25-12-2010 — Christmas, by Rev. Bertie Pearson

This Christmas in New York, an atheist group rented a billboard just outside the Holland Tunnel. This billboard had a little nativity scene with the star and the manger, and bore the phrase “You KNOW it’s a myth. This season, celebrate Reason.” I hate to enter into these culture war debates, and I really hope there are no atheists among us, because I know that hearing me, a priest, say this will be really infuriating, but… well, I’m in total agreement. It’s a myth.

What’s more, most contemporary theologians would agree, and the scholars of the reformation, and great medieval doctors of the church, and the patristic fathers. I have to say, we’re all pretty much on the same page here. You see it is a myth. A myth is a meaningful story, a meaningful narrative. It might be the story of how your parents met, the story of Martin Luther King’s heroism in the face of racist oppression or the narrative of a novel like All’s Quiet on the Western Front. Myths are stories that are more important for the truth they contain than weather or not they really happened. MLK really did stand up heroically to a brutally repressive racism, the events in All’s Quiet on the Western Front never happened at all, but both changed the lives of those who believed in those narratives. The Myth of Dr. King and the Myth of Alls Quiet on the Western Front inspired others to stand up and fight for what they believed in. So much so, that Dr. King was assassinated, because he was inspiring so many to stand up to oppression. So much so, that All’s Quit On the Western Front was banned in Italy, because it was inspiring so many pacifist war resisters. Both are myths because they are narratives which change and shape the way people view the world, not based on whether or not they are based on historical facts. As the foundational belief for 2.1 billion Christians, the nativity story might even be called the biggest myth of all time!

What I think the atheists really meant was that the events of the Gospel we read tonight are completely out of accord with the laws of nature, they’re highly improbable, you can’t test them, and they are out of line with all our expectations about how the world works. Theology is, again, on the same page, these are the very criteria for what we would refer to as… a miracle. 

Now, the tagline “Christmas, you KNOW it was a miracle!” Probably wouldn’t be up the atheists ally, but I think it really is kind of what they’re getting at. If the billboard just said, something like “Christmas – who knows how all this stuff really went down?” or “What’s up with God? It’s too mysterious to call” That would be one thing, but if they were to say “Christmas: You KNOW it’s a miracle — it’s highly surprising, untestable and outside of what we expect from the natural world,” well, this wouldn’t be saying anything too surprising. Half of the criteria for being a miracle is that it’s not what you expected from the natural world!
We tend to think of the ancient world as being a world devoid of science, of being a dark place of superstition and magic, but if you read the ancients, this is not the impression that comes across. First Century Palestine was a world ruled by Reason, by Galen on medicine, by Epicurus on physics, Vitruvius on the scientific properties of building materials, by Aristotle on plant taxonomies. The ancients may not have developed the scientific method – the philosophy of what we now think of as science – but they had plenty of science going on. The were just as used to babies having both mother and father as we are, just as used to stars revolving in their regular orbits, and not papering out of nowhere, as we are. There was very little in the nativity story that they would find less reasonable, less shocking than moderns do. It was not at all lost on them that it was not normal, not how the world usually works.

Now, the I said that being highly surprising, untestable and outside of what we expect from the natural world are half the component of what defines a miracle, but there’s a second requirement for an event to be considered miraculous, and this one is a lot more rigorous.

How do you tell a miracle from a crazy coincidence? From some bizarre natural phenomenon? Do you test the tears of a crying statue for saline content? Radio Carbon date the Shroud of Turin? No. much easier. The test for a miracle is this:

Does it help you love God and love your neighbor more?

That’s it. Thus when people say giving birth is a miracle, if they mean it was shocking and surprising and gave them a whole new sense of how they related to God and the rest of humanity – miracle. If you see a wall spurting out blood in the shape of a cross and it just creeps you out – definitely not a miracle.

Without these criteria, in the words of the Hindu mystical writer Ram Dass, “even if you spend 48 hours fasting and not sleeping in a constant state of meditation, and at the end of this you have an ecstatic vision of snakes twining around your spine and turning on a light in your brain – it’s just another cheap high”

All things, the great theologians tell us, are sustained from moment to moment by God. The reality of God, the very Being of God is the ground, the source of all life, of all existence. The existence of every planet, every person, every speck of dust, participates in the being of God. Any of these can become transparent to their underlying being: the reality of God can shine forth unexpectedly not only from a crying statue, but just as powerfully from an astonishing sunset, from the birth of a child or from the face of a stranger. The sacraments of the church are kind of like guaranteed miracles, in which, if you’re paying the right kind of attention, the reality of God always shines forth from a pool of water, from two people in love, from the bread and wine consecrated and turned into the Body and Blood of Christ on the Alter. They always grant a special experience of God, a special grace which, if open to it, help you to deepen your relationship with God and get over yourself enough to love your brothers and sisters more.

The incarnation, the birth of Jesus, the Christ, is like these, but different, instead of an object or a person becoming transparent to that underlying reality, the entire reality of God – the infinite, the all powerful, eternal, all knowing God is, to use St. Paul’s phrase, “was emptied into” a tiny helpless baby. Eternity enters time, infinity enters space. It’s unthinkable, unimaginable, and the foundation of our Faith.

This is the supreme miracle, not just allowing us to approach that greater reality, but coming to us on our terms. Jesus, said Saint Gregory of Nyssa, became human, that we might all become divine.

 This Christmas Nativity Story doesn’t just happen once and for all time on a chilly December night 2010 years ago, but daily. It’s much more than a piece of history – It’s a Myth! It’s not just a historical curiosity, it’s a transformative Miracle! For God in the miracle of the birth our Lord, ignited a fire that lit Mary’s heart, then the hearts of St. Joseph and the poor shepherds and the rich wise men and everyone that Jesus met. Each heart that was kindled, like the Burning Bush was not consumed, but continued to shine brighter and brighter, and ignite the hearts of those around with the fire of the Divine Love of Christ. It started a fire of love that has continued to burn ever anew for thousands of years and threatens to catch anyone of us at anytime!  

Christmas is not a once in eternity event, not a once a year event; Jesus is always ready for Christmas, always ready to be born in our hearts, to commandeer them and help us to love him and our brothers and sisters more and more, until our whole being is consumed in that flame, until the day we exit time and spend all eternity face to face with the origin of that spark.

The Rev. Bertie Pearson