Cosmic Christ
I love the Nativity story as much as anyone. In my family, we had a Christmas Eve tradition of gathering in the living room around the tree and hearing the story retold by whomever was the youngest family member able to read from the tattered children’s Bible we had. In our small-town Methodist church basement, there was the annual Christmas pageant staged by the children’s Sunday School classes, complete with shepherds’ crooks and costumes fashioned from bed sheets. Told and retold in story and song, the narrative of the birth of Jesus is so much a part of the Christian upbringing, so enmeshed and embellished with different cultural and family traditions, that we are likely encounter it at some point each year with nostalgia, misty eyes, and a lump in the throat. It’s certainly a compelling story, with elements of young love, a grueling journey, political intrigue, and special effects. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each share a version of the “...