Christmas as God's revolution

By Sam Tomlin

Everyone has some songs where they only need to hear the first few notes or chords to feel of a sense of wonder and anticipation. For me, Tracy Chapman's Talkin' About a Revolution is such a song, stirring up deep emotions, hopes and passions.

'Don't you know, talkin' about a revolution it sounds like a whisper...
Poor people going to rise up and get their share...
Finally the tables are starting to turn'

I've often thought that the Christmas equivalent of this revolution song was by another female singer-songwriter about 2,000 years ago called Mary. Her revolution song was later called the Magnificat (Luke 1.46-56) and spoke about how her soon-to-be-born-child would usher in the greatest revolution in history: the salvation and liberation of the world.

'His mercy extends to those who fear him,

    from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

    he has scattered those who are

        proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones,

    but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty.'

Hard hitting stuff. Quite a way from the domesticated, materialistic Christmas we have come to know in the West with Black Friday and millionaire pop-stars singing about whether the poorest people in the world know it's Christmas or not. As Stephen Holmes argued a few years ago (in this report), Christmas was always meant to be a time to radically re-imagine the way the world is and to think of how it should be; it was the Victorians who initially reconceived Christmas 'as a time to celebrate the family and domesticity, with a gentle leaven of personal charity'.

If Christmas is about revolution and re-imagination, then of course it is also about reconciliation. Firstly with God himself: the whole purpose of incarnation was the centrepiece of the mission of a God who 'emptied himself of all but love' as the wonderful hymn puts it, to restore relationship with us and to show us that the meaning of everything really is love. In light of this reconciliation I am exhorted to look within myself and see whether there are any relationships I need to put right - have I offended anyone I need forgiveness from? Do I need to forgive any long-standing hurts? And how am I part of the structural-sin of a world which contributes to the deep injustices that embody broken relationships on a larger scale?

Christmas, then, like its first song or poem suggests, should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. It is also a reminder (a Christmas version of the Easter theology of the cross) that the way God chooses to work in this world is not through the traditional means of physical power and might but through the vulnerability of a tiny and defenceless baby. Quite a revolution indeed. Almost like a whisper.