Living Out the True Meaning of Christmas
Posted in Following Christ, Preaching to Myself on Dec 12th, 2007 1 Comment »
As I’ve said elsewhere, the true meaning of Christmas is the arrival of God in the flesh—Incarnation Day, you might say. But how should that shape the way we live on a daily basis?
Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio writes that there are those who are thrilled when it doesn’t, and they have much to cheer about these days. When Christians keep the Gospel safely tucked away in the world of the invisible, it leaves the Gospel without any evidence to commend it:
More than just a logical precondition for the Atonement, the Incarnation also establishes the trajectory for our new life as a truly human life. There is a theological link between confidence in the full humanity of Jesus and a recognition of the ramifications of our salvation across the full range of our own humanity, across all of the ways in which we engage God’s creation.
Much of modern culture, with its Gnostic undertones, alienates us from creation and its givenness. Theologian Colin Gunton sees the affirmation of the Incarnation as essential to our enthusiastic participation in creation and therefore in cultural life. “A world that owes its origin to a God who makes it with direct reference to one who was to become incarnate — part of the world — is a world that is a proper place for human beings to use their senses, minds and imaginations, and to expect that they will not be wholly deceived in doing so.”
Christians have the only account of human and natural origins that can give cultural life meaning. But even after 2,000 years of opportunity to reflect on the Incarnation, many contemporary Christians persist in believing in a Gnostic salvation, a salvation that has no cultural consequences. In such a dualistic understanding, our souls are saved, the essential immaterial aspect of our being is made right with God, but the actions of our bodies — what we actually do in space and time — are a matter of indifference if not futility. Salvation is an inward matter only. It affects our attitudes and some of our ideas. But insofar as our cultural activities have any Christian significance it is as mere marketing efforts — things we do to attract others to our essentially Gnostic salvation.
Believing in a gospel that has few earthly consequences is, ironically, just the sort of state our secularist neighbors would wish us to sustain. They, too, are dualists, believing that religion may be a fine thing for people, so long as they keep it private. Their secularism isn’t threatened by Christians as long as they aren’t too “Incarnational.” As long as the cultural lives of Christians aren’t significantly different from those of materialists and pagans, secularism is safe. Christians may pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” but as long as they don’t actually do anything that demonstrates how such a petition should affect their political, economic, and cultural activities, the Enlightenment legacy is safe.
Keith Plummer quoted Myers on his blog and added:
I wouldn’t be surprised if some believers initially reacted to this line of thought negatively, considering it too theological, theoretical, and/or picayune. But I suspect that if that is our reaction, it is because we are not accustomed to being challenged to think and live in a manner that is thoroughly and consistently Christ-centered.
Excuse me while I take John Piper’s advice and preach to myself (but I invite you to listen in)…
It is good to keep a safe distance from “the world”—as in “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” We are called out to be separate and holy. But as William Pitt asked William Wilberforce in Amazing Grace, “Do you intend to use your beautiful voice to praise the Lord or change the world?” Pitt’s question spotlights the absurdity of this false dichotomy.
No, “for God so loved the world” is all about diving in. We must engage the world, wrestling with its problems and bearing witness to the only solution, the only name given under Heaven by which we are to be saved. He is the one we celebrate this Christmas, the one who left his heavenly throne and entered the world with all its suffering and evil. We, his servants, are not greater than our master.
