The Meaning of Christmas

The meaning of Christmas is riddled with modern day contradictions. I was in the shops earlier today, in yet another futile attempt to find comfortably fitting clothes.  The Christmas Carol playing on the sound system was something about Christmas time being the happiest time of the year. Singing along, I just had to chuckle at the blatant lie.  People are unhappy at Christmas time, sometimes more so than during the rest of the year.

There are so many people who cause themselves financial problems by spending money unnecessarily in order to give meaning to Christmas. Some individuals are made more depressed by the way other peoples’ celebration of Christmas emphasizes their loneliness.

As a Christian I find the meaning of Christmas tied up with the life of Jesus of Nazareth who lived in the vicinity of Jerusalem during the time of the Roman occupation of the Middle East. There was nothing about his physical appearance and occupation that caused him to stand out from other Jews of his age.    

During the last three years of his life, he went around to the Jewish places of worship, calling himself the Messiah and the Son of God.  This caused such upset amongst the Jews that they demanded his crucifixion by the Romans.  Yet what made this man extraordinary was that crowds of people followed him wherever he went and after his execution his friends claimed that he came alive again. 

His friends started a religious movement that was different from the religions of the time in that they were peace loving and shared whatever they had with anyone who asked.

We know about the life Jesus of Nazareth and the meaning he gives to Christmas, because the letters his friends wrote each other eventually became the New Testament of the Bible and a few Roman historians also made casual references about the man or his followers. 

In two of these letters by men called Matthew and Luke, we are told about the birth of Jesus.  The baby’s parents went to Bethlehem during a census and it was here that the baby was born in a stable because there was no other accommodation available.  Wise men from the east went to Bethlehem to worship him as a King and gave him gifts. (Matthew Chapters 1 and 2 and Luke Chapter 2)

This is where the story told by Luke and Matthew and the meaning of Christmas meet, because people celebrate Christmas based on these few lines in the Bible.  It is also here where my problem with the way Christmas is celebrated starts, because I feel the giving of gifts is overemphasized and the rest of what is said of Jesus and by Jesus is too easily forgotten.

For instance, the giving of gifts and Christmas decorations seem to have much more in common with non-Christian religions than about the life of Jesus.  The global community buys large amounts of gifts to give meaning to Christmas and I don’t know if anyone realizes that this gift giving might be principally to celebrate the capitalist good harvest.

Children also do not except just any old present, because they have to look good in the eyes of their friends.  This means it has to be electronic gifts, which just add to the already insurmountable mountain of waste. 

Even in Christian circles this emphasis on presents creates problems.  I grew up in a Protestant household and my dad simply refused to buy gifts because according to him it had nothing to do with the meaning of Christmas.  It is also possible that he simply did not have enough money to buy presents. 

My husband on the other hand grew up in a Methodist household where his mother went out of her way to buy presents and put up the Christmas tree and decorations on the 1^st of December and to cook an enormous amount of food on the 24^th and 25^th. 

It was interesting that this particular event created a problem for my daughter’s teacher because when my daughter announced the nonexistence of Father Christmas to her classmates, the teacher had to appease the parents for whom the Father Christmas fable is a fun way to entertain their children.

Parties also give meaning to Christmas.  Let’s be honest, these parties are more a celebration of Dionysius as the god of food and drink, than a celebration of Christ.  Although Christ himself did enjoy parties, he did demand a high moral standard so that drunk and disorderly behaviour is  just not acceptable as a way of celebrating the birthday of Jesus. (Mark 2: 13 to 17)(Luke 4)

The gift Jesus gave people was not an object.  It was the third person of God, namely the Holy Spirit.  No one can buy the Holy Spirit or get it any other way than believing in Jesus as the Messiah. (Acts 8: 9 to 25). 

Christians will say that to give gifts is to show your appreciation of the love of Christ. I would argue that we are also custodians of the earth and that we should therefor decide what our ecological responsibility is.

Therefore, in the spirit of transparency let us decide, before we start our celebration of the meaningfulness of Christmas, who our god is:  is it Dionysus, Capitalism, Christ or none of the above?