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At Christmastime, it’s hard to find a nativity scene that doesn’t feature a donkey, even though neither Matthew, Mark, Luke or John say anything about the mother of Jesus riding a donkey into Bethlehem. Nonetheless, a donkey has become a part of Christmas lore in songs like “The Friendly Beasts.” A starring role in a nativity pageant is one of the few jobs available for donkeys in the suburbs of America these days.
No one questions the animal’s presence in that holy tableau because Mary riding a donkey on that arduous journey is plausible enough. And donkeys, considered “low-status” animals throughout history, their 15-minutes of fame each December notwithstanding, fit perfectly with the paradox of Christmas, which celebrates power that the human mind cannot fully comprehend humbling itself into the most vulnerable of human forms.
Christmas, in other words, commemorates a miracle, which by definition is something that cannot be explained. And yet, at this time of year, we always find otherwise intelligent people earnestly trying to explain it.
Whether it’s a renowned columnist grappling with the virgin birth — a central and defining belief of Christianity — or astronomers trying to offer scientific explanations for the Star of Bethlehem, or people complaining that Jesus couldn’t possibly have been born in December, there are always people trying to make sense of Christmas, and why it holds the power that it does on our collective imagination, donkeys and all.
Some try to explain Christmas in order to debunk it; others want to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was — and is — the Savior, born to raise the sons of Earth, born to give us second birth, as one of our most beautiful Christmas carols testifies.
There’s a time and a place for that, and truth should never fear scrutiny.
But I’ve never understood people who demand peer-reviewed evidence of the details of Jesus’s birth and resurrection as a prerequisite for faith. C.S. Lewis didn’t, and he, once an atheist, became one of the most ardent apologists for Christianity, writing, “We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology.”
Once you accept the most mind-boggling part of it all — that an all-powerful Creator loves the messy, often misbehaving creatures of his making —then it’s not really so much of a leap to also believe in a miraculous star and angels serenading a few shepherds for the occasion of the world’s most significant birth.
The more curious question is why we wouldn’t.
The scholar and Christian convert Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote recently of her pleasure in experiencing Christmas as a person new to faith. Her essay underscores the vast chasm between a secular observance and one in which we dare to believe in the most audacious of miracles.
“I have not become a Christian because I want others to abide by its ethics,” she wrote. “I have become a Christian because the way it leads to a more well-rounded, fulfilling family life is so self-evident that there must be something more to it, something that can overcome our modern doubts. Whether in the Nativity scenes I visit with my children, or in the Evensong services we attend, I am participating in something transcendent, something that secularism can never offer.”
Secularism can also never explain why the man whose birth is celebrated this week emerged as the central figure in history despite the fact that he never sought power, fame or even respect — riding that “low-status” beast into Jerusalem the week before his humiliating death. Even self-professed atheists are writing longingly of their wish to experience something more of Christmas than what the secular world offers, like Larissa Phillips’s essay for The Free Press entitled “I took religion out of Christmas. I regret it.”
It is that sense of transcendence that Ali wrote of that settles over Bethlehem for Christians this week. Whether donkeys were present is immaterial. Love was.
Recommended Christmas reading
One of my Christmas traditions, in addition to keeping a Christmas journal, is to save a physical copy of a column that was particularly meaningful to me that year. My collection goes way back to when Erma Bombeck was still alive and writing about why it’s important to be a child at Christmas, and includes both the reverent, the poignant and the funny. Here are a couple in hopes that you might enjoy them as much as I do.
The late Russell Baker, on visiting his mother’s grave at Christmastime:
“We went to the cemetery the other day to put out Christmas wreaths for our kin. They were inexpensive wreaths. We decided that paying more than $10 per tombstone would be gross vulgarity. Money had always been in tight supply with the persons being honored. In their time they would have laughed themselves hoarse at news that some fool had squandered $10 worth of piney twigs on a burial plot.” Wreaths for the Folks
*George Will, on the wonders of Christmas with a 3-year-old afoot:
“David Maseng Will, a prodigiously talented 3-year-old, seemed, at first blush, blase about the news. The news was that on Sunday night a stranger, a jolly fat oddly dressed man, would be coming down David’s chimney with a sack full of toys, many of which would be strewn about beneath the tree in the living room, for David to enjoy, and for David to resist sharing with friends, as he resists sharing everything, other than germs.” At Christmastime, the World Revolves Around Children
*Michael Alvear, on why presents ultimately don’t matter:
“I was 9 when I experienced my first North American Christmas. I was at a loss to describe my reaction because my English wasn’t very good, but later I realized the word I had been looking for was ‘bummer.’ That’s because I had the disadvantage of having experienced eight Latino Christmases before that first Anglo one.” The Christmas That Comes to the Door
The late Paul Harvey, on a Christmas Eve conversion via a flock of miserable, freezing birds:
“The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a Scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that Incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmastime. It just didn’t make sense, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus story, about God coming to Earth as a man.” The Man and the Birds
Also of note
From the Rev. Derwin Gray: How to treasure Christ this Christmas
From Meagan Kohler: Christmas invites us to be soft instead of just strong
From Valerie Hudson: Christmas celebrates a birth, but childbirth in America is no holiday
And finally, my latest: From DEI to Disney, the top 5 culture war battles of 2024