What? The birth of Jesus as told in the gospels is not the same story as the “Christmas story” in holiday celebrations? No, and this book explains why. They exist in two different worldviews. The gospels thrive in the creation worldview, but the Christmas story was born in empire’s worldview.Understanding the distinction is more important than ever given that we have only until 2030 to make major changes in how we live on our planet. That’s the year which scientists tell us is our deadline to keep earth’s temperature from heating up more than 1.5° Centigrade. Anything greater will bring havoc far beyond what we’re already experiencing and end life for many people and species.
But just how does the birth of Jesus relate to this daunting challenge? The conventional “Christmas story,” though many of its traditions are dear to us, is too anemic to effect changes we must make in the ecological and political realms. In fact, traditional Christmas will only add to overloading our planet’s capacities. But the birth story in the gospels explodes with powers of deep change. There we read about radical genealogy, dreams that carry divine messages for major life decisions, cosmology that dwarfs the forces of history and empire, an economics of redistribution, and a somewhat wild Spirit that breaks out of the norms of temple and empire religion as well as social assumptions. Those powers generate the nonviolent revolution of a new creation.
Because Matthew and Luke were writing 90 years after the birth in Bethlehem, they’d seen how the followers of the Way of Jesus shaped communities that put the new creation into action. Not only had they seen these communities, they were part of them. People there understood themselves to be “called out” (ekklesia in Greek, from which the word “church” derives) of superpowers, of temple religion, and of any social norms in which it was okay for men to repress women, mistreat slaves, or accumulate wealth.
Out of these experiences of the “called out” followers of the Way of Jesus, Matthew and Luke wrote gospels which beg us to use words like “radical,” “transforming,” and “revolutionary.” That’s why we cannot settle for the “Christmas story.” Our planet is in peril! We need the birth story that connects us to the new creation that Matthew and Luke tell us about.
Read this book! Discuss it! Live it! Doing so is more urgent than getting something for everyone under the tree.