Wokingahm Word article - December 2010
Isn’t Christmas just a bunch of fairy tales? ...
We can enjoy the angels and the crib, the shepherds and the baby Jesus, but is it anything more than a fairy tale for the kids? Of course there may be a motive for thinking this which many may try to hide, for if there is any truth in the accounts about Jesus, then maybe his teaching about right and wrong may also be true. Maybe there is a God who can be known, however inconvenient this truth may be for us. But it is a fair question. What is the truth of Christmas and so what?
The Truth of Christmas
The claim of the gospel of Luke is that he has carefully investigated the truth
of what he writes from “eyewitnesses” or “servants of the
word”. Contrary to popular belief the early witnesses to the supernatural
birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus were not backward illiterate peasants.
We know that the virgin Mary’s wider family were literate, they were a
priestly family so they had to be. The gospel accounts that we have read at
Christmas, many from Luke’s gospel, clearly have their origin in the testimony
of Mary herself – how else can we know that “she treasured these
things up in her heart”, and there is no reason to believe some were not
written records. Of course Christians believe that the gospels we have are accurate
eye witness testimony for good reason – all the gospels are linked to
one of the first disciples and we can measure any variation from the original
gospel by the 15,000 texts and ancient translations at our disposal. Similarly
Christians believe that supposed additional gospels to the 4 in the bible are
spurious for good reason – they were written at least 150 years later
than the events they claim to record. The gospels in the bible were written
during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. So maybe we can know the truth of Christmas.
So what?
But even if it is all true, so what? It means that God is not some distant tyrant
who is out to ruin our fun or some kind of cosmic sadist, but rather an amazingly
loving God who is committed to the human race. So committed that he is willing
to become a human forever in the person of Jesus Christ. So we are valueable
to God. And by wonderfully dying on the cross Jesus demonstrates that he is
not aloof from our suffering, but enters into it himself, indeed goes to the
very depths of it to take the punishment we deserve. Also we see that Jesus
is not some helpless victim on the cross, nor solely an inspiring example, but
a powerful saviour as the angels announced. He made it possible for death and
our natural atheism to be conquered. So what? What could be more fundamental
than the value we place on a human being? What could be more fundamental than
there being a reason to suffering, an answer to the grave and the possibility
of a relationship of love with the God of the universe? Why would we want these
things to be fairy tales when there is sufficient evidence both in world history
and in the life history of Christians, that they are not?
Rev. John Parker, Church at White House School for and on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham