By Peter K. Fay, Ph.D.
Like many others, I fear that the true beauty, depth, and richness of Christmas is too often and too easily overlooked, whether by the commercialization of the season or by Easter, which typically receives greater preparation and reflection from the Church. Nonetheless, there is, indeed, a beauty, depth, and richness about Christmas worth attending to, and in recent years, I’ve come to realize that much of this beauty, depth, and richness occurs in and through irony. Christmas is an event full of ironies. Let me explain.
Here’s one way to think about what happens at Christmas, theologically speaking. All of us, whether we realize it or not, are searching for fulfillment, for completion, for what is ultimately good. In other words, all of us, whether we realize it or not, are searching for God, for the infinitely and unconditionally loving goodness that holds together all of reality. Here’s a first irony: while we spend our entire lives searching for God (whether we realize it or not), it turns out that God is searching for us, God’s beloved, too.
Is there a point in history in which God’s searching for us, God’s quest to be as close to and united with us as is possible reaches a climax? The Christian doctrine of the incarnation says, yes, because it is in the person of Jesus of Nazareth that God became human, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
What type of God is revealed at Christmas? A God who freely and lovingly desires deep, intimate relationship and union with us. Incarnation suggests that God does not remain forever distant but lovingly and freely chooses to surrender the protection and safety of divinity and to take on the finitude and vulnerability of the human condition in order to be as close to us as possible. What we encounter in Jesus of Nazareth, then, is nothing less than the full revelation of divinity, God’s total self-gift clarifying fully – and in a way that we humans can understand – who God is.
When God gives up divinity, when God becomes anything other than what God is, what does God become? A human being. God looked upon humanity as a proper dwelling for God’s very self. Christmas is an extraordinarily tremendous affirmation of the goodness of the human person. Incarnation sets a basis for, among other things, respecting the intrinsic, inerasable dignity of each and every human person and for promoting human rights for all. As Christmas reminds us that divinity and humanity are in direct rather than in inverse relationship, it suggests to us that whatever dignifies the human person glorifies God and that whatever degrades the human person insults God. We cannot legitimately claim to celebrate Christmas if we are indifferent or hostile to the needs of others. To care for the human person is to honor the human home in which God dwelt.
If the first irony involves God’s searching for us while we are searching for God, the second irony involves the historical realities through which incarnation occurs. Christmas narrates a royal birth, but it is a royal birth unlike the ones we are accustomed to. When a royal birth occurs today, parents typically receive top-notch medical care, the baby is well-protected by the walls of a palace or private hospital suite, and the family can enjoy the first few months of the newborn’s life safely away from work and other obligations.
By contrast, Jesus was born into no such comfort. He was born to parents who were not politically well-connected or financially secure. To be perfectly blunt: he was born to a poor, almost assuredly illiterate teenage girl, and a poor carpenter. Despite much angelic reassurance, Mary’s unexpected pregnancy must have strained her relationship with Joseph. It would have been only human of him to suspect infidelity. It would have been only human of her to fear that Joseph would follow through on his plans to leave her, as the prospects for an unmarried mother in the patriarchal ancient world would have been dire.
Mary and Joseph faced challenges from outside of their relationship too. They had to travel far to enroll in the Roman census so that an oppressive empire could flex its muscle over a distant, conquered people. Imagine Mary’s frustration and discomfort, whether she had to travel on foot or on an animal. When they finally arrived in Bethlehem, the inn was full. The only place left was the manger, which, as anyone who has spent time on a farm knows all too well, must have reeked. On top of all of this, a jealous king felt threatened by the newborn and forced the family to flee to a distant country shortly after the baby’s birth. Imagine the panic that set in once Mary and Joseph learned of Herod’s plot.
This hardly sounds like a royal birth at all. It sounds more like a giant mess. In fact, it sounds like the last place on earth we would expect the fullness of divinity to appear. And yet, this second irony is that it is precisely under these circumstances, amidst all of this chaos, confusion, uncertainty, and stress, that angels rightly herald good news of great joy: the long-awaited, much-hoped-for Savior, Messiah, and Lord has arrived. Crucially, God has arrived in unexpected places and ways – not in the comfort and protection of today’s royal births, but in the radical vulnerability of an infant born in a nondescript town to an understandably scared, exhausted, powerless couple at the mercy of an empire, its envious puppet-monarch, and (of all things!) high demand for the one hotel in town. This is a God of surprises, a God who subverts our expectations, a God of irony.
Celebrating Christmas requires us to be people who work for and with those who are vulnerable. To side with the powerless is to imitate the God who became a vulnerable infant. Those who use their strength, power, and privilege to make life harder for the weak are no better than Herod and the Roman authorities he represented. They might hang lights and decorate a tree, but they misunderstand what it means to worship the God who became an endangered newborn.
As we face immense challenges today in our own personal lives, in our nation, in our Church, and in our world, may we draw comfort and courage from the ironies of the Christmas season. Because Christ is, indeed, Emmanuel, God is with us, even and especially in and through the limitations, chaos, and vulnerability of our lives. Let us celebrate our Savior’s birth by caring holistically for the humanity He assumed and by striving to make life a little less difficult for people like His parents.
Peter K. Fay is a Roman Catholic theological ethicist who specializes in Catholic social teaching, Scripture, and Thomistic virtue ethics, with particular interest in the flourishing and virtuous agency of people with schizophrenia. He has previously taught Christian theology and ethics at Boston College and the College of the Holy Cross, and he currently teaches in the Ethics Program at Villanova University. He can be reached at Faypgbc@gmail.com.