MORE THAN THE BABE IN BETHLEHEM
I wasn‘t too much aware of the Christmas story when I was young. Christmas meant a tree with presents underneath it.
I remember telling my mother very firmly when I was five that I did not want a doll for Christmas. I think I told her every five minutes in case she forgot.
They gave me one anyway. It was almost as big as I was, dressed in frilly clothes and I despised it. They even gave me a pram to push it around in.
I wanted to be like my brother Kerry, who was three years older than I. He didn’t get soppy dolls for Christmas. Kerry wanted to be a doctor, so he cut open my doll’s stomach and filled it with hand picked organs ( a nice variety of stones) and we stuck it together again with band aids. That poor doll had a pretty rough time.
He, of course, got a cowboy suit with two guns in holsters and he went about holding everyone up, especially me when I was pushing the pram.
Ours was not a religious family, but the Christmas I remember best was when my mother filled one of the rooms in the house with hay. She brought in an evergreen tree and whipped up a lot of soap flakes to make snow. We sat on the hay and opened presents and it was fun. Forgot to mention that I was born in Africa, so if you want snow, you make it with soap flakes.
I didn’t join a Church until much later. Then Christmas took on more meaning as we attended Christmas services and listened to Church broadcasts and the Primary children singing, and heard the moving story of how the Babe was born.
For a long time I thought the Christmas story was about the birth of Baby Jesus – in other words, a sweet story. A sweet baby. Lovely music. But it wasn’t until I read scriptures about the life of Christ that I began to get the bigger picture.
In other words, WHO WAS THIS MAN THAT WE WORSHIP?
The Babe of Bethlehem?
“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!
“For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father –
“That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.” D & C 76: 22-24
This adds a huge new dimension to the Christmas story, to that sweet little babe born so humbly in Bethlehem.
George MacDonald spoke of artists being inspired to paint effeminate Christs that bear no relation to the power and majesty of the Man we worship. This thought was echoed in the Pocket Book of Old Masters, in which Herman J. Wechsler says:
“There is a painting by El Greco in the Louvre, a Crucifixion which I think is the most inspiring representation of its kind in the whole of art history. …. Against a sky of storm and tempest is silhouetted the attenuated, athletic figure of a Christ suited by his physique and his noble serenity to be the hero of the Christian story.”
We need to look at the Babe and see the Christ to fully appreciate the power emanating from that manger in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. It is still with us, but as we begin crowding the new millennium, strange things are happening to the Christmas story and to Christmas traditions.
When you see Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley as Christmas tree ornaments, who knows where this trend could take us if our schools are forbidden to open with prayers, to teach the Creation story or to celebrate Christmas? To be politically correct, we are supposed to call Christmas a “winter holiday”. If the small minority of vociferous protesters has its way, celebrating Christmas in public will no longer be legal.
Think what that means to a basically Christian country. No Christmas hymns, no Nativity scenes, no public worship of Christ in case we offend other religions. What happened to live and let live?
I’m not suggesting we militantly stick up for our right to a Christian way of life, because that would defeat the purpose. I’m thinking though that we need to stand up and be counted before we lose our precious right to worship as Christians and have our children taught the things Christ stands for, in our schools.
Christ said, “As I have loved you, love one another.”
Is this a terrible thing to teach in our schools? Especially as many people can barely construe the meaning of the word ‘love’?
Moving from the purely materialistic view of Christmas to a spiritual one is a life changing experience. I’d like to see us acknowledging Christ’s gift of his very life for us by doing something for him, by spreading Christ-like love.
The gifts we give can be anything from a smile to something more substantial in terms of time, effort and money. As people grow more tired, more stressed, more defeated and unhappy, many are left with their noses pressed against a shop window full of glittering presents that they can never afford to buy and certainly never expect to get. Whatever we choose to give, the biggest effect will be to make us daily aware that this world needs kindness and sacrifice.
What better way to keep the Christmas spirit all year than to give our gifts in remembrance of the Creator of the universe? He has told us that what we do for others we do for him. Then we would be celebrating the true intent of Christmas, by remembering his birth with tenderness and his Atonement with gratitude and love.
Looking back, I think I’ve made some progress in understanding the meaning of Christmas since my brother and I cut open my Christmas doll to do organ transplants.
Pene Beavan Horton
Copyright reserved 2010
