Rejecting the Christmas Child

We like to watch older movies at Christmas, because alas, too often today's Chrismas movies  rarely have a  nativity scene in them, let alone have their people actually go into a church to celebrate the birth of God who came to earth as a baby.

William Morris: adoration of the Magi

I'm not sure if ignoring the religious idea behind Christmas is done so as to not upset nonbelievers who might not watch their film, or if it is because the writers/directors etc really don't believe that there is a God and see the religious aspect as a naive myth, or, alas in a world where half the USA backs a political party that sees killing an unborn child up to and shortly after birth is a good thing, that too many media elites just don't want to celebrate the idea that when the God of the universe decided to live as a human being, he chose to do so in a working class family who was temporarily homeless due to the political mechanations of the Roman emperor.

Or maybe the religionless Christmas movie is because they prefer to push the religion of consumerism that stresses buying gifts, and they dislike being reminded that maybe a baby is God's gift to it's parents, even if the child is born in a poor family, or to remind one that even an imperfect child is a gift of God.

I suspect this is the reason that CNN chose Christmas to assure late term abortion is okay because a Christian couple changed their mind about abortion after they aborted a viable fetus (because it was imperfect).

And presumably the MSM also will publish oodles of articles assuring people that Christianity is false or that Christians will be a minority soon (ignoring that many of those illegally migrating to the USA are Christian), or insisting that Christians really don't believe in Christ anymore. Nyah Nyah Nyah to you deplorables.

True, many of these people behind this anti religion onslaught are good folk and give money to helpful causes, but they do have a blind spot: in their hearts they don't recognize how most of us see the story of Christmas through the eyes of ordinary life.

From NR via instapundit:

Its most famous line opens the song, and lodges in my cranium without asking permission: “And so this is Christmas/And what have you done?” Those ten words have enough hubris to inflate the Hindenburg.

It’s as if ordinary folk somehow should justify themselves to a 1960s–1970s rock star....the easy response from normal people...  can be imagined as follows, perhaps from a single mom: “Oh, I don’t know, John — I’ve been raising three kids, caring for my aged Mom, and working double-shifts at the coffee shop to pay the bills. You?”

Other responses to imagine: From a Second World War veteran: “I fought my way on to Omaha Beach and survived D-Day — and the rest of the war, but many of my friends did not. We beat the Nazis, which is what mattered even more despite the sacrifices.”

Or imagine the response from a steelworker, miner, or farmer: “Endured another grinding day at the foundry/shaft/farm, this to afford the mortgage and Christmas presents.”

Ordinary folk serve God in the duties of their daily life, and the good emphasis on going good deeds is fine, as long as, as Jordan Peterson reminds young men: First clean your room before you remake the world.

So caring for family and friends is more important than flashy altruism, especially at a time when many folks all over the world face financial problems in making ends meet. And this idea is why many ordinary folk accept that child who unexpectedly arrives or who is imperfect: because they trust in God's plan and accept that child as a blessing,

One can of course sympathize and in one's secret heart agree with a couple who chooses to end their child's life before birth rather than to watch their baby die slowly of heart disease.

But as anecdotal stories out of Canada show: Once death is seen as a quick (and cheap) answer to suffering, it is hard to draw the line at when to stop.

As a doc, I have no answer to the problem of pain and suffering, but as one of our wiser teachers in medical school noted: Few physicians are deeply into formal religion, but most believe in God, and believe there is a reason behind all that we see:  because we see people who logically should live a good long life who nevertheless suffer and die. But we also see people who logically should die recover and live. And unless we believe there is an ultimate plan behind each and every life, then our profession has no meaning.

It is our duty to help those in need, but it starts with caring for those in our own family: something that the 48 million caregivers in the US are doing all the time, with little fanfare.

The same thing goes for accepting with love every child who is born. 

A mother has the most important job in the world: To birth a human being who will live in this world and in eternity.

Joey Velasco

That is why a child born in a stable or (as above) in a  garage  at SmokeyMountain, or a thatched hut in rural areas of the world, is just as important to God as is the child of a billionaire with perfect genes and the money to develop their talent.

And maybe it is in caring for these imperfect chilren that we learn the lesson to turn our tears into wisdom:

Author Pearl S Buck said, in a book, of her child who was born mentally handicapped as a result of the metabolic condition called PKU:

“[by] this most sorrowful way I was compelled to tread, I learned respect and reverence for every human mind. It was my child who taught me to understand so clearly that all people are equal in their humanity and that all have the same human rights. None is to be considered less, as a human being, than any other, and each must be given his place and a safety in the world. I might never have learned this in any other way. I might’ve gone on in the arrogance of my own intolerance for those less able than myself. My child taught me humanity.”