Luke 2:7-8 ‘The Smell of Christmas’
What is the smell of Christmas to you?
For the smell of Christmas, we can only go to certain places in the Bible.
We would think the obvious place is the Gospels.
Well, Bingo! in Matthew and Luke;
But not a wiff in Mark and John.
Maybe Paul will write something about Jesus coming as a baby…..er, no. Nothing!
Even Revelation starts with the Cosmic Christ walking among the stars;
but nothing of the earthling Jesus lying among the animals.
Oh wait….I hear Christmas carol…..
Maybe ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ can help us…
And, through all His wondrous childhood,
He would honor and obey,
Love and watch the lowly maiden,
In whose gentle arms He lay:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.
Oh this one irks me! It really ruffles my feathers!
The writer Cecil Alexander must have been having a brain freeze.
There is something quite wiffy about this part of his song….
And, through all His wondrous childhood,
He would honor and obey,
Where on this tiny rice crisp of a planet did he get that from?
There is only one recorded instance of Jesus as a child, after the flight to and from Egypt. In fact he was 12, and in the first century, on the cusp of manhood.
Luke 2:41-50 tells us Joseph and Mary journeyed home for a whole day before they realized the 12 year old Jesus was not with them.
When they find him back in Jerusalem (that’s two days on the road not knowing where he is), in the Temple discussing theology with the professors and doctors, they chide him for “treating them [badly v.48]”. I mean, where did he sleep; what did he eat; who was he with? Who provided these things?
Jesus tells them v.49: “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know I would be about my Father’s business?” But they did not understand
Thus the line in the Carol that goes:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.
Really gets my goat!
What manipulative Victorian manure….
Which brings me back to the question: What is the smell of Christmas?
Maybe ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’ will help us!
Silent night, holy night…… 50% right!
How can screaming birthing mothers, animals in a barn, noisy neighbours and choirs of angels singing to shepherds possibly be silent!
Everything about this would freak us out if it happened to us.
But it’s been softened, smoothed, glossed, abstracted and sentimentalized.
Birthing mothers are not silent.
I’ve attended 4 births……..my own three……and of course, my own!
My first words were: “What’s wrong mum? Why are you screaming and why has dad fainted?” Not bad for a 10 second old baby!
Animals don’t respect human social conventions.
They can’t read; They weren’t there when the angel told Mary she would have a son.
They might have thought it was ‘a bit odd’ that big humans were releasing little humans into the barn, but other than that, their toilet habits (for example), would have remained the same.
But we really must avoid this blandness that doesn’t reflect human reality, and therefore, biblical reality.
We need to defy the fantasy makers.
Not just out there in a culture that would see you spend so much in December it wouldn’t even care if your home got re-possessed in January.
That’s why credit cards really should be called debt cards. It’s words; words; words.
And defying the fantasy makers is why one theologian (Don Cupitt) has famously called Christmas: “The Disneyfication of Christianity.” (NB. At least he got that right amidst a whole career of re-imagining Christianity in the extreme. Anthony Thiselton has a masterful couple of chapters in response to Cupitt’s theological vision in Interpreting God and the Postmodern self….but I digress…).
Maybe Cupitt’s phrase inspired the song ‘One God’ by the pop group The Beautiful South in the late 1990’s (or maybe vice-versa), with their prophetically provocative lyrics:
The world is turning Disney and there’s nothing you can do
You’re trying to walk like giants
But you’re wearing Pluto’s shoes
[Chorus]
And the answers fall easier from the barrel of a gun
Than it does from the lips of the beautiful and the dumb
The world won’t end in darkness, it’ll end in family fun
With Coca Cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun
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Gralefrit Theology 