It’s Christmas, so it’s as good a time as any to think about the holiday, and what it means to me.

It is, after all, besides a commercial boon, a religious holiday, focused on the birth of a child according to a very popular book, who was all human and, at the same time, all God, and who, after living a life in absolute agreement with God, dies to give his perfect life to whoever would accept it. Christianity is an extension of the Jewish story and, according to the New Testament, the completion of it. Jesus, the rabbi-carpenter, brings forgiveness and life eternal to the world. It’s a big story, and makes sense as to why it’s such a huge holiday around the world. It’s the holiday celebrating God with us, and God renewing his estranged children to himself, through His willing son. It’s an annual reminder to the Christian that God, loving and restoring, asserts Himself in the world to recover his children, and in the process, give them new life.

In today’s world, Jesus ends up sharing much of the spotlight during the season with Santa Claus, and Will Ferrell’s Elf, and Clark Griswold’s family, and Zales and Lexus commercials. Christmas has become a “nice” holiday, which I suppose it should be, since it has become a compulsory give-fest. We are to be merry, and give gazillions of gifts lest we end up feeling guilty for not being thoughtful enough or merry enough. Sometimes we try to make up goodwill ground, righting months of neglect of and absence from loved one in our lives through a given trinket, novelty, or gift card. And we hope we’ve done enough to make others feel merry about us, so we can feel merry about ourselves.

The importance of Jesus in the season, and relevance to the whole thing, really depends on what we do with that book.

The Bible is heralded as the #1 Best Seller of all time- at least as long as modern book lists have been keeping track- but we know that before the printing press, it was a body of writings that men in yermulkes and teffilin and habits and smocks copied over and over again across the centuries, striving to keep it both consistent and available. There’s a reason it has a special place in Western Civilization. It has been valued since it was first collected when the church was still a toddler.

Through it, the prophets pointed at a future king for Israel who would rule the nation forever- and in the process, govern to world in fairness and justice. In it, the story of Jesus is told- the child who some saw as a bastard because his father was not really his father, and his mom claimed was planted in her by God. Jesus was an observant Jew. Jesus became an adult, and began to teach people about God. Jesus at time looked like a king, and at times sounded like a kook. But Jesus loved, and people loved Jesus, until he pressed them to see that he represented God, and that God asked a few things from them- including their lives. The King of the Jews died a thief’s death crucified on a cross near the trash heaps outside of Jerusalem, God’s man suddenly despised by the world. Except the story did not end there in the book. God’s man didn’t stay dead.

Christmas is a great excuse for getting a week off from work or school- so much so that federal calendars around the world mandate its celebration. But celebrating it- the original form of it- requires a stretch of thinking and reflection. It requires regarding the Book. Many colleges and universities treat it as a fine piece of literature, or as a suitable option for exploring mythology around the world. Even within Christian churches and denominations today, the question of Biblical authority still flies around, leaving believers wondering what within the broad book is truly trustable. Higher criticism and post-modern empiricism have posed to many that the Book is a tome of great literary merit, but really can we know about God and this Jesus guy from that book. It is, after all, written by men for men, of origins long ago, of questionable integrity.

Or is it?

Christmas leans on the Book. To really get the most out of it, we are left facing its words and assertions, its claims and promises. And what it propounds about that Jesus guy.

Away in the manger.

Silent night, holy night.

God rest ye merry gentleman, let nothing you dismay. Remember, Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day.

Why?

To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.

This brings tidings of comfort and joy.