The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Does Christmas present an emasculated God?

Theology Christology
#1

Happy Christmas all!
I celebrate Christmas as much as most do, but doesn’t the over-emphasis of the arrival of the baby present an emasculated God?
“Gentle Jesus meek and Mild”
No crying He makes"
Aaawwww - isn’t it loverly! But I have no grounds to believe that the baby Jesus was any more meek or mild than any other (I think he is mild purely on the basis that mild rhymes with child). I have no grounds to believe that he did not cry (that would be a great impediment to his mother who needs to know when to feed him).
So my question and interest is:
Which part of the Christmas do you keep and which do YOU personally dispense with.

For me, I think Satan is fairly happy if the world emphasises the impotent little baby to the exclusion of the real importance of the incarnation.

For me, Christmas can be summed up as: [size=150]God experienced humanity so that humanity might experience God[/size]

So how about other folk? What does Christmas mean to you?

#2

Hi John,

Great post idea! :smiley: I love this:

Will ponder this a bit:

and see if I have anything worthwhile to add…

Merry Christmas!

#3

I think the message of Jesus being born into this world like any other human is important. He emptied Himself of everything and was born helpless and dependent on a young woman to care for His every need. Our God is a humble God, and that is the way we will be too, when we’re like Him. The greatest of all is the Servant of all. How wonderful He is. Jesus was meek and mild toward His Father. I heard in a sermon once that the person who is a child in the presence of Father will be the adult in the room to the world. That made an impression on me. We come into the Kingdom by virtue of our childlikeness. That includes our humility before our Father and our desire to be like Jesus and to learn of Him, our absolute need for the Holy Spirit (as Jesus also depended solely on the HS for His communication with God, as a human). If we want to be noble and admirable, then we need to be like the little childlike child. If we humble ourselves, Father will exalt us.

But yes, I do think that quite a lot of the legendary stuff that grew up around the Christmas story is silly. Of course the baby Jesus cried. Babies do cry, and there’s no sin in that, so why not? It’s a signal to Mom and Dad that something needs tending to, and would be a problem if it were absent. And of course He is not a baby any longer, but I do think He is still childlike because “of such is the kingdom of heaven,” and He is the King. I’m still thinking about this because of discussing the first of George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons. A fragment of one of Johnny’s favorite quotes:

comes from that sermon. It is more the work of art the more I read it, but I do think this is the central gem. God is childlike, and so must we become.

Love, Cindy

#4

For the first three centuries A.D. Christians did not celebrate the birth of Christ. About 354 A.D. the pagan celebration of Saturnalia in honour of the god Saturn was changed to a celebration of the birth of Christ. The Saturnalia celebration was held around Dec. 25, and gifts and small images were exchanged.

The catholic church began to hold three masses in honour of the three births of Christ: [1] His birth before all ages [2] His birth from Mary, and [3] His birth in the hearts of the faithful. Each of these masses were “Christ’s Mass” or “Christmas”.

By the way, you have probably noticed I wrote “Xmas” instead of “Christmas”. Some Christians think by spelling it that way we are taking the “Christ” out of Christmas and replacing it with an unknown quantity. Not so!
The letter “X” represents the Greek letter “Chi”, the first letter of the Greek word “χριστος” (Christos) which is translated as “Christ”. So the “X” in “Xmas” is tantamount to “Christ”.

In some of the traditional churches, RC, Orthodox, and Anglican, you sometimes see this symbol:

[size=180]☧[/size]

If you have ever seen this, have you wondered what it represented? It represents “Christ” because it is the first two letters in the Greek word “χριστος” .
The X is the letter “chi”, the first letter, and the big P is the letter “rho”, the second letter.

Since the early church did not celebrate the birth of Christ, neither do I. So have I rejected Xmas altogether? Not at all. The part I keep is the glitz and glitter. I love the Xmas lights people put up. I sing Xmas carols, yes, even the one’s about X’s birth. My favourites are “Lo a rose e’er bloometh” and “Joy to the World”. These songs can be sung all the year round, since they are not limited to Christ’s birth. I also keep the potatoes and gravy and mince pie! In other words, I like to get together with family and friends, visit, play games, eat a good meal, etc.

That’s it. I don’t keep Christmas as a Christian holiday (which it isn’t). There’s nothing in the Bible asking God’s people to celebrate the birth of Christ. Nor is there any command against it. So I have no judgment to make of those for whom Xmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ. Why should I? People are free to celebrate His birth, His baptism, His ministry or any other aspect of His life. The first Christians did celebrate His resurrection, however. Every Sunday when they took the bread and wine of the Eucharist (thanksgiving) they remembered His death and resurrection on our behalf.

#5

Thanks Paidion!

I appreciate your knowledge and learn something from everything you post. I never knew before where that chi rho symbol came from. Thanks for your knowledge and thoughts on this forum. (Though I’m not ready to become a monist just yet :wink: ) I probably celebrate “Xmas” much like you do. I enjoy the “glitz and glitter”, time with family, decorations, Christmas music and family traditions. Perhaps, for me, Scrooge’s nephew Fred puts it best:

Merry Christmas!

#6

I no longer subscribe to the Satan of evangelicalism. As for the other traditions that need to make Jesus everything we are not… that IMO has been the inevitable consequence of deifying Jesus according to our understanding of deification. Even though he was appointed ‘Lord’ Act 2:36; Rom 1:4] I think Jesus would be embarrassed at all the attention taken away from the Father who now fills “all in all”.

#7

Interesting thread, Pilgrim. I second Steve’s words that it’s an idea worth much discussion.

Firstly, I don’t think emphasizing the infant Jesus presents God in an emasculated manner. The newborn Christ, in my opinion, reminds us that “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28). The infant Jesus, for me, epitomizes the essence of Christ’s divinity and humanity – He came to us by divine power, through the virgin birth, but He nonetheless chose to enter our lowly world as helpless and utterly reliant on the goodness of others.

Yes, I imagine that Jesus kept Mary and Joseph up many nights due to some crying spells. :laughing: After all, he was both God and Man. And, being a man, the infant Christ inherently cried, vomited, and wet his diaper. As I mentioned before, I don’t think this emasculates our Lord. Quite the contrary, I think this dual nature of Christ emphasizes that God’s miracles can coincide with the ordinary. As you put it, “God experienced humanity so that humanity might experience God.” Or, to use similar words from C.S. Lewis, " 'The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God."

How interesting, Paidon! I remember learning about this in the recesses of my memories from Catholic school. I also remember my Protestant mother joking that it meant, “No Protestants Allowed!” since the Catholics placed it nearly everywhere. According to her, the P stood for “Protestant,” and the X stood for a big, fat “No!” much like a “No Smoking” sign. :laughing:

And I love that George MacDonald quote, Cindy!

I’ll have to think on what aspects of Christmas I generally don’t follow. Surely there were no llamas at the nativity, but I still enjoy seeing them at the local reenactments each year. :laughing:

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Kate

#8

I agree. The Son of God was no more “emasculated” by being a baby than any other baby boy. For He was FULLY human while he lived on this earth as a man. This is quite different from the gnostic opinion that He was fully God and was not really born, but APPEARED on earth as a baby growing up. Some of their writings depict Him as giving great orations before He was a year old.

Hmmmm… So much for my statement that He was FULLY human. But I didn’t mean that He was an ordinary human, or even an extraordinary human. For He was the ONLY begotten Son of God.

He divested Himself of all of His divine attributes when He became man. That’s why I say He was FULLY man. The only thing He retained was His identity as the Son of God.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in the form of man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

So he WAS in the form of God but after His birth He was found in the form of man. That self-emptying as I see it, means that as a man He had no divine attributes. Like any other man, He could do no miracles independently of his Father, but the Father who dwelt within Him did the works THROUGH Him. Even in his pre-incarnate state, the Father created the universe THROUGH the Son (John 1:3) regardless of the fact that the song “Down from His glory” states “The great Creator became our Saviour.”

I think statements such as “God was born on earth to become our Saviour” is misleading. Jesus called his Father “The only true God” (John 17:3). Yet the term “God” is applicable to the Son in the sense that He was the only-begotten God (John 1:18 in the earliest manuscript), that is, He was begotten before all ages (as the early Christians wrote, and as the original Nicene Creed stated) just as divine as the Father. He was the exact imprint of the Father’s essence (Heb.1:3).

Indeed, though Trinitarians are usually the ones who make statements such as “God was born on earth to become our Saviour”. But I can’t understand that from a Trinitarian perspective. For Trinitarians understand God as a compound Being consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and surely the Trinity wasn’t born on earth to become our Saviour. I can understand a Modalist making the statement, “God was born on earth to become our Saviour,” since they believe God is a single Individual who reveals Himself in three different modes. They illustrate this by comparing it to an actor who wears three different masks.

#9

Surprising but true. I had no trouble abandoning XMAS knowing that it was actually a pagan festival given new christian designations. I don’t believe that God is honored by such a pagan festival, nor does the church influence the world for good by this christian compromise. It is not the worst thing we can do; but for morally sensible persons unaffected by the argument of sentimentality, you do have to wonder at such an event. I wonder if we would have our version of the Mardi Gras if we changed the name of the drag queen to Mary, Mother of all Queens. The Mardi Gras and Saturnalia were similar in their pervasiveness. I think that XMAS emasculates God period.

#10

I don’t know Steve… perhaps it says something about the power and spread of Christendom that it was able to subsume pitiable paganism and turn it towards honouring Him. :question: I guess it’s a matter of perspective.

#11

To the OP - I pretty much agree with you on those points.
My family does not focus on the ‘baby Jesus’ except in the context of the gospel story entire. Not so much on your sheep, your shepherds, yon virgin, or the other trappings. Kids seem to like knowing that Jesus was a kid also at one time. I like knowing that Jesus was a kid at one time. :slight_smile:
Many people do not hear the gospel except at Christmas, so if nothing else, the holy day CAN be a means to a good end. CAN be.
Many of the musical presentations we have attended on Christmas Eve end with the congregation standing and singing the Hallelujah Chorus, which of course keeps the evening focused on more than just the wee little bairn.
Most of the adults I know are plenty savvy enough to know what the season is really about, where it comes from etc etc …but still find it to be Christ-honoring, fun, celebratory; a welcome relief from - well we can fill in that dash in a lot of ways.

If I feel it is legitimate to be happy, to have fun, to celebrate at SOME point in the year, surely, if Christ is also being honored, this day would seem to be harmless enough.

#12

I think this indeed was the intention of the addition of Saturnalia into the Christians festivities. I do not doubt that the intent was good. We have the ability in hindsight to analyze the wholesale affects on Christendom and the world over justifying the continuance of such a custom. I think it promotes a very bad image of Christ and the church, as it also endorses consumerism and capitalism in a very grotesque way, allowing also the association with hedonism, christian apathy and hypocrisy, confusion, institutionalism, state-sanctioned religion in the west (as opposed to the governments promoting Yom Kippur day, or Ramadan). These are very mixed messages which give the average person the idea that everything that is state-sanctioned we should follow. Christianity, in turn, follows the sacred days of the state, such as memorial day, etc. This has become a symbiotic partnership between the state and church; and Christ has been brought in as a pawn in our own apathy and compliance. I agree it is a matter of perspective.

#13

Wonderful point about Christ “emptying” Himself, Paidion. I definitely agree with you, and I think that it is primarily this emptying which we celebrate with special remembrance come Christmastime.:slight_smile:

In my opinion, we must think of Christmas and Saturnalia in light of the other worldly or pagan things Christians have adapted for spiritual purposes. That is, so much of what we call “Christian” – not just what were once overtly pagan holidays – have roots in secularism. For example, the media – television, the internet, and advertising – is a highly secular world, but Christians have nonetheless permeated that world for the benefit of the Gospel. Oftentimes, we still let secular override the spiritual, but in my opinion, that doesn’t mean we cannot work to improve our relationship to the world’s inventions in order to make them more pleasing to Christ.

Just my two-cents before I head off to work.:slight_smile:

Blessings,

Kate

#14

‘Adapting paganism for Christian purposes…’ Really?

Perhaps we should take over Yom Yippur day and Ramadan too in our quest for permeating the secular and pagan… but why stop there… why not take over brothels and organized crime, the Mardi Gras too, why not take over the distribution of narcotics with a smiley face on each crack bag with the message, ‘Before you die of Crack, Jesus Loves You!’ Permeating the secular, especially idolatry and paganism, is such a contradiction of what Paul warns us of.

Comparing the ‘adapting of Saturnalia’ to the usuage of the internet or technology is embarrassing. :blush: Technology is a revolution of the progressive sciences that have largely been contributed to by christians. Many secularists and atheists own these patents and shares in order to extract the largest profit; they didn’t actually design the technology behind them. Technology has good and bad elements, and christians need to discern which elements to observe and which not to. It is the same with food. The bulk of what we buy from supermarkets is owned by secularist multi-national corporations - they did not invent the food - God did! We need to use discernment of what is good for us and what is bad. We don’t become McDonalds junkies just as a quest to permeate the secular. This excuse for adopting a pagan festival is lame; and the Catholic church is the founder of most of these lame customs. It is ironic that christians will defend such non-biblical custom with even greater force than they defend biblical teachings. This paradox seems to escape the majority.

The process of “the combining of different, often seemingly contradictory beliefs, while melding practices of various schools of thought” is called Syncretism. According to Webster’s dictionary, syncretism is “the combination of different forms of beliefs or practice”. John H. Newman, in the Development of the Christian Doctrine, states:

Basically, the Church found it difficult to stamp out these old pagan holidays and festivals, so they decided to adopt them. As we can see by the wide acceptance of Christmas and its merriment, people are not interested in Christ, they are interested in the merriment - under the pretense that it honors the birth day of Jesus. Does the church today really want to honor God with such an orgy of merriment, gluttonous, drunkenness, suicides and violence? Really? Does this really bring honor to God? Each to their own, but I think that the pagan festival is a disgrace to God and the Church. The wholesale destruction cannot be justified by Christmas carols and ditties whilst catching up with family members. That is very short-sighted IMO.

#15

I have heard of no one in our day who celebrates Xmas in worship of pagan gods, or in practice of any pagan rituals, or who interprets the meaning of Xmas trees, lights, Xmas carols, etc. as having a pagan significance.

#16

Okay IMO - I certainly don’t condone gluttony and drunkenness.
I do condone non-drunken Christ-honoring merriment, however, with all my being. I will trot out a few appropriate scriptures that enjoin us to be glad, even though we all know them. This won’t prove anything other than the scripture says there is a time for merriment. What better time than on a day we steal from the pagans and make it a day of worship AND merriment?

A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the
heart the spirit is broken.

PROVERBS 15:15
All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry
heart hath a continual feast.

PROVERBS 17:22
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

ECCLESIASTES 3:4
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

ECCLESIASTES 8:15
Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the
sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide
with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him
under the sun.

ECCLESIASTES 9:7
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry
heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

JEREMIAH 30:19
And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that
make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I
will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.

JEREMIAH 31:4
Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel:
thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in
the dances of them that make merry.

#17

:laughing:

#18

Oy! The more things change the more they stay the same…

See this link I posted on the “What’s up Santa!” thread.historytoday.com/chris-durston/lords-misrule-puritan-war-christmas-1642-60 Fighting battles from the 16th Century? :wink: Oh well, but probably best to keep it on Stef’s “What’s up Santa!” thread as it’s a bit off topic for this one.

#19

I have met many WICCA practitioners who celebrate XMAS with a YULE DAY twist.

twopagans.com/holiday/Yule.html

"The traditions of the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar stilll reflected in the Christmas ham, Yule singing, and others stem from Yule customs, and customs which Simek takes as “indicating the significance of the feast in pre-Christian times.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule

#20

That’s a great article, Steve. As I stated on “What’s up, Santa!”; I do not advocate wholesale boycotting or suppression of XMAS. I do not think our convictions should be forced onto anyone. XMAS is still a pagan festival; it has never changed (as per your article). Pagans who give lip service to God come to life at XMAS time; but many christians think that this widespread celebration is proof that God is honored in the world. That is just self-deception. People always see what they want to see.