For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

— Isaiah 9:6, English Standard Version

It is Christmas at last, the very best of days and my very favourite since childhood.

Back then, of course, I had no idea what Christmas actually meant. For me it was all about gifts and family and spending time with my grandparents and extended family. And that was enough when I was a child.

Over time, as I grew into adulthood and later into my twenties, our extended family began to splinter and eventually broke apart completely, over events that are too complicated and, frankly, painful to recount here. But the core message that I took away from Christmas was that it was all about time spent with loved ones and family. That was how it was supposed to be, at least according to my thinking.

But since my grandfather died in 2015, my perspective on the subject shifted slowly, until I finally bent the knee at the beginning of this year and gave my allegiance to God the Father of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And since then it has become very clear to me that this understanding of Christmas is endearing, but flawed.

I read an article recently that started off with a rather bold and provocative headline: “Jesus is Not Part of the Christmas Story“. Now that, right there, is a title sure to get Christians everywhere all steamed up – right until you actually read the thing:

When Christians celebrate Christmas, what we are celebrating is the Great Feast of the Nativity of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. It is the next feast in the story of Jesus Christ. The previous feast in this story happened nine months ago on March 25. That was the feast of the Annunciation, the moment when God became man, the moment when Jesus was conceived virginally, incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. At that moment, the Son of God became man. And He began to grow within His mother’s womb, taking His very flesh from her, taking His humanity from her.

This feast of the Nativity is what comes next in the story. It is the moment when the God-man Jesus, Who has been growing for nine months already as man, is now revealed to the world through His birth. What was hidden, secreted away in the pure womb of the Virgin, is now openly presented. Angels sing the announcement. Shepherds tell of this moment. Wise men begin a journey from the East to worship Him.

Our God and Savior is born into human history. And this is why we read the Gospel of His genealogy on this Sunday before the Nativity. It is a witness to His entrance into human history, His entrance not through a side door, not through a back door, not even through opened gates as though He were an invader, alien to us. No, He entered through birth. He entered in the same way that all of us enter this world.

And then with His birth, He becomes part of a human family, part of our human family, our human race. And He is also part of the family of the people of Israel. And because of this identity, He is circumcised as all Jewish boys were. That’s another part of this story and another feast, celebrated January 1. And He is brought to the Temple in Jerusalem by His mother and Joseph, presented as all the Jewish firstborn were. And that’s another part of the story and another feast, celebrated February 2.

He grows, He is baptized. That’s another feast, celebrated January 6. He teaches and heals. He is transfigured in glory on Mount Tabor. That is another feast, celebrated August 6. He is crucified, dies and is buried. He rises on the third day and ascends into Heaven. And He sends to us the Holy Spirit to fill the Church with power from on high. More story, more feasts! And if we are joined to Him, we can also experience every part of His life and be healed by the touch.

This is the story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Mary, and the Savior of the world.

Jesus is not part of the story of Christmas. Christmas is part of the story of Jesus.

That is the part that we Christians miss when we talk about a “war on Christmas” and how “we need to put Christ back into Christmas”. It’s a mistake to think this way, because we are missing the point.

What we really need to focus on is not just the birth and nativity of Jesus Christ. That is just one part of the greatest story ever told. What we really need to focus on is the core message delivered on that day itself.

Think about what Christianity is – or rather, let’s start by thinking about what Christianity is not.

Our beloved and dreaded Supreme Dark Lord (PBUH) Vox Day put this rather well in an Easter post from years back, in which he excoriated the Churchians for their false and blasphemous takes on Christ’s message.

Some “Christians” think that Christ was some sort of social justice warrior preaching collectivisation and redistribution of wealth and deliverance from oppression at the hands of evil overlords.

Some “Christians” think that Christ was, and is, some sort of magical wish-granting Macguffin who gives you everything you want if only you utter the right incantations in the right way at the right time.

Some “Christians” think that Christ was all about tolerating and embracing those that are different from us, and taught us that we could heal the world simply by embracing the diseased and degenerate, the different and the strange, the sinful and their sins.

And all of them are wrong.

This is not Christianity. This is not why Christ was sent into this world.

We celebrate Christmas because this is the day in which Our Lord, the Father of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, sent His beloved Son to be born into this world as both God and Man.

In so doing, God solved a major dilemma that had afflicted Man since the beginning of our understanding of time.

Man cannot solve the afflictions of Mankind, because by definition Man is broken and Fallen. So it is not possible for a mere man to come up with proper moral laws, codes, and solutions to Man’s own problems, because by definition his ideas will be flawed. Only a Divine being could solve these issues, which meant that the Lord Himself had to get involved.

On the other hand, though, the Lord Himself could not and cannot tolerate sin. He cannot stand to be around it. He cannot stand to be anywhere near it. And Man is,whether we like it or not, sinful by nature. The Lord has full claim to understanding all that is in the human heart, and states this explicitly – but beyond this, the Lord cannot see the world as we see it, because He is, by definition, not human. He is separate from us and well above us.

The only possible solution was to send His Son into the world to be born of woman, so that He would grow up as a man but with the full wisdom and knowledge of the Father within Him.

Think about what a gift we received on this day, over twenty centuries ago, and then you will understand why it is such a special day, and why it is an occasion of great joy for all of us – but one in which the joy that we feel goes far beyond what we traditionally associate with Christmas.

It’s not merely about family, or gifts, or food, or going to church, or praying, or fasting, or whatever you want to associate with the day itself.

It’s about sharing in the experience of God made Man, sent to redeem the world in His Father’s eyes. It is that ultimate gift that even Christians spurn on a daily basis. And it is the greatest gift that we have ever received.

I will not pontificate further on that aspect of Christmas, because I am a poor excuse for a Christian and an exceptionally bad theologian. But I do want to add a more personal note to those of you reading this.

This year has been exceptionally tough for some of you. It certainly was for me – worse in many ways than last year was, and that’s saying something.

Many of you have had to endure devastating personal losses. Two of my most loyal readers suffered family bereavements; I myself lost one of my few surviving uncles to cancer just three weeks ago.

Some of you have to spend this Christmas far away from the ones that you love. While I am spending this day with my family, and while I love them very much, I confess with great sadness that this isn’t actually where I want to be for Christmas, but the opportunity to be where I actually wish is denied to me through circumstances not entirely within my control.

And that pales in comparison to the fact that some of my readers are active-duty members of the military and are spending their Christmas stationed thousands of kilometres away from their loved ones.

I am sorry to say that my words will be of little comfort to you in such circumstances. And while I would like to say that hard times never last and that eventually breakthroughs do come, it does seem to me as though our fondest hopes and wishes are being systematically crushed almost by design these days.

It wears a man down to lose those that he loved, to be parted from those whom he longs for, and to see his own primal need to do good things for his people stifled and stymied at every turn. It’s hard on a man’s body and soul to see the wicked and the evil seemingly triumph at will on a daily basis.

My message to you remains the same as the message that I try to tell myself every day:

Do not lose hope, because we’ve already won.

The extraordinary wickedness and debauchery of this world is growing worse by the day, but this is not accidental. And the fact that we see such wickedness spiking in intensity and power around this specific day, is not accidental either.

Their goal is to maximise collateral damage right now. They want us to be demoralised and hopeless.

And, unfortunately, it is working. There have been so many days this year in which I myself have fallen prey to that sense of despair and ennui. Days that crept by at a snail’s pace in which I did absolutely NOTHING of any consequence beyond going to the gym out of pure habit and writing for a blog that, let’s be honest here, almost nobody reads – and then when those days were gone, I realised that I could never get the time back and I had wasted it. Days spent away from a loved one and dear friends, whom I sometimes fear that I’ll never see again.

Days, weeks, and months spent trying to figure out how to get out of the hole that I’m in, and failing miserably because the only ways out that I currently have access to, simply mean doing the same exact things that landed me in soup in the first place.

Days spent wondering when, if ever, I will be of use to anyone ever again. Days spent trying to understand why I had to suffer and what the point of that suffering was. Days spent trying to adapt to a place that I did not choose and do not like, and which plainly doesn’t much like me either.

And, I repeat, what I’m going through is as NOTHING compared to what some of you have had to endure.

Nonetheless, through all of that pain and anguish and misery, one day shines through. One day shows us that there is hope. And one day shows us that this hope is not in vain.

That day is Christmas, and it is upon us.

So take heart on this day, brothers. Be not afraid, for we were given a sign two thousand years ago that showed us that the Lord has not abandoned us, and never will. The star that rose to shine over the newborn King’s birthplace did so to uplift the hearts of men everywhere. The prophecies that were fulfilled on this day were written in perilous times indeed, and much harder ones than those that we face.

Again, brothers, do not lose hope. Hold your ground and guard your hearts, for hope is here this day.

May God bless you and keep you and your families on this day, brothers. I leave the last word to Fr. Stephen Damick:

To the coming King be all glory, honor and worship, with His Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.