©2007, UrbisMedia
Historically, there is probably a good case that that a Jewish baby boy, Yeshua bar Yusef, was born some time in the winter of 4 B.C. [1] He seems to have grown into a young man who confronted the establishment of the Jewish faith of the time, as well as run afoul of the insurgent rulers of his country, the Romans. He had ideas that, if they were not revolutionary, didn’t fit very well with either source of authority, ideas he probably picked up from further East, during the time he dropped out of historical notice, from his early teens to his early thirties. These ideas got him into big trouble with both auspices of authority in Judea, and he ended up being crucified by the Romans. His best idea was that humans should love one another, but he got killed for it. Ironically, even people who have adopted the name given him by the Greeks—Jesus Christ—have conducted the most brutal atrocities on other people, putatively in his name.
Jesus Christ, of course, would not even have recognized that name, nor would he have probably had much to do withy the movement that came to be called Christianity. He would have had even less to do with and would likely have opposed the leaders of Christianity who have acted much more like the authorities that he opposed during his life and who put him to death. How would he have felt about the elaborate fairy tale that has been woven from the few words and little historical data that were his life? One could easily surmise that he would have renounced and condemned it all.
Baby Jesus’ birthday is celebrated as ”Christmas,” but if you Google that word, you get mostly images of a third century Christian “saint” [2] from Anatolia who is mostly represented today to resemble someone much better known as Santa Claus. Whether St. Nicholas, who became a bishop and a patron saint of sailors, was fond of giving gifts, and did have white hair and a flowing white beard, doesn’t much matter to anyone anymore. He is really the patron saint of a shopping spree that Christians honor much more than baby Jesus’ birthday, despite the fact that Christian clerics are forever lamenting the commercialization of the holiday. Each time millions of kids are indoctrinated into the myth that a corpulent old man can get all over the world in a sleigh pulled by reindeer with German names, and up and down chimneys with the same kinds of toys they see advertised on television and on the shelves of Toysarus, all of which seem to have “Made in China” stickers affixed to the lead paint on them. Getting kids to “sign on” to the Santa myth seems almost preparatory to them signing on to the other part of the Christian myth, the savior who dies for their sins, is resurrected, and will be waiting for them in a heaven with clouds as white and billowy as Santa’s beard. They eventually come to the conclusion that Santa Claus is the myth that is built on the “reality” of the religious version of the life of Yeshua bar Yusef. They can turn on Santa’s commercialization in righteous anger, especially when there are no close in parking spaces at the mall.
In this somewhat perverse way the two myths support one another. The message of “peace on earth and good will towards men” becomes a seasonal shibboleth, bound up with three kings from the Orient who have been following a shinning star to a greater king who will save all of mankind. [3] Christ’s mother’s conception, and even her delivery, would be sanitized by the Church (can’t have any of that dirty old sexual stuff involved in the process), and scripture by scripture Yeshua is morphed into Jesus so that he fits better into prophecy and dogma. Christ becomes somewhat of a hand puppet for priests and pastors of all stripes who is made to pronounce the Christian position on abortion, stem cell research, same-sex marriage and evolution, and, rather than being a symbol of peace and tolerance, is held up as the basis for the latest Christian crusade against non-believers. Football players salute him for touchdowns and no Republican presidential candidate would dare not invoke him as his personal “lord and savior.”
This is because we cannot seem to find good reasons—outside of having a Savior or a Santa—for doing the things that these mythical entities are supposed to represent. We seem to need some scriptural (script) to follow rather than our own conscience, if we are to attain “salvation”; we seem to need “better not pout, better not cry” to receive the blessings of Santa (batteries not included, some assembly required). We also seem to need some reward for doing what we imply is intrinsically right and just. So we create, inflate and conflate these mythical versions of a Jewish rabbi and an otherwise obscure “saint” to the point where they become ludicrous caricatures and corporate icons trotted out for power and profit. (Would any parent dare ask their child who it loves more, Santa or Jesus?)
The irony is that the true descendants of Yeshua bar Yusef spend his birthday ordering in Chinese food or going to the movies and that the model for the jolly Kris Kringle from the North Pole was likely a Greek who hailed from the eastern Mediterranean.
These days, when Christmas rolls around, I try to resurrect from the cobwebs of memory what I felt when, as a kid, I held both of these myths in my mind with seemingly little cognitive contortion. In retrospect, I don’t think I fully believed either of them, but let myself pretend that I did. I think that even at an age of easy credulity I liked the atmosphere they created. I liked the carols, the smells of pine sap and tallow candles, the wafting of incense at Midnight Mass, the crunch of fresh snow and the flakes floating down in the penumbra of the street lamps, and the surprise of what Santa might have under the Christmas tree on which I had placed with much consideration my favorite decorative ornament. I remember the innocent Christmas’s of my youth fondly. If the nativity story and Santa myth were a part of it required a willing suspension of my incipient disbelief then my apologies to Yeshua and Nick the Greek
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©2007, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 12.28.2007)
[1] Supposedly the time when the Romans were conducting a census in Judea, not the presumed year 1 A.D.
[2] Some sources say he was never canonized.
[3] Ironically, the “Orient” of that time was the Middle East, and those kings would have seen their nations turn to Islam eight centuries later.