[todaysdate]
By Ernesto Tinajero
Around this time we get the usual admonitions to remember the real reason for Christmas: celebrating the birth of Jesus. That is about how far it goes. It is not about presents. It’s about Jesus. Now, being a Christian, I agree with this, but what I find interesting comes from how the admonition stays there. Seldom do you find post or essays explaining the importance of Jesus to our lives.
For non-Christians listening to Christians talking about the birth of Christ without any context and why it matters, it becomes an occasion for a simple shrug of a ho-hum and a return to get the economy humming. If Christmas is important because of the birth of Christ, then why is it important to remember the birth of a Jewish baby and his marginalized parents over 2,000years ago? Billions of babies have been born since then, why single out one long ago in a foreign land? Why hubbub, bub? Bah, humbug becomes the key question of Christians to address in this season of Christmas.
During the Advent season and Christmas season, lets mediate on why Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus and it’s importance to today for the living of our lives. For believers as well as non believers, there is a lot of gold here to contemplate about what it means to live a good life. Many atheists, while leaving unconvinced about the nature of Christian faith, if engaged, can find treasure as well. While the topic is large, lets narrow down to a key concept in understanding the nature of Christmas, the glory of God. For Christians, the birth of Christ means the revealing of the glory of God.
Let us wonder about what the glory of God means and how to experience it. Glory of God means presence of God. Even Sam Harris recently wrote about the need for this moments of transcendency, although without the narrative construct of Christian faith. If the presence of God is real and can be experienced, then it must be an attribute of the Holy Spirit and hence the birth of Jesus is tied up with the Holy Spirit. Mary came to be pregnant through he the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the breath of life, meaning glory comes from both the divine act of creation and the standing back and pronouncing it good. In other words, those moments of transcendency are tied up with the very act of creating. We experience transcendency in making things and being inspired (Or filled with the spirit, the etymology of inspire).
I wonder about God’s Glory as my 5-year-old finishes painting a nativity in watercolors at Millwood Presbyterian Church. Every year, the church holds an ornament making event for the kids to celebrate the coming of Jesus. In the act of creating the kids were absorbed in making art and were touched by the Spirit of God. Then, in our praise of them, the children experience the Glory of God. My son looks up with glistening eyes in response to my saying beautiful. Ans it was as all art is. The children’s ornament making were a small taste of what the glory of God means. The glory of God comes in the act of creation, and when we create, we partake in Glory. This is why we experience the glory of God as divine inspiration. Breathing into life by the divine reveals this truth of divine presence in the creation of art. The first real reason for Christmas then reveals the glory of God in act of creating.
