At Christmas it’s easy to miss the point about Jesus
A cute baby Jesus isn’t the point of Christmas
At Christmas it’s easy to miss the point about Jesus. When we see him as a cute baby, we may forget what he grew up to be and do. This time of year when churches give special attention to the coming of Jesus is an especially good time to reconsider how Jesus’s teaching and example apply to the world we live in.
Focusing on the baby Jesus can help us remember, instead, if we let it. It can remind us of the great potential that all babies represent. It can remind us of the need to care for the many babies and children in today’s world who won’t realize their true potential without our help. If focusing on Jesus as a baby has that result, it can help us follow Jesus more closely.
Buying Christmas gifts for babies and children in our families can also be a helpful reminder if we let it. Our Christmas gift-giving to friends and family can easily be an end in itself, but it needs to be instead a reminder to help the children and adults whose needs are much greater than those of our immediate family and circle of friends. It can remind us of the love and justice Jesus called his followers to show to the world. And the help that’s needed is usually more than giving Christmas gifts to needy people. It’s likely to include working to change the conditions that cause people to be needy.
Looking for God’s answer
Baby Jesus was probably cute and cuddly like most other babies, but that aspect of Jesus isn’t what’s important for our faith and our efforts to follow him. Baby Jesus was important not because he was cute and sweet, but because he became the adult who brought salvation and showed the world what God was like. That’s why Christmas is an especially good time to look at the world around us and ask ourselves what God wants us to do about what we see. If we’re willing to hear God’s answer when we ask what Jesus would do, we may see Christmas in a new light.
Doing what Jesus would do is radical
If Jesus lived where we live he’d probably address some problems that didn’t exist or at least weren’t widespread or widely recognized in the first century—pollution, destruction of forests and wildlife, and many others. I expect Jesus would also have a lot to say about our day’s controversial subjects like racism, sexism, abortion, and homosexuality, even though he evidently said little or nothing explicit about them when he lived on earth. I suspect that following Jesus with regard to these subjects would require taking stands that quite a few church members now oppose. More than having and expressing certain beliefs or following religious or social tradition, Jesus emphasized rescuing people who were mistreated because of economic conditions, social customs, or physical differences. People are still mistreated for these reasons, and Jesus still calls his followers not just to do good deeds for suffering individuals but also to work actively toward eliminating the causes of their suffering. That’s undoubtedly a big part of what Jesus would do in our world and therefore wants us to do.