People are often warned, “keep politics out of Christmas.” You might ruin the yuletide spirit.
Our portrayal of the baby Jesus in the manger looks so sweet and safe. Coupled with the flying angels and cute sheep and the magi’s gifts, the story sounds so harmless and sentimental.
But have we not romanticized and domesticated Christmas, rendering it ahistorical and out of real context?
Of the four Gospels, only two talk about the birth of Jesus: Luke and Matthew. If you read them again and again with a different lens, their narratives are in fact deeply political.
Christmas has been political from the start.
Luke took pains to situate the birth of Jesus in the context of the Roman Empire. He started with the decree of Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria, that all be enrolled in their own towns. This prompted Mary and Joseph to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem because Joseph belonged to the house of David.
They belonged to a conquered people, poor and famished, who were forced to do things by an authoritarian power they would not have done freely by themselves.
When his birth was announced to Mary earlier, the angel said: “Do not be afraid, Mary… You will conceive in your womb and bear a son… He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of David… and his kingdom will have no end.”
These are not innocent pronouncements but rebellious narratives.
For Jesus to sit on David’s throne and rule forever, the present emperor needs to be dislodged. His minions and their abuse of power need to vacate their thrones. They who consider themselves as “gods” have to go. Jesus has come.
This connects to the narrative of Matthew’s Gospel (Mt. 1–2). When Herod knew about the birth of the child, he was so threatened that he ordered the killing of children. His insecurity later sent John the Baptist’s head to a platter.
That the small child was sent as a refugee to Egypt is not a romantic story. His experience is replicated in many refugee camps of our times, in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere, victims as they are of the abuse of power.
To be called “Emmanuel” (God with us) is not only a pious platitude. It was a prophetic fulfillment of a longtime wish already foretold by the prophet Isaiah for a people who have been oppressed, killed, and conquered by foreign powers and abusive kings.
The baby Jesus was not only a “white cuddly baby boy” lying in a manger one silent night with angels coming down from the heavens singing alleluia. His presence, a poor brown-skinned child of Jewish Mediterranean parents, was a threat to abusive and corrupt Roman power, giving hope to their suppressed victims and the hopeless poor.
Why is this re-reading of the Christmas narrative important?
Because we have always romanticized and dehistoricized the Christian story, making it irrelevant to the big issues of the society we live in.
We cannot proclaim the Christmas story without also telling the stories of refugees forced out of their countries and homes by violent wars and state authorities.
We cannot retell the story of Christmas without condemning Duterte and his war on drugs that sent thousands of children fatherless and widows without daily sustenance because they killed their breadwinners.
We cannot celebrate Christmas without denouncing government corruption that victimized millions of poor people who are suffering from floods, from hunger, from the unavailability of medical services.
We cannot proclaim the message of Christmas if we do not proclaim the message of accountability, transparency, and justice.
For sure, we still delight in the spirit of hope that the season brings.
But if our story is just about one cute child in the manger, detached from the many suffering babies who suffer from neglect, abuse, and violence of the world around them, our celebration is hollow and pointless.
If our story is only about the bright lanterns and wrapped gifts, detached from families suffering in darkness without roofs over their heads after the typhoons, our Christmas might be happy but empty.
If the name of the child is Jesus, which means “savior,” his message of salvation can never be felt if the way we tell his story is not intertwined with our twisted histories that utterly need saving.
Father Daniel Franklin Pilario, C.M., is the President of Adamson University in Manila. He is a theologian, professor, and pastor of an urban poor community on the outskirts of the Philippine capital. He is also the Vincentian Chair for Social Justice at St. John’s University in New York.
