No, Megyn Kelly, Jesus and Santa Weren't White

by Rev. Laura Barclay

A few days ago, conservative talk show host Megyn Kelly claimed on her Fox News show that "For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white...just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change, you know, I mean, Jesus was a white man, too...that's a verifiable fact, I just want kids to know that."

This statement was in response to a Slate piece by Aisha Harris entitled, "Santa Should Not Be a White Man Anymore", wherein she notes her confusion between seeing a black Santa figurine in her home while white Santas were popularized elsewhere at the mall and her school. Because the real history of St. Nicholas is so far removed from his present iteration as Santa Claus, she argues that it would be easier and less culturally problematic to change him into a penguin. This avoids questions of race and culture and makes him accessible to all. While I see her point about wanting to avoid cultural problems, it might be a good idea to confront the underlying issue of racism in America rather than continue to ignore it.

On that note, I would like to confront the factually incorrect statements made by Kelly in response to Harris.

Image pulled from "Image Foundry Studios"

1) "Santa just is white." -- First, Santa isn't real. So, I'm assuming she's talking about the person upon which his legend is based, St. Nicolas.  According to The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, St. Nicholas was born in the fourth century and became the bishop of Myra. Myra is located in present day Turkey. Supposedly, he provided three different girls each with a sack of gold to serve as dowries and rescue them from a life of prostitution. Over time, the legend grew and meshed with Norse legends. Immigrants brought these legends to North America, and the modern Santa Claus was pretty much manufactured by Norman Rockwell, Coca Cola, and other manufacturers of goods that wanted to ramp up Christmas sales.

So what did the the ancient Turkish gift-giver look like? A composite, made from forensic anthropologists who reconstructed his skeleton from his crypt in Bari, Italy, shows that he looked very much like modern day Turkish men. I think we can agree that he doesn't look like a typical white American male, though that categorical racial box is very problematic and fraught with ambiguity. It might be more accurate to say that he would not experience the privileges of being a white male in American society.

2) "Jesus was a white man, too." -- Wrong again. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew in first century Nazareth. This was a poor village in the shadow of the large city of Sepphoris. He, his father and his brothers, while stylized as artistic carpenters in the Christmas story, are actually more akin to day laborers who would have walked miles everyday to find work and survive in the shadow of the powerful Roman rulers who controlled the land. When he grew up, he heard about numerous uprisings to throw off the Roman yoke and started speaking out against the political powers and the religious leaders who collaborated with them. Speaking out too much and being referred to as "The King of the Jews" caused him to be executed for sedition.

Image from the BBC Photo Library

The United States is arguably the Rome of the modern world. We are the most powerful nation on Earth. Jesus would not identify with the privilege of being an average United States citizen. He did not live in abundant opulence like we do, when 50% of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day (80% on less than $10 a day). If Jesus were an American, he would more likely identify as an undocumented immigrant or other poor, oppressed class, given his historical social standing and statement regarding wealth and poverty.

Regarding Jesus's appearance, he most certainly would be flagged for a security check and racially profiled by TSA. According to forensic anthropologists who examined countless remains from that time period to find the most likely image, he looked like a Middle-Eastern male of Arabic descent.

So, what should we do with this information? We should ask ourselves about the images we hold in our minds of important historical or cultural figures. Are they constructed based on fact or to remake someone in our image for our comfort? Does holding on to historically inaccurate images keep us from becoming a more unified society, where we can appreciate and value one another's diversity? Perhaps most importantly, do they keep us from seeing people of all races as precious children of God? If so, we may want to smash these false images as idols and dig deeper for the sake of Jesus's call to love one another as we love ourselves.

Christmas Lessons from a Toddler, Part 2

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Last year, you may have remembered me writing about my wonderful little niece Téa, whose innocent questions were a perfect lesson in the meaning of Christmas. Yet again, I was baffled at how her mind worked this Christmas. One day while babysitting, she asked to watch the “Jesus video,” which, after a bit of hunting through a stack of DVDs, turned out to be animated stories of Jesus’ life.

She is currently engaged with trying to figure out who’s bad and who’s good in every story. A pleasant little boy started off by explaining that the Jews were poor and hungry and tired of being treated badly and oppressed by the Romans and led into a story where Simon Peter was depicted being angry at Matthew, also called Levi, the tax collector, who was a Jew working for the Romans (though he will eventually become a disciple).

“Peter’s bad?” she asked.

“No, he’s just angry because he wishes Matthew wouldn’t work for the Romans. The Romans are hurting the Jews. But Matthew leaves his job, and both he and Peter end up helping Jesus.” I replied.

“Oh, ok,” she said

Next up was the story of John the Baptist, looking every bit the part of the rough wilderness type. His stern demeanor convinced Téa he was bad.

“He’s bad,” she said, pointing to John in the water.

“No, he’s helping people.” I replied.

“What’s he doing to Jesus?” she asked.

“He’s baptizing him. That means he’s putting him in the water and Jesus is saying he will follow God.” I replied. How do you explain such a complicated thought to a 3 year old?

“He’s appetizing him?” she asked.

John is then pictured in jail at the hands of Herod.

“But he’s in jail, so he's bad,” she pointed out.

“The people in power were bad, and they put him there,” I replied.

“Oh, ok,” she said, clearly trying to process what it all meant.

More exchanges followed, but she had fewer questions during the stories of the miracles of Jesus, which were told a little more simply. She asked to watch it again. After it was over, she looked up at me and said, “God helps us.”

How, after all my fallible attempts to explain what was going on in terms a tot could understand, did she get that? Touched, I hugged her and said, “That’s right, and God loves you very much, just like we do.”

Later, she repeated this to her mother and father while explaining to them what we did all day. Her parents beamed, proud that she had learned such a message of hope. Somewhere in the mystery of a child’s growth and a family’s love for them, they absorb things we could never dream. May the children of the next generation see the love of God reflected in our actions with them and our neighbors. As we leave the Christmas season, may we carry the hope of Christ in our hearts as we exhibit God’s love in the world.

Jesus, an Immigrant

By Rev. Len Keever

Recently, I was at a meeting where a representative from the North Carolina Council of Churches was presenting some interesting statistics on population changes in our state. He said that for many people in the world immigration is not a problem, it is a solution. I don’t think I’ve really heard it put that way before.

Immigration is hard on a family. The decision to leave home and perhaps never return isn’t made lightly. There are dangers involved. Loved ones are left behind. Why would someone take those risks? Several answers come to mind: freedom, safety, the ability to provide a better life for children through education, health care, and job opportunities. Few of us can imagine what it would be like if we were trying to raise our children in a place where violence, oppression, hunger, and poverty was the norm.

Hours later the speaker’s words were still trying to find a comfortable place to sit in my thinking. They couldn’t be dismissed easily. Then suddenly and without warning they struck a different nerve. A new thought came to mind and I found myself sitting up straighter in my chair. An unexpected ah-ha moment was happening. I heard myself say, “Wow!” There is another example where immigration is the answer to a problem---but this time it isn’t the one who is immigrating who is looking for a solution to his difficulties. The one immigrating came to be the solution to our deepest problem.

God saw that things here were getting desperate. The influence of evil was growing; the impact of faith was more and more hidden. People were hungry for the knowledge of God’s love; thirsty for the hope that things were somehow going to get better. God sent God’s One and Only Son with the promise that whoever believes in him will find eternal life (see John 3:16). The Advent of Jesus is an immigration where God sent “The Word become flesh to dwell among us,” (John 1:14). Jesus came to change our way of seeing where we are now, to help us discover hope, to help us find promise, to show us a love that was once hidden. The immigration of Jesus changes us and changes the world. If we will only follow Jesus, he will lead us to a better life now and a better life-everlasting. We could not cross the border to live with God so God crossed the border to provide a way that we can discover faith and hope for the present and the path to eternal life then.

Philippians 2:6-8 says it best: “Though he was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being found in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death---even death on a cross.” The decision to send Jesus to us was not entered into lightly. For God, this was an act of pure love. For us it is the solution to our deepest problem; our fallen state. “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” (Romans 10:9). The birth of Heaven’s Immigrant in a Bethlehem stable is the greatest gift ever given. He is not only our neighbor, he is our only hope.

Merry Christmas!

Len Keever is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dunn. This article originally appeared in their church newsletter, The Builder.

Re-reading the Grinch

Artwork for "Forgotten Joy 2011
Advent Guide" by Helms Jarrell

 by Jason Williams

I have always been a bit confused by the Grinch's elaborate lie to little Cindy Lou Who. In my imagination, the Grinch plays the part a little too well. The fact that he was so smooth with his lie suggests that he was thoroughly formed by the trappings of Christmas as much as, if not more than, the child. The Grinch's belief that removing the trimmings would stop Christmas illustrates the extent to which he bought into the materialism of Christmas.

Through his observation of the Whos, down in Who-ville, the Grinch understands only the lie of Christmas told by the material things he sees. His experience begs the question: How do the trappings of Christmas lie to us as we observe and celebrate Christmas?

We know from the end of the story that the Whos represent those whose Christmas joy has not been obscured by materialism and consumerism. Their celebration continues in spite of the Grinch's efforts to stop Christmas. For most of my life I have identified primarily with the Whos. I suspect that I learned this identification from the people and societal practices around me. And I imagine that this is true for most of us.

We read the story of the Grinch in such a way that it reinforces our own perceived virtue. It reminds us that despite the trappings around us, we, like the Whos, are not fooled by them. It is through our true understanding of Christmas that we help change the Grinches around us. We all want to see ourselves this way and I imagine that desire directs us away from a more self-critical analysis of the story.

If we allow the story to reflect our practices and habits back to us as a mirror, I believe a different picture emerges. The Whos do not represent the virtue within us. Rather, they represent the virtue to which we aspire. The Grinch, then, becomes the character with which we most identify. This reading allows us to look deeply into ourselves to discover the ways that our Christmas traditions deceive us.



How might the anxiety, dread and fatigue produced by our material and consumer Christmastime traditions contribute to a spiritual amnesia? Might we, like the Grinch, need to extract the Christmas trappings around us from our vision in order to grow our understanding of the true joy of Christmas?



In the end, a story like the Grinch can serve to underwrite our perceived virtue or it can challenge us to live more faithfully. If we truly desire to follow the life and teachings of the One we seek to celebrate at Christmas, then the latter will guide our Christmas reflection.

Jason Williams is a graduate of the Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond and a member of Hyaets, an intentional Christian community in the heart of the Enderly Park neighborhood of Charlotte, NC. A verson of this article is taken from their Advent Guide, Forgotten Joy, which can be found on their website: http://www.hyaets.org/.

I Invite You to Join Me in the Recovery of a Christian Christmas

By Rev. Randy Carter

Please read the title of this article. Yes, a “Christian Christmas.” It seems strange that the Christian church would have to fight to recover a season in the church calendar that has the word “Christ” in it. But, would you disagree that much of what happens in our culture during Christmas has nothing whatsoever to do with the remembrance of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh? Is Christmas even recognizable beyond an exercise in rampant, unbridled consumerism? Ask your children, “What is your favorite thing about Christmas?” Will they answer the family meal, the visit to Grandma and Grandpa, or the special parties and get-togethers with friends and others in the community? No. They will answer with one word: presents.

Presents are good. I give presents during Christmas. In fact, gift-giving during Christmas can be a sign of the divine gift-giving we celebrate at Christmas. If we can remember why we give gifts during the Christmas season, we can utilize the practice to teach the real lesson: God so loved the world that he gave His very best gift, His only Son, that whoever might receive this gift would receive also the gifts of forgiveness of sins, of hope for the present and future, and of eternal life. I am certain that a Mom with a Wal-Mart basket full of toys wishing Wal-Mart would bring back layaway practices so she could buy more than anyone has ever needed so she can be the coolest Mom ever has missed the point of the divine gift-giving.

It is not only the presents problem. It is a waiting problem. You’ve heard this before from me, but here it comes again. Before December 25th, the season of Advent invites us to wait and anticipate. Advent allows us to hope for Christmas to arrive so that when December 25th (and the 11 days that follow 12/25 that comprise the 12 days of the Christmas season) does arrive we feel joy and excitement that Christmas has come – similar to those who waited for the Messiah and felt joy and excitement over the news of the birth of the Savior. Here is what I think happens too often: we start hearing Christmas music in late October, we are inundated with commercials and sales flyers full of red and green by early November, we celebrate Thanksgiving with our eyes more focused on Black Friday than the bountiful feast before us, and then December finally arrives. All that before December even appears on the calendar! December, then, ends up becoming a pressure-packed month of worry and panic knowing that time is running out before the big day. And, when Christmas Day dawns (literally for many of you with young children), people are so sick and tired of all things Christmas they can hardly wait to see it go. That makes me so sad.

What, then, would recovering a Christian Christmas entail? Much more than I can write in this article, but here’s a start. First, wait and experience Advent. Second, reflect long and hard about the point of the presents and how the practice of gift-giving can be a sign of the great divine gift-giving. Third, ask yourself if your children truly understand Christmas and work to be sure they do. Fourth, if there are 12 days of the Christmas season (12/25 – 1/5), is there anything Christmas-related you can do after 12/25 to take reduce the stress before 12/25? Fifth, can your family find or create a way to serve others this Christmas (again, not just on 12/25, but during the 12 day season)?

What are your ideas? I’d love to hear them.

The Lord be with you all, Randy

Randy Carter is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Hillsborough, NC. This article first appeared in their church newsletter, The Messenger.

Grief and the Holidays

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Right now, when it seems everyone is making plans to purchase a turkey or ham and making lists of Christmas presents to pick up for their friends and family, many in our offices are facing a holiday season without a particular loved one for the first time. Whether it’s a grandmother, brother, aunt, or beloved friend, death has not been a stranger to us lately.

As I talk to my coworkers about their losses and my family about the recent death of my Aunt Shirley, a few thoughts, realizations, and hopes have come to mind for which I will be in prayer the next several weeks. First, this holiday season will feel different, no matter how much we might want to stick to the same schedule or traditions. For instance, my Aunt Shirley was not only known for helping my grandmother generously prepare Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, but she moderated fun post-meal activities like trivia games and our rowdy and hilarious “Everything-Under-$10-White-Elephant-Gift-Swap.” Particularly endearing memories to me are that we always made sure my beloved but oft-teased cousin Stuart got the worst gift. Aunt Shirley would have to cut off the bargaining, maneuvering, and wrestling for weirdly shaped gifts that turned out to be bizarre tools or a strange kitchen utensil. I will treasure these fun memories in my heart as a time of happiness untouched with this sadness and loss. However, I know that even if this tradition continues, we need to give ourselves permission not to strive to do it the same way that my Aunt Shirley did. She is irreplaceable, as is her particular type of humor, and we need to give space for others to adapt, change, or cease traditions that we know in our hearts will be different without her presence.

Second, I hope that families facing grief during the holidays will acknowledge the elephant in the room. We all know it will be hard to eat Christmas dinner with one less seat at the table, and all that represents. It is natural and healthy to cry, to remember, to tell stories, and let others know how we are feeling. Telling stories is how we carry our loved ones with us after they have passed. Stories remind us that Aunt Shirley, Brother Bill, Grandmother Gogo, and Beloved Friend Gloria have joined the Cloud of Witnesses in a long line that have gone before and that we still have lessons to learn from their time with us. With the hope of Christ, we have faith that death is not the last word in their story.

Third, I pray that we make space for one another to grieve differently. Some might want to continue old traditions while others may find it unbearable. It could take multiple holiday seasons to find a normal rhythm again. Ultimately, we need to have a spirit of grace when we encounter one other, realizing that the healthiest way to grieve this loss is to be honest with one another about our feelings and make clear our love for our family and the deceased. This will probably feel like walking a tight rope for the first few holiday seasons, but with grace and love for one another in the spirit of our loving God, I know that we’ll make it together.

May God bless you this Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year while you remember your loved ones, present and departed.

Christmas Lessons from a Toddler

by Rev. Laura Barclay

 We all have multiple titles and identities, but the one of which I’m the most proud is the role of “Aunt Laura.” My sister, Jeri, and brother-in-law, Hans, have been intentional about closing the 400-mile gap between us by sending photos and videos of my niece, Téa, on a weekly basis. In watching these videos, I’ve been fascinated by her sense of wonder at Christmas. The lights and sounds are affecting her as if she’s conscious of them for the first time. When I came home for Thanksgiving, I was eager to see what she said about each holiday.

As her mother and I were explaining Thanksgiving and Christmas, she understood that one of them was Jesus’ birthday. We kept working to distinguish the two and told her that we would start to celebrate Jesus’ arrival after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving Day came, and Téa sat at the table, eating her food and looking from face to face. She got down from her chair after eating, ran around playing, and gave out hugs. Soon Téa laid down on the floor, crossed and elevated her legs, clasped her hands and looked up at the ceiling—an exercise she’s done since before she could walk that we’ve affectionately dubbed “baby yoga.” She seems to do this when she’s thinking or wants to relax. Téa looked at Jeri and asked, “Where Jesus? I thought we see him today. He come see me?” After a moment of “awwws” from the family, my sister explained that Jesus was always with her and loved her very much. She looked up at the ceiling, resuming her “baby yoga,” and thought for a minute. “He love me?” she asked. “Yes, Jesus loves you very much,” my sister replied. After a few more minutes in thought, Téa resumed her play time and commands of Uncle Ryan to “be a giant” and chase her. Before the week was out, we had built Téa her first fort and invented games she played for the first time as if they were magic.

This childlike wonder at the world, with its close by-product of hope, was infectious. As much as I am annoyed by many of the commercial aspects of Christmas, I’ve struggled to come to terms with it and stake a claim on the meaningful aspects of the holiday. As Christians, we must do this in order to honor the reason we celebrate. It may be as simple as finding a child to remind you to look for that star in the East as a sign of hope, rather than to be consumed with the bargains of Black Friday. That child might inspire you to look for the newborn that shall be called Emmanuel, God With Us, who will show us a new Way and let us know that we are truly the beloved of God. How is the hope for a new Way exhibited in your life? How will you let others know that they, too, are loved? May you have a blessed and hope-filled Christmas.

Can Christians Reclaim Our Saint Nick?

by Jason Williams

Gift giving is one of the chief practices of Christmas in our culture and the principal gift giver is Santa Claus: a white-bearded, rotund ‘saint’ clad in red with a big sack of toys whisking around the earth on Christmas Eve to shoot down chimneys and deliver toys to children of all ages.

The figure of Santa Claus is traced back to Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra during the fourth century. What we know about Saint Nicholas is limited and mostly from legend. He was a man of great compassion and concern for the poor. Tradition tells us that he inherited a large sum of money from his parents when they died while he was still young. He used this money to practice charity and help those in need. Beth Bevis relates the following legend:

A family in his community was desperate; the father had lost all of his money and had been unable to find husbands for his three daughters. The daughters were in danger of being given over to prostitution or another form of degradation when, one night, Nicholas appeared at their home. He tossed three bags of gold into the open window (or down the chimney, in some versions) – thereby saving them from a terrible fate.

Though a connection to our current practice of gift-giving is found within such a tale, we must question how gifts such as iPods, candy canes and legos faithfully reflect the practice of charity seen within the stories of Saint Nicholas. Surely Nicholas was not canonized because he gave dolls and toy trains to children who had their basic needs met!

Over the past 200 or more years, the faith and practice of Saint Nicholas has been co-opted. In the US, 17th century Dutch settlers first brought legends of Sinter Klaas (Klaas is the Dutch short-form of Nicholas), a red-vested bishop who brought them gifts on his feast day. Then Clement Clarke Moore, a wealthy scholar, elaborated upon the Dutch tradition in his 1823 poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas (more commonly known as The Night Before Christmas). Liturgical vestments became the fur garments of an elfish peddler. Secret charity for the poor became expected toys for those affluent enough to purchase ‘kerchiefs and dream of sugar plums. The faithful practice of a sainted bishop became masked by rosy cheeks and tiny reindeer.

In 1863, Harper’s Magazine began to publish the first pictures of Santa Claus. Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist, illustrated the pictures based on Moore’s poem and through them created the popular image of Santa. But Nast’s illustrations were not merely pretty pictures. In an 1863 image, for example, Santa is robed in stars and stripes and offers a special gift: a dancing doll depicting Jefferson Davis hanging by a noose. Yes, Santa is pictured as lynching the President of the Confederacy. With this image, the man once associated with charity, which sustained the lives of the poor, had become political messenger and herald of victory for a nation at war.

In 1931, Coca-Cola used a human-sized version of the jolly old elf in a series of advertisements. Eight years later Montgomery Ward invented Rudolf and his shiny red nose. Santa Claus became associated with his famous Coco-Cola red suit and songs about magical creatures and fanciful toys for children who were good. I imagine daughters about to submit themselves to prostitution to feed and shelter their families would not fall on the “nice” list of the newly imaged Santa, bishop of Coca-Cola and saint of corporate America.

The Santa Claus of which we sing today is not the fourth century Saint Nicholas. Santa Claus is a cultural icon formed and shaped by salesmen, political cartoonists, and the poetry of the wealthy elite. As such, Santa Claus has more to do with consumerism, nationalism and sentimentalism than any kind of saintly life, most especially one centered on charity.

Can Christians reclaim our Saint Nick? Within our current practice of Santa Claus, I have little hope. But when our gift giving turns from toys and treats to charity and almsgiving for those whose basic needs go unmet, then perhaps invoking the name of Saint Nick will teach us all what it means to follow the Christ child born on Christmas day.

Jason Williams is a graduate of the Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond and a member of Hyaets, an intentional Christian community in the heart of the Enderly Park neighborhood of Charlotte, NC. A verson of this article is taken from their Advent Guide, "Christmas Is Not...Advent in the Apophatic Tradition," which can be found on their website: http://www.hyaets.org/.

The Fear of Christmas

by Rev. Dr. Joe Phelps

Sunday’s performance of Rutter’s Magnificat teems with sophistication as the basses and tenors chase sopranos and altos up and down the musical score, accompanied by a full orchestra. This highbrow work is sung in Latin, which, like a British accent, makes anything sound more elegant and urbane.

But what we call the Magnificat, or the song of Mary, is as down-home as a labor union rally. “The big cats are going down because we’ve oppressed far too long. God has heard the cries of the poor, so you’d better get ready for change you can believe in.”

No wonder we prefer Mary’s song in Latin set to lofty music. What better way to obscure the politically charged, radically subversive message of the woman chosen to carry the mystery of Divinity in her body than to civilize it to death?
We’ve done the same thing to the whole Christmas story, really. Two thousand years of carols about the perfect baby Jesus (“no crying he makes”) and angels that look like Precious Moments dolls have camouflaged the hard-hitting implications of the story. For example, let the previous compliment to the British be accompanied by a recent Reuters story of competitive British parents creating a “manger chic” for Christmas pageants, with exotic fur throws purchased for their children cast as sheep, and ivory bridesmaid dresses for their darlings selected to be angels.

The Christmas story begins with a recognition of who is in charge (“a decree went out from Emperor Augustus”) and his demand that all people in the occupied land return to their hometown to register to pay taxes (quick: name a Christmas carol that includes the word “tax”). That’s what brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem from where they lived in Nazareth, 30 miles to the north--imperial powers throwing their weight around, treating ordinary people like puppets, using their might to meet their own needs. Some things never change.

There’s the stable birth, complete with cattle that are lowing, whatever that means. Other than a cute twist for future Christmas pageants, does the stable detail tell us something about where the sacred is most visible?

And then there are the shepherds, the salt-of-the-earth, working-class folk who are the first to hear the news from “a multitude of the heavenly host.” This is akin to a dignitary sending birth announcements to hotel clerks and fast-food assistant managers instead of to the social and political elite.

We read that the shepherds were “sore afraid” by their nocturnal visitors. Translation: it scared the heaven out of them. You’d be scared too, both by singing night angels but also by their message that interrupts the regularly scheduled programming with the announcement of a new deliverer who will come from outside the prescribed places of power in order to shuffle the deck and deal out a new hand.

But can we hear this message?

I don’t see many of us afraid like the shepherds at Christmas. Maybe we fear not scoring a coveted Zhu Zhu pet--this year’s hip toy. Or we’re afraid our credit cards (symbols of the System if ever there were one) will max out before our shopping is finished. Or maybe we’re afraid that we won’t “get in the Christmas spirit” this year.

But the fear of Christmas that awakens in us an understanding of how the world should be ordered? Not so much.

Karl Barth, a German theologian during World War II, warned, “Christmas without fear carries with it fear without Christmas.” That is, lives void of reverence for the sacred carry in them the seeds of fear that grow unquestioned and unchallenged. These lesser fears paralyze us and ultimately bear the fruit of havoc in our world-- competition, hoarding, retaliation, isolation.

But what about the life-altering chill from hearing a message announcing that the Holy One hears the cries of the poor, comes among us, and condemns our wars and conflicts with the simple words “and on earth, peace”? What about the heart-in-throat evoking realization that this “good news of great joy” really is for “all the people”? What if it’s true that Love is stronger than hate? What if we really are meant to live together as one people, united in common parentage, humanity, and hope?

I wonder if even my Jewish and Muslim friends, who reverence their own faith stories just as I do, might be invited as honored guests to see beyond the details of Christmas and the specificity of the Christian faith in order to recognize a picture that is profoundly and universally true: The Heart of Love wants to scare us awake from the sleep of life-as-usual into a new way of being stewards of these beautiful lives we’ve been given.

Once frightened awake we are assured in Mary’s song “God’s mercy is for those who fear God from generation to generation.” As the angels said to the awakened shepherds in the field, “Do not be afraid.”


Joe Phelps is Pastor of Highland Baptist Church and Ridgewood Baptist Church in Louisville, KY.