Eat, drink, and be merry
Christmas is based on a fact; not on the literal accuracy of every word in the Gospels, but on the fact of the Incarnation. If it is not true that the Word was made flesh in the person of Christ, then the story of Christmas may, like all good stories, of- fer moral and psychological truths, but that is all. It will be no more than a legend, and the edifice of doctrine and worship which the Church has built upon it will be as false as the original fact. But it is also true that the Incarnation cannot be proved by or- dinary historical or scientific methods: its fact only becomes apparent through faith. If the Church is to make anything of its du- ty to preach the Gospel at Christmas, it has to explain the fact in strictly religious terms. Today's Church does not readily supply such an explanation. Some of its bishops do not even believe it themselves. Many more regard the exposition of religious truth as an affront to the good nature and patience of the few that care to listen to them, and are content to conduct their carol services, and make a few remarks about the lack of love in the world. and the humble cir- cumstances of Christ's birth. If they are sentimental, they will go on about how Christmas is a time for the children; if they are austere, they will complain about the enjoyment of carnal pleasures at such a time; if they are political, they will point out that while we eat our turkey, a third of the world is making do with rice.
If this is the Church's handling of Christmas, the 'commercial Christmas' regularly railed against each year is the last thing that Christmas need worry about. The cribs on show in big stores may well be the nearest representation of Christian truth that many children ever see, the atmosphere of festivity and consumption the only ghost many adults know of a great feast of the Church. Indeed, in the semi-secular, com- mercial Christmas, two vital principles are observed — that the occasion is for a fami- ly, however broken, and that the purpose of all the spending and effort is mainly to give. These are Christian principles which are rein forced by their widespread annual observance. All that the commercial Christmas suf- fers from is its vagueness. It acknowledges that the birth of Christ was a Big Moment for mankind, from which we should learn and which we should commemorate, but on why, what and how, it is confused. If there is no institution ready to remedy the vagueness, the strength of belief will in- evitably degenerate. The hungry sheep look up and, receiving little attention from their pastors, settle for Christmas pudding. What makes the failure of the Church in this respect so odd, is the quality of the i truth bequeathed to it. It would take a man of remarkable eloquence and clarity to br- ing the doctrine of the Trinity home to an ignorant audience, but in Christmas the Christian religion finds its most accessible moment, the moment when God, that most inaccessible of concepts, became a man.
Becoming man means becoming something that every man may understand, and therefore something which any clergyman should be able to explain. Where a generalised concept might mean nothing, a specific fact is intelligible. It is possible (though not especially pleasant) to visit Bethlehem today and experience the bleakness of the Judean hills in winter, or simply to point to a map to show where the events took place. The story of a particular time, place and person can be told.
The more often, fully and beautifully the Church relates the events of Christmas, the more inevitably will their 'relevance' appear to those who listen; and the more the listeners learn, the more they will wish to know what else happened, where the story began, and whether it has ended. Souped up, watered down, over-generalised, Christmas is reduced to the ordinary things which, by its events, were made extraor- dinary. The precise story of how the Word was made flesh is the most truthful that words can tell, and becomes less so with each alteration.
Nor does the Church have to speak with condescension of these simple events, as if they were a show put on to convince the foolish. They contain more than any in- tellect can ever grasp. It is almost unbearably difficult and delightful to im- agine the Redeemer of the world being born in a stable, He 'whose glorious, yet con- tracted light, wrapt in night's mantle, stole into this manger'. There could be nothing stranger than that God should have im- planted his Word in a speechless baby (the Latin infans means, literally, wordless), or that he should have prepared his coming by so many signs, and then come by stealth.
Many who are exasperated by the weakness and secularism of trendy religion have driven themselves into a position where, in order to save their faith from dilu- tion, they have made it antithetical to the world. To them, in particular, the Church can give a proper answer at Christmas. We are told that 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten son, to the end that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life'. In these circumstances, it is presumptuous to hate the world. Christ's life on earth forbids anyone to regard his own life as pointless. The moment of his arrival is a moment of joy, which is what Christmas, however debased, has remained. It would be nice if the sermon on Christmas morning simply said, 'eat, drink and be merry, for today we live'.
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