Christmas Choices

This essay is cross posted to my NCR comments post, Hey, Michael Sean. You can find MSW's post at https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/god-us-catholic-faith-incarnation-not-abstraction and mine at https://heymsw.blogspot.com/2018/12/god-with-us-in-catholic-faith.html

The story of Emmanuel (God with Us) is more a series of choices than hagiography.  Whether the story happened as described or portrayed by the modern Church is immaterial to the deeper reality of the story.  In reality, the Magi came first because their journey was longest. They chose to believe in Jesus as something more than an earthly king even before he was born and not because they received an angelic message.

To understand the Magi, we must admit that they were Astrologers and that they would have sought the transformational King of the Jews based on what they understood from the planetary positions of the day, including both conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn and a solar eclipse on the appropriate day. Reverse engineering their calculations places Jesus' birth day at April 17, 6 BCE.

The reason the Church placed Christmas where it is was to counter the Saturnalia of the Winter Solstice (which fell on December 25th due to the progression of the equinoxes, which was corrected by Pope Gregory).  The Church failed in its endeavors. Saturnalia is still with us at Yuletide as a natural human reaction to the longer nights. It need not be suppressed.  Indeed, it should not be. While we celebrate Christmas because Christ is our light, one season of Masses does not overcome a very human need for revelry. That revelry at the solstice was still happening in the England of the Seventeenth Century (and beyond). It is why the Plymouth colonists banned the celebration of Christmas and why the Jehovah's witnesses still do. Only marriage is celebrated by the Witnesses, which is why many marriages occur on Christmas day or New Years.

The real first choice, because it was made by God beyond time, was to come and personally experience human suffering (from the changing of seasons to death on a cross). Both the Incarnation and the Passion and Resurrection are essential elements of this choice.

The next choice is Mary's, who consented to be the vehicle for the incarnation. She could have said no or it would not have been an authentic choice. Then Joseph chose. He was more a poor itinerant laborer than a carpenter, according to alternate translations from the original Greek. First, he chose not to kill the child and his mother when she came back from Jerusalem pregnant by someone else. Second, he chose to believe his dream and took Mary into his home, which resulted in the birth of Salome, Thomas and Simon, Salome's sons James and John who were partners with Andrew and Peter. This is half of the Twelve. In modern times, an itinerant laborer would not have such a household, but Joseph did.

Jesus chose a life of poverty, at least for his birth. A reading of the story of the Baptizer shows that he may have been a Pharisee (as in one among you will be the chosen one). He was born to a poor family in Bethlehem in either Judah or Galilee. St. Helen directed the building of a church on the reputed site of the nativity, but Galilee has a good claim too. That the site of that ancient church is now buried under the highway to Tel Aviv actually speaks to its authenticity. Jesus choice to live among the poor also led to his discovery by shepherds. who were tending the spring sheep and lambs in the countryside. Jesus was born in a stable, but that stable was likely in a family compound. Jesus was born downstairs with the animals because childbirth was regarded as unclean.

Herod reputedly chose wrongly (although there is no evidence of the slaughter of the innocents). In the story, he rejected the infant king which was not his son. That anyone but his son had a claim to the throne, especially of the house of David, would put a crimp in his cooperation with Rome. The child must be eliminated and Herod was sure he had been. The reputed flight to Egypt (or elsewhere) of Jesus and his family to be foreign migrants (including older siblings James and Joseph) has a different meaning today, as foreign migrants in America still depend on the day labor that Joseph had to endure.

The important choice again falls to Mary. The most accurate piece of information is that she remembered all of these things and kept them in her heart. She then told Jesus, which was his first knowledge of his divinity. Being both fully human and fully divine means he was no hybrid, so his mind could not have held all of the knowledge of God. Rather, he was a man of absolute faith in what was told to him by his mother. His miracles were by faith, not power. Even the healing of the woman with constant menstrual bleeding was an act of faith on her part.

This leads us to the Cross. When Jesus gave his mother to the care of John without commissioning John to save the world, he emptied himself of both the divinity that Mary told him about as a child and the mission he had chosen. This led him to the abandonment which we feel in our lives today as he called out to Elijah in despair. That he drank the fruit of the vine in John's Gospel shows that he died in the Father's kingdom, transforming even the abode of the dead into Paradise. When we accept that divine journey, bookended by the Incarnation and the Passion, the Incarnation makes sense.

The subsequent triumph of the Resurrection is central to our faith. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we believe Jesus defeated death and that we shall rise again.  That choice we make, based on what Paul relates about real people seeing a real Jesus, is the central fact of our faith. Rejecting that fact turns the Incarnation into a nice fairy tale. We believe it is not.