The world still spins on its axis and there are no obvious signs of it ending any time soon. Neither of these observations means that it won’t end any time soon. Mind you, given current conditions, the continuation of the world in its present state is not unalloyed good news. The virus continues to spread and kill, the planet warms, racism continues to exclude and oppress, poverty for many continues to grind, political tensions rise. None of this is good, even if the main impulse at this time of year is to direct our gaze away from these realities and coo contentedly as we imagine a well-fed infant, sleeping soundly albeit in a feeding trough wrapped in cloths (not clothes). But this infant will shortly become a refugee in another country to escape violence. He will grow up probably having the circumstances of His birth questioned (“his mother was unmarried when He was conceived, y’know”), and to be discriminated against because of the end of the country He apparently hailed from. And then a lot of other things will happen. There is a hard edge to the Biblical narrative that we think of as the first Christmas, and it gets harder as the story progresses. It is the history of a life very definitely lived in a world eerily familiar to us.
In reality, ours is a world of predicaments. Some are petty and trivial, and barely deserve the description. Some are excruciating and perplexing and admit to no obvious solution. Whether to wear or not wear a mask at an indoor gathering really should not be on the list. The fact that it is in many parts of the rich and educated world is one small sign of how ridiculous things are becoming. There are many reasons why some insist they will not wear a mask. Apparently for some it is a matter of demonstrating that they have an inalienable right to choose, and to demonstrate that they are possessors of such a right they choose to act nonsensically. It would be no denial of their right to choose to wear a mask, but apparently freedom is only demonstrated by wrong choices. Of course they feel free to choose because they don’t understand their predicament. The problem is dangerous, but it is invisible. The virus can’t be seen, smelt or touched. It is only revealed by one or more of a constellation of symptoms, and (in an admittedly small minority) an inability to breathe effectively even in an intensive care unit. As most of us don’t work in intensive care units, we don’t see the daily life and death struggle to breathe in such places. Numbers, rates, probabilities, statistics, just don’t communicate effectively enough the predicament. Not feeling in peril means things like mask wearing and vaccination come to feel like impositions rather than means of rescue. And this partly explains why what happened at Bethlehem is so easily misconstrued.
If you don’t feel the seriousness of a situation, you are unlikely to feel any particular necessity for rescue. If I tell you the baby born in Bethlehem was actually not just any old baby (not that there are such things) but one stage in a cosmic rescue mission, it’s unlikely to strike you as particularly relevant to you. So it is easy to accept the line that Christmas is a quaint cultural festival; a probable kernel of historical truth wrapped in multiple layers of myth, but nothing more. After all, a relevant rescue mission would suggest some level of peril, and you don’t feel in any way imperilled. And certainly not in a manner whereby a baby could possibly be of much help. But what if, as with the virus, you couldn’t see, hear, touch or even normally feel the threat that you face? Attempting persuasion with propositions probably just won’t cut it. Nevertheless, here goes.
The thing about the baby born in Bethlehem, in this world although admittedly some time ago, is that it provides a point of contact between two narratives. One is the narrative of the Living God, as He reveals it in the Bible; the other is a competing narrative that there is no such being and the Bible is a story book for children and the inadequate. But let’s stick with God’s narrative for the moment. Our world is spoiled and is not as it should be. This spoiling involves all of us as we are spoiled too (from His point of view). As He’s God, and we’re not, this rather matters. Because the problem – let’s call is S for short – is so fundamental, and because S is an outrage and an affront to God, the only real answer is to bring the current state of affairs to an end, and recreate things as they should be. Because He's God He can do this. But then what of you and me? That would mean an end of us (remember we’re part of the problem). But at some point, still in our future, that’s what is going to happen. And so that’s the predicament we face. Now we could rail against the injustice of it all, but that wouldn't solve the predicament. We could just ignore it and wish it away, it does all sound a bit remote and ridiculous. But if there were anything that could deliver us from our predicament, ignoring it wouldn't make sense.
For reasons fundamentally only known to Himself, and only partly revealed to us (but to do with His character as opposed to any external necessity), God has provided a means by which we can be rescued from this predicament. By fixing S in individuals, the process of being made fit for the world that will follow can be inaugurated. The baby born in Bethlehem is part of the mission that makes this possible. And this is where the two narratives collide. Because there really is a Bethlehem, and there really was a baby. To deal with S, there is a price, a cost that has to be paid. Being affected by S incurs an obligation that must be met before there can be any question of being part of the world that is to come. But self-help is not an option. After all, by nature we are all so caught up in the counter-narrative that there isn’t even a problem. Other than what is revealed in the Bible, God’s narrative, we would be unaware of our predicament, and therefore blissfully ignorant of our obligation. But the baby born in Bethlehem, grows to adulthood and takes that obligation on Himself as a substitute, and offers individuals freedom from the obligation, thereby fixing S.
Thus, only to see a baby is to miss the bigger picture, to miss (and to miss out on) the rescue mission. Rescue offered to all, because all are in a predicament and facing disaster because of S. To substitute appropriate Bible words for S, Jesus becomes a Saviour to deal with Sin. More than a baby, a rescuer. All fine and good. Except you probably neither see it, or feel it. Even though the pandemic should have taught us all about our vulnerability, and the fragility of life as it is for all of us. All this talk of sin and rescue sounds much less compelling than sticking with stories of perpetual babies. Except that in due course Christmas will be followed by Easter. And that’s a whole different story.
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