Archbishops and Christmas

All over the media, blog, electronic and print, one can encounter the stories about an interview his grace of Canterbury granted. In it, he attempts to distinguish between what we know of the incarnation miracle and what is so often the picture painted.

A few minor examples:

Everyone knows there were three kings at the manger birthing place. Well, actually we know something very different. First the words used by the Bible say nothing of kings, they were 'magus' or 'astrologers' or perhaps 'scholars.' Second there is no reason to think there were three of them.

Medieval Christians came up with the idea of three visitors because they gave three gifts, but they could just as well been five contributors. The same people made them kings because in their world circa 1000 there was no way a king would receive non-royals. Things were rather different in first century Palestine.

The same sort of truth telling runs through the Archbishop's interview.

The evening after the story broke, I dined with a Lutheran friend. He referred to Dr. Williams "deconstructing the Nativity." In one sense, I suppose he had a point. If one thinks of the story in terms of a plastic model assembled in China, Dr. Williams did indeed make some effort to deconstruct that story.

If however, one considers what the Mathinian account tells us, what Luke said, and only they comment on Jesus' birth, then he was actually supporting the account.

So should the plastic nativity set be deconstructed? Yes.

Jesus was a real human person. If that is not true, then the entire miracle of incarnation we celebrate is an illusion. Mary was a real woman who had real labor pains, whose husband as are all husbands, was terrified. If that is not true, then the gift of Mary's assent and Joseph's support is not important.

It is easy I think, for us to lose Jesus in Christ. Yes, Jesus was and remains the living God. But, Jesus was also a little boy with a real dad and a real mom. And we forget them, their humanity, at our peril. Without their humanity, nothing really matters.

We say, we Christians, that Jesus showed us two things, the way to live our lives in conformity with what God wants, not by law (fundamentalists eternally to the contrary) but by love, and the path to eternal life. If Jesus is simply God, then he showed us nothing we can do. It only matters if we can follow. For that we need Jesus the person, not Christ the devine. For authority, we need Christ, for example we need Jesus.

I am, frequently and I think justifiably, a critic of the archbishop. But on this one, I think he was correct. We can let the plastic story live, and we probably will gain some cheap publicity, but no credibility. We get credibility when we act, when we preach what we know. Or so I think.

What do you think?