A WORLD WITHOUT CHRISTMAS

A World Without Christmas

     All of us are so into Christmas, with the gift giving, the decorations, the church services, the panicky shopping, Santa Claus, flying reindeer, Christmas music, that we forget how really dependent we are on this celebration to add meaning to our lives.  It doesn’t matter if we are Christians, Jews, Muslims, or any other kind of folk, we tend to schedule our lives to mesh with it - we plan our gift giving (especially the kid’s gifts), our work schedules, our get-togethers and our eating arrangements.  It’s easy to get into the habit of Christmas, to take it for granted, even if it seems stressful at times.  But - let’s consider the question: What would the world be like if there was no Christmas?   Sometimes the best way to understand the necessity and importance of an event is to suppose that it never happened and then examine the implications.

     No Christmas?  Well then, what does that mean?  Perhaps it only means that Matthew and Luke left out the biblical nativity stories from their gospels, and little is actually known about the birth of Jesus, and so we just don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus at all.  Perhaps Christians only celebrate Easter.  Our lives would not be very much different.  Christian theology might be very much the same as it is now, except possibly our understanding of the importance of the virgin Mary might be different. 

     But a more extreme situation would be: Jesus never appeared, he was never born, and no one ever appeared on the scene of history that remotely resembled the individual the prophets of the biblical Old Testament spoke about.  God never tried to reach out to mankind in a close personal way.  Let’s take a few minutes to consider this question. 

Immediately we can say: Certainly the flow of history would have been vastly different. 

1) The Bible’s Old Testament, if it even existed, would be a collection of myths, legends, and the musings of dreamers.  The best part would be the various histories and the nice sentiments set forth in the Psalms and Proverbs, but the books would have no real power, because most of their prophecies would be about an event that was never to happen.  But if God had no intention of sending a Redeemer/Messiah, then there might not have been any prophecies at all, as God may never have favored the Jews, never intending to use them to bless all nations, and never spoke through any prophets.  People like Moses, Abraham, Isaiah, Daniel, David, and so forth may never have appeared on the pages of history.  And if the Old Testament was actually written as we have it today, with dozens of prophecies about a coming Redeemer, it would be totally discredited – because the anticipated Redeemer never showed up.

2) We would not have a New Testament.  The men and women who became disciples of Jesus would have stayed fishermen, tax collectors, carpenters, homemakers, etc.  Luke would have remained a doctor.  Paul would have remained a Pharisee (maybe there would be no Pharisees).  There would be no Christians to persecute.  The Roman Empire would never need to contend with that troublesome band of one-God worshipers that challenged the Caesars and rejected the Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses.

3) There would have been no Saint Augustine, no Martin Luther, no John Calvin, etc.   There would be no Christian churches, no hymns, no creeds, no sacraments as we know them today.

4) The secular elements of Christmas would be missing.  Santa Claus, reindeer, Christmas trees, Christmas gifts, greeting cards, Christmas music, eggnog and stockings on the fireplace – all these things would be unknown.

5)  The flow of the history of the western world would have been vastly different.  The barbarian tribes of Europe would never have been visited by Christian missionaries.  They would have remained steeped in idolatry and mystery religions.  Therefore, there would not be a United States, as we know it today.  No “Judeo-Christian” foundation on which to build a national constitution.  There would have been no Magna Carta, no declaration of independence.  What peoples would now live in North America and what sort of government they would have is anyone’s guess.  It’s possible that civilization as we know it might never have evolved.  No technology, no science, only tribes here and there ruled by warlords and chiefs.  Even this blog entry would not exist because the writer (P. Strom) and you the reader would never have been born -  because our ancestry and lineages would have followed paths quite unlike the paths that actually produced us. 

6)  Our knowledge of God, if we had any, would be very different.  “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” said Jesus.  He claimed to be our way to an understanding of God derived from a human image that was easy to comprehend.  Without Jesus, perhaps we would know God via some other revelation, creation perhaps, a different prophet perhaps, but possibly there would be no direct revelation at all, and we would be left mostly in the dark about God’s true nature.   Perhaps the idea of monotheism would have never developed, and people would still be worshiping the sun, the moon, the thunderstorm, and images of wood and stone.

7)  Our sins (if we even had such a concept) would be unforgiven, without any substitutionary redemption, without any way to have a hope of acceptance in the sight of the God we really don’t know very well anyway.  Perhaps there would be some other way of salvation, that we can’t conceive of, but that’s just a speculation.  People might just follow the musings of seers and oracles, who might claim to have revelations directly from ‘angels’ or extra-terrestrials.

8)  Any hope for life-after-death would be tenuous at best.  Death would hover over us like the sword of Damocles, a grim reality, a final end, a fall into the unknown, without any confidence that a loving God would be waiting to accept us into his presence.  Life would take on a ‘cast your fate to the winds’ character.  The most logical conclusion would be final and complete extinction.

9)  We would have no assurance that our prayers would be heard.  People, perhaps through desperation, might still try to get the attention of a god (who they aren’t even sure is actually there), and who may or may not care about individual people at a personal level.  

That’s just a few ideas about what the world would be like without Christmas.  There are certainly other consequences that one could think of.  But here’s the golden nugget in this discussion.  Simply this: ♫ Christmas really happened, ♫ and our season of celebration is founded upon real historical events.  And because of Christmas being real, we are here to celebrate an amazing fact.  That rather strange and odd fact that the Creator God of the universe chose to become one of us for a short time - and chose to be born in the humblest of circumstances - no trumpets, no white horses (that comes later), no attendance by the privileged and elite (they tried to kill him), no elaborate processions of fancy dressed people.  But in total fulfillment of around 400 (some say) biblical prophecies and inferences.  The setting?  Some simple shepherds that probably smelled like their sheep, a humble teen aged girl and her somewhat bewildered fiancé, hopefully a midwife or two, a cave that doubled as an animal stable, and a feeding trough for a cradle.  Also, there was an unusual star, a few angelic appearances, and a visit (a couple of years later) by some wise seekers from Iraq or Iran (more than one, but not necessarily the traditional three).  But the humble beginning, in an obscure location, revealed only to the commonest of people, was how God chose to reveal himself.  That way, the simple and humble folk of the world would have no trouble relating to him.  Only the proud and arrogant would disdain him. 

So here we all are: the beneficiaries of that very important event in the history of the world: Christmas.  Our very lives in this present world, and our relationships with God, are made possible by the reality of that event.  So we can share our fellowship, partake of delicious food, exchange gifts, decorate Christmas trees, put up model villages and electric train sets, listen to and sing beautiful music, attend Christmas church services, and just absorb the love and good vibes of the season.  And for the Christian, our lives take on purpose and meaning, and our destinies are sealed in the will and providence of a loving God.

And when we pray, we can be confident that a loving God cares about the details of our little lives, and is there to accept our worship and our gratitude, and who will weigh our requests in his balances.  Hopefully, this look at the world without Christmas helps all of us to appreciate how important and wonderful the celebration of this event really is.