Absurdity at Christmas

Christmas celebrates the birth of a baby. It's a little reminisent of the Buddist rejoicing when a small boy is found to be the reincarnation of a lama. Both occasions seem silly and naïve – grown men and women idolising helpless, purposeless children.

Reincarnation seems particularly silly – a ridiculous theory conjured up by people terrified that it might all end at death. But I'd suggest that the Christian belief is far sillier and far more implausible. Christians celebrate the birth of the baby boy, Jesus, not because we believe he is the reincarnation of another man, but because we believe he is God. Christians actually believe that the LORD God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the eternal, omniscient, omnipotent God came to earth as a human. This is why Christians look at Jesus as a newborn and join the righteous Simeon in declaring, “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

It sounds too absurd and outrageous to believe, and yet many do. We believe because as this baby became a little boy, a teenager and a man, he did no wrong. We believe because he triumphed over death and his opponents could not produce his body. We believe because these things have been written about by those who were there.

And we rejoice that this newborn baby was God because he came to earth to fix up our shit – for the sake of his Holy Name and because he loved us. He made himself nothing and became obedient to death, that we might live. When we behold this ordinary, new baby we can scarce understand that he is God, but we can begin to grasp God's hatred of evil and his love for his people.