Christmas and the radical reinterpretation of symbols
The Christmas season is often met with cynicism. On one side, I have friends who grouse about the commercialization of X-mas; on another, I have friends who roll their eyes at the idea that Christ was ever part of Christmas and point to the winter solstice and “Pagan” Christmas trees as proof.
As for me: I confess, I do not understand the appeal of Hallmark movies or Love Actually. Frankly, I am perplexed that the season has become associated at all with romance. I guess because it’s cold? So we literally want someone else to keep us warm? I don’t get it! While I love to cupid shuffle to Mariah Carey belting it out, I have literally never once felt that I wanted another person for Christmas.
But I’m humbled when I remember that Christmas is, more than anything else, a radical moment where the symbolic world was reinterpreted.
The illustration above is a brief snapshot. We can see a silhouette and know it’s about a king and think we know what it’s made of… But when Christ came, the crown of a King is revealed as something entirely different.
We all live in a world of symbolism. This is part of why Christian artists often feel limited to painting candles and doves—we understand them as shorthand for spirituality and goodness. The Old Testament and the New Testament deal, certainly, in these symbols, so it’s not entirely without reason.
But this season is not one for trite, superficial understanding. Rather, the arrival of Jesus forced the symbols of the Old Testament to be re-evaluated and sometimes re-interpreted.
This is why Jesus’ fulfillment of prophecies is a point of controversy. Christians look at the Old Testament and say, “Clearly, Jesus fulfilled the prophecies for the Messiah!” They point to passages from Genesis to Psalms to Isaiah and explain that the idea of a suffering servant king was really about Jesus the whole time.
Jews look at the Old Testament and say, “Clearly, he… didn’t?” They point to the immediate historical context and historical interpretations of these passages, and to the idea of a mighty king ruling over all the nations.
Both are tenable beliefs, truly, with integrity. But both beliefs are rooted in experience at the core.
Symbols are where ideas and experience collide. It makes sense that the Jewish experience would leave them longing for a powerful king to overthrow oppression, and it makes sense that people who encountered Jesus would read the Jewish Scriptures through the lens of the man they met.
See, Christians experienced “repentance:” a radical shift in their perspectives. It wasn’t just a matter of feeling sorry for what they’d done wrong, the way the word is often understood now; instead, “repentance” means their eyes were opened in a new way, and when they looked back at the Old Testament, they saw it in light of these different experiences.
Luke Timothy Johnson, in his book The Writings of the New Testament, writes: “It is unlikely that the disciples would have invented a messiah who fulfilled the prophecies so inadequately; Jesus did not match most of the important texts traditionally thought to refer to the messiah, nor was it suggested he did.” (My note: Most have been attributed to Jesus’ future Second Coming.) Johnson elaborates, “There was a human process involved in the rereading of OT prophecies and the applying of them to Jesus.” He argues that “inherent in this world of symbols is a process of interpretation” (emphasis mine).
I’m reminded this holiday season, as I consider the reinterpretation of symbols, that one of God’s names is Emmanuel: “God with us.” Doesn’t that sound collaborative? He takes and shifts our human experience, doesn’t just discard it.
Just as the coming of Jesus radically redefined the whole Jewish concept of a Messiah, so too, I believe, did it redefine the meaning of the winter solstice—a time of year when the longest night was defied with celebrations of light and promise of the sun’s return. The Christmas Star redefined for the wise men their systems of astrology and prophecy, and they betrayed their king to serve, as king, this small baby the stars led them to.
When I see New York dress itself up for Christmas, stringing lights and window displays that defy the 4:30 sunset, I see it differently because I’ve encountered Jesus. When I see the idea of Santa, who gives good gifts, I see Biblical themes of generosity. I see how people marvel at the city again, how they seek to appreciate their loved ones, how they strive to be generous to the poor—all these things appear to me as gifts from God, reinterpreted through the belief that He once was born.
So I will try to understand Mariah’s vocal runs or Keira Knightley’s creepy sign-holding admirer as symbols of love. People want to be cherished, this time of year; that is good, and right, and potentially even holy.
What symbols hit differently this year? We’re in a year of redefining everything. How can you experience the hope of Christmas in a fresh way?
