"Christmas–A Time for Peace–A New Beginning"

Photo by Beth Avery

The human we call Jesus was and continues to be without a doubt, one of the most influential human beings in history. With more than 2.4 billion adherents, Christianity is the world largest religion. (The next largest is Islam with 1.9 billion followers) Jesus is obviously central to Christianity and he is one of the holy prophets of Islam. (In fact, the virgin birth of Jesus is more detailed in the Qur’an than it is the Gospels).

Actually, Jesus’ influence on human history is quite amazing when one considers that he was of Jewish peasant birth, he was not educated, he was probably illiterate – although some scholars suggest he may have been able to read a little but it is unlikely he could write because of the expense related to learning to read and write in Jesus’ day. Jesus held no political office, he wrote nothing of any kind, and he never held any public or private office.

What we do know of Jesus is very limited and sketchy at best. From common Biblical sources and from non-Biblical sources which include the writings of the Jewish historian, Josephus, and also other Roman historical records, we know that Jesus was probably born around the year 3 C.E.

He was probably born in Nazareth not Bethlehem. Nazareth was a tiny town of no significance. (Bethlehem appears in the New Testament stories to fulfill a prophecy in the Old Testament or Hebrew Book of Micah 5:2 which states:

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. (In other words – the Messiah or anointed one of the Jewish people was to be born in Bethlehem.)

As far as the Christmas story goes, there is no agreement in the gospels. The Gospel of Mark which was the first gospel - was written generations after the death of Jesus. It doesn’t have a birth narrative. It begins with Jesus as an adult. Similarly, the last Gospel, the Gospel of and John was written three generations after the death of Jesus. Like Mark, it has no Christmas story. So, the Christmas stories we have are in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew but the stories are not the same in these two. In fact, in our modern Christmas story, we conflate the two gospels.

The Gospel of Matthew has Jesus born in a house in Bethlehem, visited by wise men who follow a star and who present him with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Shortly after his birth, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Egypt and raise him there until he is twelve - fearing that he will be killed by Herod.

The Gospel of Luke has Jesus born outside of Bethlehem in a manger (an animal trough) located in a field. He is visited by the shepherds. After worshipping in the temple in Jerusalem shortly after his birth, Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to Nazareth where he spends his childhood.

So, these two stories are quite different.

The gospel writers did not write their accounts for historical accuracy but for religious truths and they used Hebrew prophecies from Hebrew scripture (the Old Testament) to back up the validity of Jesus as the Messiah.

What Jesus did for the first 30 years of his life is unknown. There are wild theories that he studied Buddhism in India which isn’t likely given the travel situation of the day and the fact that few people did travel. Travel required lots of money and Jesus was definitely a peasant without any financial resources. It’s slightly possible he was exposed to it in Galilee by passing trading caravans but this too is a bit farfetched. In any case, sometime around the age of 30 Jesus began healing and preaching a special Jewish religious message among the Jews in Roman controlled Judea. He developed a wide following among the peasantry. Keep in mind, Jesus only preached to Jews, not to the Romans or to the people belonging to the many other religions that existed in Judea in his day. Jesus was born as a Jew. He lived only as a Jews and he died as a Jew.

At least part of Jesus’ message to the Jews was that religious law and ritual (specifically Jewish law and ritual), while important, should not be the main focus of one’s spiritual life. Jesus felt that every person needed to develop his or her own relationship with God. “Love God with all your heart and soul and love your neighbor as well – these two are the greatest commandments.” In other words, Jesus placed the golden rule on an equal footing with loving God. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “When you are hurting others, you are hurting God. When you are loving others you are showing love toward God.”

In the words of Jesus scholar, John Dominic Crossan (a former Catholic priest), “Jesus’ words left no distinction between Gentile and Jew, sinner and saint, female and male, slave or citizen, rich or poor. He did not attack these social structures of ancient Roman (and Jewish society) but his actions undermined their presence as one of the pillars of ancient society and culture.” Instead of dining with the village elders where he healed and preached as ancient protocols required, Jesus ate, and slept among the people who were outcasts and the dispossessed from society. This cannot be overlooked. By the standards of the day it was radical behavior of the first order.

The ancient Jewish/Roman world was filled with social taboos based upon religion and class. When Jesus overlooked these taboos, it was viewed as political subversion by Jewish priests and the local authorities because it challenged the very essence of Roman and Jewish custom, ritual, and culture.

As Dr. Crossan opined, Jesus’ ministry was not overtly anti-establishment toward Roman rule, nor toward the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, but it was covertly so. As could be expected under such circumstances, his actions led to a predictable outcome. Jesus was executed by the Roman rulers as a political instigator with encouragement from the puppet Jewish authorities installed by the Romans. In the day and time of Jesus, such religious-political execution would probably have taken the form of crucifixion. (The road to Jerusalem was lined with crosses of the convicted – as a symbol not to defy Roman authority.)

By murdering Jesus, Roman and Jewish leadership had hoped to check the dangerous messages of the small Jewish-Christian sect, but the reverse occurred. Rather than feeling that they had lost Jesus, his followers believed that he was still among them in a divine way. His following grew and continued to grow despite periodic persecution by the Roman government. Three hundred years from the birth of Jesus, Christianity was proclaimed the state religion of the Eastern Roman Empire by the Emperor Constantine.

In the words of the Jewish historian, Josephus, writing at the end of the first century, “When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified; those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him has still to this day not disappeared.”

Basic to early Jewish/Christian beliefs was the notion that Jesus would soon return to earth to establish a new kingdom. They believed this because Jesus taught that the world would end very soon and evil forces would be destroyed followed by God creating a new Jerusalem.

This is where our understanding of Jesus blurs; for it is at this point where Christianity became subject to interpretation and theological evolution by its adherents.

Without Jesus there would be no Christianity so he was obviously of paramount importance, but it was the writer Paul who established the basic theology of Christianity which was then further convoluted by Greek metaphysics which twisted basic Christianity into a deeply complex theological system capable of widely diverse interpretation.

Paul never knew Jesus in person. Paul was a Jew who in his early life persecuted Christians. At some point, he had a very powerful conversion experience. Then through the decade of the 50s CE, before any of the gospels were written, Paul wrote his many letters (Epistles) to the early Christian communities such as the Romans, Ephesians, Corinthians, Colossians, and Thessalonians.

It was the words of Paul which first established Christian theology and probably NOT the words of Jesus himself since Jesus’ words had not yet been recorded in writing when Paul began to write his letters. But taken as a whole, the letters of Paul can be difficult to understand because the different letters to the Christian communities contain conflicting views and ideas. It is Paul who is the darling of Christian conservatives, for many of Jesus’ words in the gospels contain universalist messages and focus on a loving God and on a call for all people to love as God loves. Paul, on the other hand, revels in apocalyptic destruction and he speaks often of “the elect” among humanity who will be the only ones saved when the world will be destroyed – which Paul believed would happen in his lifetime.

What is also clear in Paul’s letters to the early Christian communities is that he shared a basic eschatological conviction. So did Jesus. According to Paul, the end time was near. “It will come like a thief in the night.” (Paul says in his letter to the Thessalonians.) “For the Lord himself with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from the heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we, who are alive, who are left will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air: and so we will be one with the Lord forever.” (1Thess 4:16).

Unfortunately, as Christianity developed through the centuries, the words and life of the man Jesus began to take a back seat to the theological statements as set forth in the writings of Paul to say nothing of the many heresies and the thousands of Christian sects that developed. Whole statements of belief and prescribed ways of living one’s life, according to Paul, bear little or no relations to the words that scholars attribute to Jesus.

There are, in fact, massive contradictions. Consider, for example, that Jesus was condemned and executed for healing and socializing with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners of all kind. Yet in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul writes “But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one…..Drive out the wicked among you.”

If Paul’s epistles and the contradictions in the gospels aren’t enough to confuse our understanding of the historical Jesus and his message, church councils and theologians through the centuries have added their massive contribution to this task. The fact is that the letters of Paul and the gospels present such wide latitude for historical and theological interpretation of Jesus that Christianity developed wide ranging dogma and ritual. In an effort to maintain cohesiveness, whether for theological or political reasons, church councils were often summoned to determine the “absolute truth” and to impose their findings on Christian communities.

It was the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E., for example, that the nature of Christ and the trinity were first firmly established. Prior to this time, there were widely conflicting views of Jesus, his words, his teachings, and his relationship to and with God. Not surprisingly, the majority of bishops summoned by the Emperor Constantine to this Council voted in agreement with Constantine’s bishop though they had separately disagreed prior to the Council. Perhaps the presence of Roman soldiers outside the council building had a “holy” influence on the outcome?

What came out of the Council of Nicaea was a set of more common beliefs about Jesus which are summed up in the Nicaean Creed which is said in a majority Christian churches today. This did not stop the continued evolution or devolution of Christianity where today, Christianity is comprised of 45,000 denominations and sects in the world, each one with different views of Jesus and the theology about him.

But despite the huge number of different Christian denominations and sects, there is one message that was proclaimed by Jesus that is hard to deny and this is the all powerful message of love and peace. In the final analysis, differing Christian denominations and sects may promote entirely different Christian theologies, but they are hard pressed to suggest that Jesus did not teach universal love and call for peace on earth – peace among men and women.

Although love and peace are messages contained in all the world religions – they are the central components of Christianity.

No one can deny that Christianity has been twisted in bizarre theologies for the benefit of political gain. No one can deny that throughout history it was under the name of Christianity heinous acts of barbarism have been committed by numerous people calling themselves Christian. But so too – no one can deny that Christianity is a religion about peace and about love for it is truly these messages that brought Jesus to his death at the hands of the authorities in Jerusalem.

And while through the centuries, acts of terrorism and violence have been perpetrated in the name of religion – in the end those responsible know that they lie when they use Christianity as an excuse for their hatred and cruelty. I know of no politician or warrior who can truly look into a mirror and claim that Jesus would stand behind anything that created violence instead of peace, hatred instead of love.

We may look with shame at what we do in the way of violence and we may even justify our acts for a lot of possibly good reasons, but we cannot ever deny that the actions and words of Jesus promoted love and peace.

I find it strange when I hear stories of World War I and World War II when soldiers on the front lines on both sides laid down their weapons on Christmas day for a day of peace. There is a World War I story about soldiers on both sides coming together in no man’s land between the trenches on Christmas day to talk, to share food and to play a game of soccer amidst the horrors of the front lines in France. And yet following Christmas, a day of peace, the killing resumed. It was as though these soldiers were saying – we know we should not be killing and we will respect the words of peace and love on this day that we celebrate as Jesus’ birthday – but once this day has past, we will resume our senseless acts of violence and atrocity. From afar, this is truly bizarre to say the very least.

We all know all about Christmas, the holiday. Perhaps we tire of endless Christmas parties. Perhaps we look forward to spending time with family and friends and celebrating with holiday decorations and cheer. Perhaps we dread the endless lines at the stores as we enter the feeding frenzy of Christmas shopping. Perhaps the materialism is senseless to us. Perhaps we feel joy when look at the smiles and excitement in a child’s face as he or she faces a Christmas tree full of presents. Perhaps we feel lonely because it is on the holidays when our aloneness becomes most intense. Perhaps we feel that 2000 years ago humanity was given a blessing. Perhaps Christmas is a word that leaves us feeling cold or mad or even sad or is a word we really cannot relate to.

In any case, Christmas in its purest form is a special day, because it does represent a special, perhaps miraculous day in the history of humanity. However you feel regarding the religion about Jesus – the ideas and theories and theologies concocted over the centuries to try to explain Jesus the human - Jesus was born to humanity and grew to be an itinerant, religious teacher who spoke of the universal love of God and the importance of love and peace and service to others. To the horror of those who opposed him, Jesus believed in the inherent dignity of every human being, including men and women, slave and free, gentile and Jew, gifted and dispossessed.

Peel away the layers of theology around Jesus and you will find a humble human being who walked in the service of God and called for all persons to live in peace and to demonstrate unconditional and continual love – and he lifted these actions above all others. Religious law and ritual, he simply cast aside. He stood by his words and he was murdered as a result.

It is easy to criticize Christianity for all its excesses and all the human horrors perpetrated in its name over the centuries, but it is not possible to criticize Jesus the man. For his actions and the way he lived his life created a message and a standard of living that has promoted peace, justice, liberty, and love like no other in human history.

I would maintain that it was the messages of universal love and peace articulated by Jesus that ultimately transformed civilization by abolishing slavery, creating democracy, and ultimately creating change that fostered the values that promote the inherent dignity of every human being – though this may have taken 2000 years and some of the work has yet to be finished. It was Jesus who inspired the lives of caring men and women throughout the centuries; people like St Francis, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingham, and Mother Teresa. It was Jesus and NOT the religion around him who inspired great transformers of society like Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Christmas is a great day because it is a symbol of what is possible in human relations and it is a day to celebrate the message of Jesus – the message of peace and love.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of one of the most unique human beings in history – a person who established a way of living that has transformed the world and the way that we look at ourselves and others. Christmas is a special time because it calls us to look at ourselves - the type of person we are and the type of person we are becoming. Christmas can be a time for a new beginning – like the venerable Ebenezer Scrooge, it can be a time for transformation and the beginning day of being a more caring, more loving person.

May Christmas be a time for peace on earth and a reminder that we are called by all that is sacred in creation to love each other every day of our lives.

Reverend Chris McMahon

UUMH – December 15, 2024