Does Christmas preach the good news?
What are yous aiming to do in your Christmas services this yr? For many, information technology is an opportunity to make use of this season which is rooted in Christian festivities—though nosotros inappreciably demand reminding how far many Christmas traditions have moved from that. Five years ago, it was reported that i 3rd of children anile between 10 and thirteen did not know that Christmas celebrates the nascency of Jesus; I don't suppose that figure has gone down, but we appear to exist less concerned about it now! We want to educate, and we desire to invite—but what is the connection between all the endeavor nosotros put into Christmas events, and the making and forming of Christian disciples?
The most striking thing about Christmas in recent years is the dissimilarity between the number of people who come to church at Christmas and the number who then become regular attenders. When we were reflecting on this in our missional community (mid-sized church grouping), ii main questions arising were: why has Christmas become then kid-oriented; and what do we offer to people as the next step from coming to a Christmas service? Someone commented that she read, many years ago, that Christmas was the fourth dimension when fewest people actually come up to organized religion, and that seems to take persisted. So many come, but and then few stay. Attendance at Christmas services appears to be an outward and visible sign that oftentimes lacks the inward and spiritual reality.
When I mentioned this in passing in previous manufactures, the response was: what's the evidence? I would signal to at to the lowest degree three signs. The first is anecdotal. An online friend protested vociferously at my proffer that we might tinker with any features of the traditional presentation of Christmas, since 'after all, these are people who but come to church at this time, and it is their merely chance to hear the message.' To which my response was: 'If it is theonly time they hear the message, it looks like we haven't done a very good task communicating it!'
The second is analysing actual church attendance. Omnipresence numbers at Christmas have been increasing in recent years—though 2022 showed a quite sharp drib, equally did the figure vii years previously. Only more interesting is the analysis of whether Usual Sunday Attendance in January and February shows any corresponding increment. I did some conscientious analysis of numbers when we were role of a growing church in Poole, Dorset—and information technology was very noticeable that the fourth dimension when omnipresence grew was non Christmas merely September, to all intents and purposes the existent showtime of a new yr for most people.
The third piece of evidence comes from research on the impact of Christmas. Enquiry on how much occasional visitors to church services learnt about the gospel from singing Christmas carols offers a clear answer: not a lot.
It is worth asking why there is such a disconnect between what people experience at Christmas and what they might hear at other times of the year in our services and our preaching. And I cannot help but retrieve that role of the reason is the way nosotros disconnect the Christmas story from the other parts of story of Jesus—how we disconnect the Jesus of the Bethlehem manger from the Jesus of his Capernaum ministry. In recent years I have been struck (in listening to many Christmas messages online and in the media) at how anaemic much of Christmas preaching has become. In the reports, it seemed to focus on a general bulletin of affirmation—that the incarnation affirms the dignity of human existence, that the human condition is of infinite dignity, and then on. This is clearly of import stuff, and there is plenty of theological reflection around on the theological significance of the incarnation for the meaning of being human being. But is this the Christmas bulletin? At its worst, this become a slightly spiritualised version of 'I'm OK, you're OK', then perchance it is not so surprising when people leave Midnight Communion thinking 'Well, it'southward all OK, so no need to go to church till adjacent Christmas.' Just even at its all-time, this does non match the gospel texts, whose focus is non then much on the affidavit of human dignity as the proximity of the presence of God, which has other more of import implications.
So is our preaching at Christmas setting out skilful news? By that, I don't mean 'Are we saying overnice things to people', but are we sharing the Skilful News? What is the connectedness between Jesus' coming at Christmas and Jesus' ain preaching? Shouldn't we come across some correlation betwixt the ii? At the cadre of Jesus' ain preaching was the proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of God, and the urgency of a response in repenting and believing—of turning from sin and putting our trust in God and his action. Practise the birth narratives offer themes that connect with this?
Mark has no birth narrative, just alone amongst the gospel introduces his story every bit a 'gospel', as an proclamation of skilful news (Mark 1.one). That is rooted in OT prophecy virtually the coming of an all-powerful i, preceded by a messenger, and the job of the messenger is to 'make the paths straight', a physical metaphor for moral and spiritual reform, which naturally leads into the account of the preaching of John the Baptist and his 'baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins' (Marker 1.4).
In Matthew, themes of kingship are prominent. His genealogy is arranged in three groups of fourteen generations, fourteen being the number of King David (in Hebrew gematria, D = 4, V = 6 and D = 4, so David, DVD = 14), emphasising Jesus' birth in the royal line. The angel appearing to Joseph in a dream (since in Matthew it is the men who are the main actors in the drama) emphasises that Jesus 'will save people from their sins' (Matt 1.21). Kingship becomes quite explicit in the visit of the Magi, seeking the one 'built-in male monarch of the Jews' (Matt 2.1)., and their gifts of gilded, frankincense and myrrh take commonly been held to symbolise Jesus' kingship, his divinity or priesthood, and his suffering sacrifice for sin. Matthew's account is total of the disturbing presence that Jesus' nascency brings, which threatens and disrupts the lodge of things at the political and personal level.
In Luke's long birth drama, these themes are merely as prominent. The annunciation elicits faith and trust from Mary, in contrast to the response from the supposedly older, wiser and more spiritual Zechariah. The Magnificat (Luke 1.46–55) lyrically expounds the overturning of the expected political social club of things, inverting patterns of power. Once Zechariah believes God in the birth of John, he celebrates the longed-for arrival of the i who will evangelize his people from oppression, and the preparation by the hope of 'forgiveness of their sins' (Luke 1.77) which will lead them into 'holiness and righteousness' (Luke 1.75).
In John, with his soaring cosmic vision of the pregnant of 'the Word made flesh', one that is rooted in the particular testimony of the 'homo named John', the themes of belief, unbelief and the resulting division between 'those who received him' and those who didn't. The grace that come with Jesus is universally offered, but the failure for it to be universally received results in the sectionalization that runs through the gospel like a fault-line for anybody who encounters Jesus.
Four years ago, Peter Liethart observed that Tom Wright is the theological equivalent of the Grinch that Stole the (traditional) Christmas, considering he highlighted the disconnection that has opened up between what we sing and say in church building and what the gospels articulate.
Advent hymns are about Israel. They are deeply and thoroughly and thrillingly political. Advent hymns wait forward non toskysimply the redemption of State of israel and of the nations, the coming of God's kingdom on globe. When we turn to Christmas hymns, these themes almost completely drop out…And Christmas seems to elicit some of the worst and most sentimental poetry ever written.
Biblical Christmas hymns are very, very dissimilar. They are explicitly rooted in the history of Abraham, Moses, David, exile, and the longing for render. They are overtly, even uncomfortably, political.
Every bit information technology turns out, Wright is no Grinch. He didn't steal Christmas. What he stole was a false Christmas, a de-contextualized and apolitical Christmas. But we shouldn't have bought that Christmas in the offset place, and should have been embarrassed to display it so proudly on the mantle. Proficient riddance, and Bah humbug.
Leithart is making a slightly dissimilar point from me—the loss of the political context of Christmas which is nowadays everywhere in the biblical story. Merely the outcome is the same—the detachment of our Christmas celebrations from the gospels of the New Attestation, and the resulting anaemia and ineffectiveness of our preaching.
I am not suggesting that the 'skilful news' is always comfortable, nor am I suggesting that we should tell people on their ane foray into the weird culture of church building that they are sinners who need to apologize. Only a primal part of the proficient news is that the earth isn't how it was meant to be, and that there is the possibility of modify held out by the grace of God—that our lives demand not continue as they are. If our offering of good news at Christmas matched the NT a little more closely, I wonder whether we couldn't meet that gap betwixt escalating Christmas attendance and overall church reject close a piffling—and hopefully in the right direction!
(A version of this was previously published in 2016.)
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