Christmas is about many things: a birth, a Savior,
festivity, fellowship, food, mirth and merriment, all blessings and
benefactions that account for its widespread and enduring popularity.
But there is an essential feature of Christmas that is often
overlooked, and one, therefore, that warrants special emphasis.
The Wise Men from the East brought gifts to the Newborn
King. Yet, the babe in the manger offered a gift to the world that marvelously
complemented their generosity: the gift of Truth.
The Magi, like the philosophers who were seekers of wisdom,
were also seekers.
“Here is the important point,” writes G. K. Chesterton in
The Everlasting Man, “that the Magi, who stand for mysticism and philosophy,
are truly conceived as seeking something new and even finding something
unexpected. ... The discovery is, in this case, truly a scientific discovery.”
The Christmas story is not merely a beautiful and endearing
story. It is a historical event and the “scientific discovery” of a truth that
discredited all competing mythologies.
It gave religion a new birth, one that was wed to truth. It
was also significant that it was born in a cave, a place where truth is not
easy to find.
“It is easier to perceive error than to find truth,” wrote
the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “for the former lies on the surface and is
easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to
search for it.”
In the years following the Nativity, concerted attempts were
made to remove the truth factor from Christianity and place it side by side
with the likes of Jupiter, Mithras, Osiris, Ammon and any other mythological
characters. Christianity’s continued refusal to adapt itself to pagan mythology
was the turning point of history, for it exchanged myth for truth, thereby
providing a light that would illuminate and transform the world.
Polytheism represented a kind of broadmindedness, but one
whose ever-expanding population of mythical images never attained truth.
As Chesterton has insightfully pointed out, “The whole world
once nearly died of broad-mindedness and the brotherhood of all religions.” One
religion connected to truth is infinitely more valuable than a thousand
mythologies that are not.
The wisdom of the Wise Men is personified in their
inclinations to the truth they ultimately discovered.
Benedict XVI has reiterated the Christmas gift of truth in
his book Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and world Religions. He refers
to Christmas “as embodying the victory of demythologization, the victory of
knowledge, and with that the victory of truth.”
The gift of truth that distinguishes Christianity from other
religions is, naturally, a great gift, one that has no end of beneficial and
practical applications. And yet, within the broad tolerance of polytheistic
religions, it has been viewed as intolerable.
The thought that the Christ Child might be the true king was
intolerable to Herod. The claim that Christmas brings truth into the world in
the person of Jesus Christ is intolerable to many non-Christians.
The American poet James Russell Lowell has famously referred
to “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.”
Christianity continues to refute the relativism and the
interchangeability of non-Christian religious images. And in so doing, it has
often obstructed the political purposes of those religions.
Truth, no matter how underappreciated, remains a great gift.
It is the only thing that separates religion from myth, superstition and idle
fancy.
Christianity does not claim that other religions are bereft
of truth, only that truth is an essential and uncompromisable feature of a true
religion. Christmas meant that the view that held sway, namely that poetry or
politics provided the basis of religion, was no longer valid.
Replacing myth with truth is progressive, though myths die
hard. Truth has not always been received with eagerness, even though our minds
and hearts are made for truth.
The gift of truth should be received, like any gift, with
humility. Because of the greatness of this gift, the humility it engenders
should also be great. It is a gift that inevitably will arouse envy, jealousy,
questioning and even denunciation. Therefore, it exacts courage, patience and
fidelity. Truth is entrusted to the virtuous.
The truth of Christmas that enraged Herod would later be
scoffed at by Pilate. Christmas is a time for rejoicing, but one should not
lose sight of the challenge it offers, for rejoicing can be truly heartfelt
only when it is conjoined with truth.
Let is all enjoy a truly merry Christmas.
Donald DeMarco is
adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell,
Connecticut.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Make a Donation now!
Insightful. Informative. Uncompromisingly faithful. The National Catholic Register is more than a newspaper. It’s a cause. Your support for the Register funds important journalism that helps to build a Culture of Life in our nation, and throughout the world. Help us promote the Church’s New Evangelization by donating to the National Catholic Register right now.
.
