Christianity Doesn't Exist Without Love

At Christmas time it is hard even for doubters and unbelievers to not believe in something, if not everything. Peace on earth, good will towards all people, an innocence that truly exists, love that can inevitably be held, a dream coming true, the mystery of childlike faith, and the potentiality of hope – not even the canned carols piped over the shopping center parking plaza from Thanksgiving on can drown it out entirely. Christmas carries with it hallowedness, holiness, a time in which life grows still like the surface of a river so that when we look down upon it we see not the reflection of time, but the reflection of gracious presence.

Frederick Buechner says,

For a moment or two, the darkness of disenchantment, cynicism, and doubt draw back, at least a little, and all the usual worldly witcheries lose something of their power to charm.

But my cynicism says, “No moment lasts forever.” It is only one day out of a year that the bird of dawning sings to us his tune. Darkness inevitably returns. Doubters inevitably doubt. Unbelievers inevitably don’t believe. The story of Jesus’ birth is the most scrutinized passage in scripture. Too many trees have died for scholars to objectify the discrepancies found in Matthew and Luke’s accounts. The when, where and how of the Nativity are endlessly subject to conjecture.

And truthfully, Jesus’ birth is uncertain. Matthew and Luke disagree in detail. Luke says Jesus is born in the year when Cyrenius, the Roman governor of Syria, took a census of Palestine; whereas Matthew says it is during the reign of Herod the Great. The difficulty comes with the fact that Cyrenius’ census is known to have been taken in the year 6 AD and Herod the Great died ten years earlier in 4 BC. There is a ten year gap that scholars don’t know what to do with.

The place of Jesus’ birth is questionable too. Bethlehem is the town traditionally named King David’s town, but that may have come about simply in order to bring history into line with the Old Testament prophecy that Bethlehem was where the Messiah as the Son of David was destined to come from. There are good reasons for believing that he may actually have been born in Nazareth. If there was no census, why travel?

Finally, the how of Jesus’ birth is questionable. I mean really? The wise men and the star, really? The shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night and the hymn the angels sing? If someone had been there with a camera, would he have recorded any of that? Or was the birth of Jesus no more if no less wonderful than any other birth? Whatever the answer, it can be based only on faith. There is no other way. The kind of objective truth a camera could have recorded is buried beneath the weight of two thousand years of ruins and sand.

But there is of course, another kind of truth. Whether in 4 BC or 6 AD, Nazareth or Bethlehem, Herod or Cyrenius, shepherds or kings, heavenly hosts of hymns or just Mary pushing as hard as she can – when that child was born – history changed.

So critique it if you will. Compare and contrast until your heart is content or even contrite. It is actually fine with me. I do it all the time. The bible’s account of our Savior’s birth is not inerrant. But I don’t care.

Buechner continues,

“For better or worse, it is a truth that, for twenty centuries, there have been untold numbers of men and women who, in untold numbers of ways, have been so grasped by the child who was born, so caught up in the message he taught and the life he lived, that they have found themselves profoundly changed by their relationship with him.”

And it is in this birth that a life-giving power is released to the entire world. It was the power of God.

This is the central message of Matthew and Luke. And this truth is a truth in which no language or legend seems extravagant enough to fully grasp.

Jesus as a baby does not judge or exhort or puzzle the world with his teachings. He makes no demands, threats, or even rewards. The world is free to take him or leave him. He does not rule the world from his mother’s lap but, like any child, is himself at the mercy of the world. Our creator of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers. And that baby is the presence of love.