It reads like a cup of hot chocolate with a big ole-melting marshmallow on top, sipped by a cozy fire on a calm, snow-fallen winter’s eve. Luke 2 provides an enchanting traditional Christmas reading that warms the heart. It’s delightful. The nativity narrative in Mathew 2 tells of a star that leads far-away outsiders to worship the newborn king. I don’t know how it is even possible for a star to lead to the exact place the child was, but I just take it the way we have it in the story.
Like Luke 2, Matthew 2 begins as a charming tale, but hang on to your hot chocolate ‘cause all that goodness is short-lived. “Silent night. Holy night” is soon wrecked. “Peace on earth” is lost in the horror of infants being slaughtered (The Massacre of the Innocents), and the child Jesus must become a refugee. These traditional Christmas readings are both enchanting and disturbing. The clash is left unreconciled.
If Matthew 2 and Luke 2 render some beautiful words, so does Philippians 2 (See: the Christ Hymn, vv6-11). While Matthew 2 and Luke 2 have our attention at Christmastime, Philippians 2 offers understanding. If the nativity narratives leave us guessing, Philippians is explicit…Jesus is God “born in the likeness of man” (v7). You’re excused if you can’t see it right off because Jesus does not leverage his deity, but comes with the attitude of a servant. In obedience and humility he empties himself to death.
The Gospels tell the Christmas story. Philippians interprets - “Your attitude toward one another should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (v5), with a unity of love, spirit, mind and purpose that prioritizes the importance and interests others (vv3,4).
It’s a lot to wish for at Christmas, but here’s the Christmas gift: “it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (v13). It’s a gift, i.e., grace. Grace is the power and desire to do as Christ. The efficacious nature of this gift is put to the test in the very next verse: “Do all things without murmuring and arguing [is that possible?], so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe” (v14).
Philippians helps us locate ourselves in the Christmas story. We are the ones called to empty ourselves for others. We are the slaughtered innocent children and the refugees. We are both the seekers and the bright stars that lead others to the king.
I don’t know how this is all possible any more than I understand how a star could have led the way for the wise men. But again, that is how we have it in the text, so hold on to it like a steamy cup of hot chocolate goodness. “It is by (our) holding fast to the word of life that (we) can boast on the day of Christ that (we) did not run in vain or labor in vain” (v16).