Christmas

It is difficult to come up with a new angle on the significance of Christmas for believers as we strive to faithfully live out our lives in the modern age, but here is an important one.

Advent, the season where we look toward the first and second coming of our Savior, reminds us of a very important and inherent truth in our Christian worldview if we just dig deep enough.

That truth is that the Christian faith and story is inherently gendered and binary. In an age where both of these fundamental truths are under vicious attack today, being reminded of this fact is critical to Christian fidelity.

Let us look at the first coming of Jesus, fully God/fully man, at Christmas. We are told in John 1:14:

In the telling of God becoming flesh, Scripture also tells us unmistakably that this happened in a gendered way.

A Son came from the Father. Maleness is inherently part of this divine story. Christianity is often criticized for being a patriarchal, male-centric faith. But this conclusion can only be arrived at through a superficial and short-sighted understanding of God’s incarnation.

We must ask, “How did God, the Word, become flesh?”

He came to us from the Father as God’s only Son through … the most thoroughly feminine part of a woman. God became man through woman. That is the fundamental fact of Christianity’s origin. Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, makes this crystal clear in Luke 1:42-43:

The Word made flesh came intimately into our realm from the bosom of the Father, through the womb and birth canal of a woman. Jesus did not arrive in the world in a manger. That was secondary. God entered through the most intimate means of femininity. That is a profoundly feminist statement, in the best, truest sense of that term. No other faith or ideological belief system gives such high honor of place to that which is most feminine.

Yes, the Christmas story, and Christianity, originates in a very gendered and binary way.

But let us also look at the second coming of Jesus. It is also gendered, binary and … rooted in marriage.

Elizabeth’s son and Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, tells us in John 3:29 that he is “the friend of the bridegroom” who is seeking His bride. John is, of course, referring to Jesus, the Word made flesh.

And Jesus’ return at the end of time is no less than a wedding, a glorious nuptial union between a divine Bride and Groom, Christ and His Church. It is what God’s whole story has been moving toward, after all. We read this toward the end of Revelation:

For the marriage of the Lamb has come. Revelation 21:9 says, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

Christianity starts with a Heavenly Father and a real, earthly mother who bring us our Savior. It ends, culminating with a Groom, bound to His Bride.

We read in the first chapter of Scripture that the image and likeness of God in creation is humanity in male and female:

Gendered. Binary.

The culmination of time, which we also look forward to in Advent, reflects this male/female nature in a divine way in the masculine Bridegroom who takes His Beloved unto Himself, impregnating her with the seed of His eternal life-giving love. She, the Church, receives that life in the Person of the Holy Spirit and it flowers forth in new life of a great multitude, the redeemed of God, who we just read of in Revelation. This is what Revelation 21:2-3 speaks of in the finality of time:

This divine gendered and binary truth, this glorious wedding, is what Advent is pointing us toward. It is the beginning of and the finality of the Christian story.

We should all keep these essential facts of the Christian narrative and worldview in mind when we hear the truth of the gender binary being attacked and dismissed in our culture today. It is an assault on truths much larger and significant than most assume.

 

Image from Shutterstock.

Christmastime at the Pentagon looks a bit different this year.

On Wednesday, Admiral Carey Cash, Chaplain of the Marine Corps and Deputy Chief of Chaplains of the Navy, opened an event at the headquarters of the United States Department of War, by describing the birth of Jesus in theologically rich terms.

Admiral Cash called Christmas, “the coming of Jesus into this world,” the “greatest rescue operation of all time.” He then quoted from the Gospel of John: “In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind” (1:4).

Wednesday’s celebration coincides with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s call to overhaul the Chaplain Corps – a branch of the Army that dates to 1775. Secretary Hegseth announced plans to reprioritize the spiritual health of the country’s soldiers. He said there needs to be a “top-down cultural shift, putting spiritual well-being on the same footing as physical and mental health.”

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward acknowledged that George Washington launched the program because he understood the link between a soldier’s faith and their ability to perform in dangerous and high-pressure situations. In reimagining the military’s commitment to providing a link to the eternal, Woodward suggested the change was long overdue.

“Past administrations degrade this vital ministry into a vague program of ‘feelings management,’ rather than a rigorous grounding in authentic, selfless, and courageous faith,” he shared. “I am grateful for Secretary Hegseth’s clear-sighted leadership and decisive action to ensure the Chaplain Corps and the Army Spiritual Fitness program are restored to their full strength.”

At Wednesday’s event, Franklin Graham held nothing back.

“Jesus took our shame, and He died in our place, and He rose again, And this is why we celebrate,” Franklin Graham declared. “Christmas was not a ‘Jesus Christ is a babe in a manger.’ He’s living, He’s alive, He’s in heaven, and He’s coming back, and He’s coming back someday soon.”

Hundreds of guests attended the service, which was held in the Pentagon Couryard in the glow of a brightly lit evergreen tree. Matthew West and Anne Wilson provided the Christmas music.

“I want to thank you all for sharing in this first Christmas Worship Service here at the Pentagon,” Secretary Hegseth told those gathered. “It’s the least we could do in this season. We do it monthly as well — a prayer service — which we will continue to do, because, as George Washington did that first year, he went on bended knee for providence in impossible tasks.”

He continued:

By strengthening the Chaplain Corps, Secretary Hegseth is simultaneously strengthening every man and woman in every branch of the military. That’s because strong Christians make for strong and courageous members of the armed forces.

Tuesday marks the 60^th anniversary of the television debut of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the animated classic that continues to charm both children and adults and communicate the true meaning of Jesus’ birthday.

By the mid 1960s, Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” cartoon was a worldwide sensation. The comic strip was running in over 2,600 newspapers and reaching over 355 million people around the world every day. As its creator, Schulz received the “National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award” for outstanding cartoonist of the year in both 1955 and 1964.

So, it wasn’t all that surprising when Schulz’s friend, Lee Mendelson, received a call from the advertising agency McCann-Erickson relaying the news that Coca-Cola was interested in sponsoring a “Peanuts” Christmas special. Could he convince Schulz to do it?

Schulz had been impressed with Mendelson’s one-hour documentary, “A Man Named Mays,” a special featuring the legendary San Francisco Giants outfielder, Willie Mays. He agreed to sit down with Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez to outline the special’s storyline. It took them just one day.

The script was written, produced and recorded during the summer and fall of 1965. Schulz, a devout Christian, had been wanting his show to reflect the reason for the season. Both Mendelson and Melendez gently pushed back, but the Peanuts’ creator was insistent.

“If not us, then who’s going to do it?” insisted Schulz.

CBS Network executives were similarly reluctant. They also didn’t like the amateur voice actors the production used, the inclusion of the jazz musician Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack, and disliked the overall slow pacing of the animated special.

But there wasn’t enough time to do anything about it and so the show debuted on December 9, 1965.

By now you know it was a smashing success with nearly half of all households tuned in to watch Linus recite the Gospel of Luke and relay the story of Jesus’ miraculous birth. The 30-minute special would go on to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Program as well as a Peabody Award.

For perspective, it might be helpful to recognize that even 60 years ago, corporate America was disconnected from what the typical American television viewer valued and appreciated.

Charles Schulz gets the rightful credit for creating a timeless program – but he should also be remembered for holding his ground and preserving his editorial authority and Christian convictions.

Critics of the ever-churning “culture wars” will often suggest the clashes either matter very little or are little matters that won’t make a big difference in the overall scheme of everyday life. They’re wrong. There’s a saying that politics are downstream from culture, which is true – but so are many other things.

Coca-Cola sponsored the first Charlie Brown Christmas, but the sugary beverage company also influenced the way generations of children view the image of Santa Claus. Prior to a Coca-Cola advertising campaign in the 1930s, Saint Nicholas was portrayed in various ways – sometimes elf-like and other times as a tall, thin old man. He was often depicted wearing clerical vestments or other ancient apparel that was sometimes blue, green or tan.

But then D’Arcy Advertising Agency commissioned an illustrator named Haddon Sundblom to draw the legend in a warm and inviting style. Mr. Sundblom used the description of the old man in Clement Moore’s poem, “A Visit From St. Nicholas” to help inform his drawings. The plump and jolly Santa was born.

As Christians, we care about the culture because we care about the people swimming in its fast-moving stream. Culture matters because it’s comprised of people desperately searching for answers and direction in life.

It shouldn’t, but culture plays an oversized role in shaping how people think and ultimately what people believe. This is why we need to encourage more goodness – like the simple and innocent yet profound message of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”