WITNESS TO THE GLORY OF GOD

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness , and the darkness did not comprehend it. There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1: 1-14)

So often, when we cite the beginning of the gospel of John, especially at Christmas, we drop out the middle of this passage. We focus on the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. This is the glory of God, that He became human and lived with us. We drop out the middle because we don't want to distract from that.

But is it a distraction?

This year, there's been a major aggitation in Southern California over the holiday displays in Santa Monica in the city park along the Palisades. Activist atheists, irritated by the tradition and seeing as the city "establishing" religion made some moves against the practice. They are, in fact, wrong about the legal issue -- private citizens actually do have a legal right to place religious displays on public lands, so long as they are not the "government" property (ie, city hall). It's a matter of free speech. Anyway, because there were more requests for display space than there were spaces, the city opted to assign the spaces by lottery. Any individual could request multiple spaces. So the atheists organized and basically gamed the system, each requesting the maximum number of spaces. The result was that most of the spaces ended up in the hands of the atheists, and only a few in the hands of those who wished to put up religious displays.

What was achieved here? The atheists limited the amount of public expression of religious belief during the season of some major religious holidays (both Christian and Jewish - and even semi-secular, if you count Kwanza). They've presented themselves as blatantly hostile to the public expression of religious belief, claiming that such declarations are oppressive to them. Their own actions aren't the least bit oppressive or injurious to free speech, of course.

In a photo of one of the atheist displays there is a sign that reads "37 million Americans know MYTHS when they see them" Below that is a row of pictures, supposedly of "mythic" figures -- the photo was tiny, so I couldn't quite make the details of what three of them represented, but one was an image of the adult Jesus. Below that was another line of text that says, "What myths do you see?"

What can I say? It made me smile.

Because there is so much wrong with the declaration.

Let us just begin with the images. Although I couldn't see the details, it was clear to me that three of those four images were of fictional figures, whereas Jesus actually lived in history. The historicity of the New Testament documents has been well established. There certainly was some human being who inspired a movement notable enough to be commented upon by the ancient historians Josephus and Pliny the Younger. The display attempts to imply that by simply placing the images together they represent the same class of object. It's very poor logic from a group of people who profess high respect of "reason and logic."

Then there is the word "myth." When atheists use that term, they mean it entirely in a very narrow definition, that being "an unfounded and false notion." And by "unfounded," it is meant that it has no grounding in fact or relaity.

As noted, since there is historical support for the claim that an actual religious visionary named Jesus gathered a group of followers around himself, the atheists are already losing the logic argument on the "unfounded" aspect. There actually is some foundation for the beginnings of Christianity.

It's the God part they really want to dismiss. If they can get rid of that, they can then ignore the actual precepts of the Christian faith.

But "myth" isn't about "unreal fiction." Myths came into being as ways of describing what is meaningful to people. They reflect the reality of the world and display the meanings people give to the world around us. I'm a writer. I've studied mythology for years. For most mythologies, what is important is not whether or not the "story" happened in actual fact, but rather what the significance of that story is to the people who tell it. I could easily go on for pages about this aspect of myth-making (in fact, I've written a whole book about it!), but that's not the point here.

Christianity does indeed tell a mythic story: God became human; that human, Jesus, lived a life teaching people how to draw nearer to God; He died to bring that cycle to a completion; and then He rose from the dead.

It's a story of deep meaning. We can come close to God. We are given a hope of closeness with God that goes beyond the boundaries of our mortal life.

And it really happened, in a specific time and place. And there were witnesses to it.

Which brings us back to what the gospel writer was trying to get across by including reference to John the Baptist in his celebration of God becoming flesh.

John the Baptist was a witness. He went before Jesus, declaring the coming of the Lord. And the writer of the gospel was there to see the events that followed.

There is nothing for a believer to fear in the atheists' declaration that Christianity is "founded on a myth." They are truer than they imagine in putting out that statement. The problem is that they do not understand the words they are using. They use the word "myth" because they think it is squishy enough to serve their purposes, to cloud the issue. They are afraid to say "Christianity is a LIE." They are afraid to say "Jesus NEVER lived!" They are afraid to say, "No aspect of this story EVER happened." Because those statements can be challenged on the ground, the very foundations, of what they consider to be their exclusive realm - "reason and logic."

It is Christmas Day. Do I believe that Jesus was born on this exact day of the year? I don't find that an important question, and I don't see why any believer needs to fear it or be mocked by it. It is the day upon which I choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Because He was born and did live among the people of that time. That is enough for me. It happened. It's real.

I will stand on a corner, proclaiming like John the Baptist -- "a voice crying in the wilderness" -- that Jesus is born! The Lord God became a little child! My Redeemer has come and lives today!

May the blessings of Christmas be upon you. Because it really did happen, at a specific time, and a specific place. The Glory of the Lord was and is with us.