Dear Hugh,

Personally, I find great value in the symbolism of the Christmas story. This is a story that was told under the shadow of a dominant culture. A culture that revered power and might. Yet, here is a child who has a connection to God like no one before him. He comes to set his people free. A prince, but the prince of peace. He does not come in high and mighty like the kings of old. He is born under difficult circumstances.

In this story, he was born unto an olive-skinned, middle-eastern, possibly unwed, pregnant mother, who was seen as little more than property. Born into a world that might see him as an illegitimate child who was wrapped in what rags they could find and placed in a somewhat smelly feeding trough on the animal side of the house.

This is power from the bottom up. This is the power of love, not the power of might. This is what the beginnings of liberation for the oppressed look like. It doesn't come from those who already hold power; it comes from common, everyday people. This is a promise that love wins. It is a foretaste and foreshadowing of the teachings that will come from this child, and it causes the mighty to shake in their boots.

Bishop Spong puts it quite beautifully when he says: “Why do we then keep these stories and repeat them every year if they are not factually true? That is usually the question of an adult who has had his or her fairy tale religion shaken. The answer is simple. Truth is so much bigger than literalism... Some human experiences are so large, so real, so life-changing, and so defining that the words used to describe those moments must break open the imagination if they are to capture this kind of truth. That is what myth does. That is what the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth are all about.”

Yes, I love the Christmas story.

No, I do not believe it is true.

But yes, I do believe that it is truthful.

It is the story (and I do mean story) of the beginnings of the comeuppance sensibilities of the Christian faith. The story of love comes down to overturning the ridiculous notion that power and might make right. It is the beginning of the story of the peaceable kingdom that this world so sorely needs right now.

At least for me, that's why I still tell the Christmas story.

~ Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin