A New Christmas Story - Part 1 - HOPE

As a theology major (I can call myself that right?) I know from an academic stand point the Gospels are not factual accounts of the life of the person we know today as Jesus.

They are narratives of ideals. They were written to inspire people. At the time of the gospels there were massive political upheavals and religion was also taking a beating. Pax Romana, while beneficial in many ways was also very repressive in others. The coming of a Messiah was a long cherished dream to many Jewish people and he couldn’t come too soon. But this isn’t an essay on history- I’ll write some of those in May.

For me the stories the gospels, especially the birth narratives don’t need to be factually true to have deep meaning. The stories carry universal truths that have managed to transcend time and cultural boundaries. If nothing else, they’re good stories.

The birth narratives in Luke and Matthew are contradictory and we in modern days have meshed them together in to one story. In one Jesus is born in a barn, in another at home. We’ve taken the Shepherds from one and the Magi from the others. Neither has Mary riding on a donkey (pretty sure). But I still cry when I watch “Nestor the Long-eared Donkey” on TV.

I remembered in my sleeplessness last night that today marks the start of Advent – the four week countdown to Christmas day. Advent is a time to prepare for Christmas and I don’t mean getting presents and decorating the tree. Though, sure, that’s a part of it. Advent is an opportunity to get ready spiritually for a major life changing event and deepen one’s understanding of what Christmas is really meant to be about.

It doesn’t matter if you believe in the religious nature of Christmas; the themes of Advent are universal: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love. Those aren’t Christian concepts –they’re human concepts.

In Christian belief, during the month preceding Christmas we light a candle each week to honour those ideas. We think about what they mean and how we can bring forth more of these ideals into our lives and the world. For me this is an important part of the Christmas season. We have an advent wreath at home, this year we have one that mt son made with his grandfather. It’s very beautiful.

Also during my sleeplessness I started thinking about how I would explain this to to my son and I realized that for me the birth stories from the gospels contain these concepts and that there is much that can be learned from the story of Jesus’ birth.

But, knowing what I know about the Gospels made me realize that as they are they just don’t work for me. They would create a lot of theological questions that would take away from what I want them to show my son.

So I re-wrote them, at 5am this morning. I divided up the story in to four parts, one for each theme in advent. I kept the parts that are important and told the rest the way I want my son to hear them. When we light our first candle tonight I will read him the first part.


Hope

Once upon a time there was a young woman who was like every other young woman. She had many hopes and dreams. She was going to be married to a good man and that she hoped that she would be very happy with him.

One night before she was married she had a strange dream. She dreamt of an Angel from God who told her that she would have a baby and that this baby would be very special. At that time the people hoped for a person to come forward to help lead them. They hoped for greater understanding in God and believed that a person called the Messiah would answer that hope.

When she woke she became worried because she was not yet married, and this made some people upset. She went to the see the man she was going to marry to tell him what she had dreamed.

He too had had a dream. An Angel had come to him in a dream as well and had also told him that the woman he was to marry would have a very special baby. The angel told him that the baby could be the hoped for person.

This made him very happy and they were married. His name was Joseph and her name was Mary. Both of them hoped that their baby would be healthy and strong. They went forward in life full of hope for the things to come.






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