of resistance still existed here and there, Stockholm Syndrome had surely taken effect and the situation was accepted. Maybe God would send his Messiah to save them... but who had the time to wait? Life went on. 

  

If only all of Israel was of the same mind as old Simeon, who “was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.  And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, ‘Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.’” 

  

We look at the days leading up to the first Christmas and we can almost imagine the tangibility of the anticipation. The time was ripe; the stars were, quite literally, aligned. Even King Herod—not even a real Jew—seemed to understand as much. And yet, apart from those few firm fixtures of faith like Simeon and Anna the Prophetess, the Jews were caught unprepared for the coming of Christ; but in this they are not uniquely guilty. They never have been. The sins of the Jews have always been the sins of all men.  

  

Today ought to be an age just as rich in anticipation as that of Judea in the years before Christ; and yet no sooner, it seems, did Christ promise His Kingdom than we began to lose sight of it.  

  

Today we continue, like an expectant mother and father, to experience both expectation and uncertainty. We are asked to wait in faith (though, it is worth remembering, God has never disappointed after asking others to wait in faith). We cannot read the mind of God, and His true heart has never been revealed to us. We cannot say for certain just how He will bring about His kingdom or what it will look like, just as the expectant parents simply cannot say how the coming of their child will change their lives. We know, in fact, that bringing about God’s Kingdom will be painful, for, as Paul wrote: “All of creation is groaning, as in the pains of childbirth.” But just as the pain of childbirth ends in the welcoming, at last, of a child, so to may we be sure that God will one day welcome us to His Kingdom. 

  

God is not slow in keeping His promises. 

  

In the weeks and days leading up to Christmas each year the anticipation of Christ’s birth is felt anew; it is felt, in fact, by those who don’t even believe in it, for it has conquered the world. The birth of Christ remains almost universally meaningful, even if, to many, it only means the selfish anticipation of gifts or the enjoyment of traditions. But as much as we ought to recall the anticipation of the coming of Christ, we also must understand that the age of anticipation is present rather than past, for just as those in Judea were anticipating the coming of the Messiah (and God, in time, fulfilled His promise), so we, in the 21st century, are told to anticipate the coming of His Kingdom. The coming of Christ did not mark the end of anticipation, but the beginning, and this anticipation ought to be renewed again and again as we enter into the season of advent.  

  

At Christmas it is important to remember that we are not merely asked to remember something that is past—we are called to anticipate something that is yet to come! We are asked to expect, and to participate, in something that is even now being slowly revealed, unraveled through the history of the church as a scroll. 

  

As I anticipate the birth of my own child next month, I pray that I can begin to understand more fully what it means to live, not just in expectation, but in eager expectation. We do not merely wait for the Kingdom—we long for it, as parched wanderers in the desert long for water. And we do so actively, not passively. It is no sin to feel uncertain about God’s promises—it is a human thing. And yet, we wait for it in eagerness.  

  

An Advent for All

"The Adoration of the Shepherds" by Gerard von Honthorst, 1622

Peace. Love. Joy. Goodwill.

The meaning of the Christmas story—the ancient and beloved event we call “The Nativity” and the season called “Advent”—is one of such depth and complexity that it can scarcely be summed up by just one or two of those particular words, themes or phrases common in these last days of the year. It is profound and it is complex, and yet we often fall back on a specific and limited vocabulary to describe the atmosphere surrounding this simple, joyous holiday. It seems easy, after all, to associate particular words with this season, as if in those words and their modern meanings may be wrapped up the whole meaning and impact of the Christmas story.

Peace is one such word. It is easy to take the words of the angel chorus to heart and with them define the whole of the Christmas story: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.” One may indeed take great comfort in asserting that the Christmas story is one in which a true peace enters the world through the birth of Christ. As I wrote previously, however, it seems almost equally valid to say that the birth of Christ brought about the very opposite of peace. As Christ Himself said later, He came not to bring peace, but a sword. Brother against brother, parents against children. Siding with Him was siding against the world. The peace proclaimed by the Heavenly Host was quite real at the moment of his birth and it remains very much real today, but it is an eternal peace, rather than a worldly one. At Christmas we celebrate not a real, tangible, worldwide peace—it represents neither an end to war nor to human sin and suffering—but rather the hope and belief that such a peace is both forthcoming and inevitable. As we are reminded so often, and rarely more tragically than the events of this past weekend in Newtown, Connecticut, the peace we are promised has not come in its fullness. The peace of "God with us" remains something that can be and felt and experienced inwardly, but will only be truly understood in time. In that sense, Christmas very much is a holiday of peace, and we can say so with confidence even as we are bombarded by news of pain and suffering in our world.

We might also say (and often do) that this is a holiday of love. Such is a theme (like peace) woven throughout the various Christmas hymns and carols that pervade this season, and indeed it is certainly present in abundance within the Christmas story. So sums up the Apostle John in perhaps that most famous of all passages: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” Christ was the love of God manifest, of that there can be little doubt. And indeed, among skeptic, pagan, and Christian alike, the season is awash in manifestations of a sort of humanly love that seems eerily absent throughout much of the rest of the year. Call it a product of excess commercialism or of some sort of herd mentality if you wish, but it is both present and visible, though it is only a pale, blurry (yet still beautiful) reflection of the true love of God. People give more to those in need, they find enjoyment in blessing others, their face shines with kindness and mercy… it truly is a season of love.

And what about joy? What about glory? What about salvation? What about the unsurpassable miracle of childbirth or the glorious, inexhaustible beauty of God Incarnate?

There is certainly no shortage of themes within the Christmas story; and it is this very fact that makes the holiday fundamentally unique among all the holidays and traditions of all the religions in the world. In Christmas alone is embodied those features that make Christianity—whether Protestant or Catholic—wholly unique among the world’s religions, for Christianity does not strive to be merely a religion that preaches peace, love and joy; it strives to be the very embodiment and perfection of those things on Earth.

This audacity makes Christianity unique among the world’s religions (more and more as our world loses its absolutes). It is remarkable, but it is rendered even more remarkable at Christmas, when opposites can truly coexist. Christ is love, but following him means that we may be hated. Christ brought peace but the gesture was something very much resembling warmongering. The nativity was joyful, but made the sorrow of Good Friday inevitable. It is the Christmas story wherein every disparate piece of human society is both physically and symbolically brought together to a single location in a single moment. Mary and Joseph, the common, faithful, orthodox Jewish parents are there, of course, along with the fearful working class shepherds and the mystical wise men from the east. These latter individuals, with their peculiar gifts (could they even have realized at the time the dramatic, messianic symbolism of the gold, frankincense and myrrh?), provide perhaps one of the most easily forgotten symbols of Christmas.

To think that a people of such great intellect—scholars, philosophers, mystics, or some combination of all three (as the wise men are believed to be)—could be drawn over such great distances in hopes of satisfying not a spiritual hunger, but a very human curiosity and scholarship, is something worthy of awe. The wise men were drawn by little more than intellectual fascination with a certain celestial aberration and arrived in Jerusalem only to be confronted by the King of Israel himself. After passing whatever test Herod had in store for them, perhaps by some demonstration of the faith of their own nation, they descended on Bethlehem and were at once brought to their knees, worshipping with exceeding joy, being led to true belief in the presence of nothing more than a baby born in the humblest of conditions imaginable. It is here, in this lowly child, that they found precisely what every other philosopher sought but had never dreamed of actually achieving—an all-encompassing philosophy of everything. A true quintessence in which all other thoughts and theories could be enraptured and made whole and complete. To quote Chesterton yet again, the Magi had found the truth: “The philosophy of the Church is universal. The philosophy of the philosophers was not universal. Had Plato and Pythagoras and Aristotle stood for an instant in the light that came out of that little cave, they would have known that their own light was not universal.”

The role-call at that improbable little event, then, is worth noting again and again: There are the parents (and their all-important child), the shepherds, and the Magi, all present at some point somewhere within the vicinity of that first Christmas (though the visit of the Magi might have happened as many as two years later). And then we mustn’t forget that there is the King of Israel himself, who was not physically present at the time of Christ’s birth, but might as well have been, as knowledge of his existence couldn’t have been far from the minds of Mary and Joseph, especially as word from the Magi arrived to them of the monarch’s secret plans. Herod was very much present at the birth, looming over that sorry lot like an evil, infanticide-prone shadow from his palace in Jerusalem.

Those who first embraced the Christ-child for who He truly was formed a diverse lot, unquestionably, but they also had much in common. They shared their devotion to the child, for certain, and they had their desire to know Him—in this alone they might have found sufficient cause for brotherhood, but there is much beyond this. They also share common ground in that, in their striving after the Christ child, they—each in their own way—utterly defied the world’s expectations of them. The father would not be confined to social conventions, but took Mary, whom he had never known, to be his wife. He chose accept (perhaps even gladly) the mockery and exclusion of his caste for the sake of his seemingly-dysfunctional little family. The mother, likewise, bore the brunt of social expectation; gladly, though not by choice. The shepherds, working-class men engaged in their labors, abandoned their flock and, at least for a time, ceased to be shepherds for the sake of seeking the truth found in the words of the heavenly host. The magi, for all of their reason, must have seemed utter fools to cross the face of the earth; to defy a king; and to offer valuable Earthly treasures in exchange for the opportunity to reach out and touch the face of heaven with their own hands.

Only Herod played the expected role, and it was he who was most resoundingly defeated. In fact, it was not only Herod, but all earthly kings and rulers who were defeated by the birth of the king at the incarnation. Just as Malcolm Muggeridge noted that the crown of thorns worn by Jesus at the time of his death proved a mockery to every crown worn by every monarch, past and present, the manger that bore the Christ-child may have seemed lowly, but ultimately proved more grand and more exalted than the greatest of thrones.

The Christmas story, therefore, cannot be summed up merely in saying that it is a time of peace, or of love, or of joy, or of selflessness. Rather, it is a time for something much more, and all of these things echoing words and phrases are merely vague, shadowy manifestations of the truth.

Christmas is a time when scholarship and religion collide and are suddenly found to mesh into one powerfully strong fabric. It is a time when every disparate class of society may be found suddenly and unexpectedly unified; worshiping together in a cave in Bethlehem.

The Wars of Christmastime

Christmas for us in Christendom has become one thing, and in one sense even a simple thing. But like all the truths of that tradition, it is in another sense a very complex thing. Its unique note is the simultaneous striking of many notes; of humility, of gaiety, of gratitude, of mystical fear, but also of vigilance and of drama. It is not only an occasion for the peacemakers any more than for the merry makers; there is something defiant in it also; something that makes the abrupt bells at midnight sound like the great guns of a battle that has just been won. All this indescribable thing that we call the Christmas atmosphere only bangs in the air as something like a lingering fragrance or fading vapor from the exultant, explosion of that one hour in the Judean hills nearly two thousand years ago. But the savor is still unmistakable, and it is something too subtle or too solitary to be covered by our use of the word “peace”. By the very nature of the story the rejoicings in the Bethlehem stable were rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaw’s den; properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were rejoicing in a dug-out. It is not only true that such a subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies; and that the enemies were already scouring the stony plain that lay above it like a sky. It is not only that the very horse-hoofs of Herod might in that sense have passed like thunder over the sunken head of Christ. It is also that there is in that image a true idea of an outpost, of a piercing through the rock and an entrance into an enemy territory. There is in this buried divinity an idea of undermining the world; of shaking the towers and palaces from below; even as Herod the great king felt that earthquake under him and swayed with his swaying palace.

G.K. Chesterton
“The Everlasting Man”

The Christmas story has long since ceased to appear revolutionary to most of us. So deeply has it become entrenched into every facet of our society that the celebration of Christmas has long lacked the qualities that allowed it to usher in a brand new world in the first place. It has rejected the revolutionary in favor of the redundant.

I fall into this trap just as quickly as the rest, but then I am reminded by wise words such as those above, and I am reminded of the true nature of Christmas. I am reminded that it is an uprising. A revolution. But it is certainly an odd sort of revolution, as it is one fought first by a child rather than an army. It is also a lengthy revolution—two millennia and counting. But strangest of all, it is a revolution whose end was already determined before it was ever initiated. It is a war whose battles we continue to fight—which we are supposed to continue to fight with every ounce of our being—even though it has already been won. I suppose there is some sort of beautiful irony in the fact that our inevitable victory is meant to encourage us to fight on with ever more boldness and vigor. Christmas marks both the beginning and the end of a great struggle in which even the most formidable powers of Earth are brought to their knees in humility; where a child can be born utterly unknown and unrecognized by the world, yet still strike so much fear into the heart of a ruling King that he believes it necessary to take the most drastic measures in order to devour the threat.

Herod must have seemed positively mad from any rational human standpoint to take so seriously the warnings of the Magi that he would take to slaughter infants, yet only with the benefit of hindsight may we look back and make the remarkable claim that despite his intolerably evil act; even in this despicable decision of an altogether vile man trying desperately to cling to his precious Earthly throne; Herod had been right to fear. And even more profound, we know that even in this cruel act Herod had still powerfully underestimated the power and influence of this baby who was being weaned in a lowly cave within his kingdom. He feared for his own power, but he could not have understood that the kingdom this child would establish was far greater than his own, and that he would usurp the throne not just of Israel’s king, but of every king and ruler in all of human history. The kingdom established by the Christ-child would be a kingdom whose soldiers, armed with love and literature rather than swords or spears, would prove far more effective in conquest than any human army, whether of the Babylonians, the Romans, or the Macedonians.

Even so, it seems that Herod, beneath all of his evil, may have understood the meaning of Christmas better than you or I. He could see more clearly the threat posed by the coming of Immanuel, and his actions demonstrated this perfectly.

The incarnation of God was nothing less than a call to arms; it was a call that demanded one to take up sides, either for or against. One kingdom facing off against another. That of Heaven against that of man. Herod chose his side, and he attempted to woo the visiting Magi into his plan, though with all the cunning of double-agents, they brought warning to the King’s enemy instead.

The world continues to fight against the child in the manger, of course, but it does so only in a sort of desperate last gasp—a futile effort to delay the inevitable. It is a war waged against the forces of God and heaven, who wait in patience (as we also are told to do) for the fulfillment of the Kingdom over which Christ is truly King—a kingdom that is all at once here and yet still to come.

It is because of the faith born on that first Christmas day that we fight on; it is because of Christ that we do not cease pressing forward in realization that the battle has been won; we do not shrug in complacency. We press on with ever greater confidence, resting in the warm assurance of our success. Our already victory allows us to endure every trial and every tribulation without fear, and it enables a boldness unknown to the world—a boldness that is of little worth if it is not leveraged to do great things. The man who truly understands Christmas is the man willing to give all in response to it. Just as Herod sacrificed his own humanity along with innocent children in a futile and evil attempt to put an early end to the threat, we also must come to understand the impact of the incarnation enough to embrace our humanity and to protect the humanity of others. If ever there was a season to understand the stark contrast between good and evil, it ought to be this. If ever there was a time to take seriously the desperate needs of our world, it ought to be this.  

Now, in these recent years, there is much that is being said of a “war on Christmas,” and it is with a heavy heart that I notice Christians beginning to cower in fear from the attacks on Christmas celebrations. Christians scream and shout of this great “injustice”—they run and tell their lawmakers in hopes of protecting their poor, fragile God and his holiday. They cower and hide from these dreadful heathens—dangerous non-believers who have come to so completely abhor the holiday that they positively bristle when they see signs that it is being celebrated in public; the same non-believers whose greatest fear is that some poor, weak-minded soul might be blindsided by the hidden, brainwashing messages of the season.

I don’t deny that all of this has been happening, and all the more publically with each passing year, but I feel somewhat alone in finding some encouragement in seeing that Christmas has come under attack. Why should I be anything but encouraged that the enemies of Christ appear to have taken their cue from Herod: they have finally begun to take Christ seriously enough to want to rid the world of him? Christ is his most potent when he is taken seriously, is he not? The message of Christianity is at its most dangerous when it is under attack, is it not?

I don’t deny the humanist his right to attempt to abolish Christmas—truly, if he has any desire to strengthen his own faith he has no choice but to do exactly that. Secularism absolutely cannot thrive in a world where Christmas is taken seriously. I cannot fault the opponent of God when he seeks to put an end to the singing of Christian carols in public schools, for the message of Christ is perhaps most easily understood by those who have not been corrupted by the false wisdom brought by age.

I don’t deny that Christmas is an open attack on secular values or humanist. What I do deny is the notion that Christmas is in any danger of disappearing as a result of the counter-attack, for Christians are no more likely to abandon the celebration of Christmas than Christ was in danger of being discovered by Herod’s minions. The same God whose incarnation we celebrate with this season will see to it that the season survives whatever onslaught the world may devise.

Christmas began under war-like conditions, and perhaps it is still engulfed in the same war after more than two thousand years. But only one side has any reason to be afraid of the outcome. Only one side ought to be shivering in their boots when they consider the vast consequences of the conflict. Christmas is a call to joy; it is a call to giving; it is a call to remembrance; but it is also a call to arms, and we would do best to remember that from time to time.