Could Christmas Bring You Back to Christ?

“Now as myth transcends thought, incarnation transcends myth.”
—C.S. Lewis

I know you’re turned off by the Church for a bunch of reasons. I probably agree with you more than know. There’s a lot of junk that gets associated with Jesus. I’m tired of it too. But what if Christmas is still pointing us towards something true? Would you be willing to follow where it leads?

I remember getting off the plane in Vietnam one December long ago, and being a bit surprised at how pervasive the Christmas themes were displayed throughout the city streets. I was even more blown away to learn that Kentucky Fried Chicken was the favored restaurant-take-out-meal of choice for families on December 25th. Who would have thought the local KFCs in Saigon would have a pre-order waiting list!

Why is it that Christmas has such universal appeal? Sure, there’s a lot of sociological and commercial reasons — but what is it that makes the message itself, not just the presents and pageantry, but the baby born to save the world, so unforgettable? Is it more than a just a story? If it is, it really changes everything.

For one of my favorite authors, it was recognizing Christianity as a true myth that made all the difference. C.S. Lewis admitted he was open to the power of myths, stories that, though false, still conveyed some transcendent meaning. But he would eventually question whether such meaning was an illusion as well. Sure, a story about a child defeating a cruel giant is made up, but might the ideas of courage and heroism be a human invention as well? Were those moral categories of good and evil that all the great stories are built upon fictions too?

For example, we know evil goblins aren’t real, but is our innate desire for the good guys to defeat them pointing to something authentic and lasting? The Scottish author George MacDonald thought so. That’s why he said that in creating literary worlds authors can monkey with everything except for the Moral Law. We can speak of fairies and dragons, but we cannot describe cowardice as an inspiring virtue. People won’t buy it. It won’t resonate. It would cut across something we know to be true.

Perhaps that’s why C.S. Lewis, as a young atheist, said MacDonald baptized his imagination. MacDonald’s stories captivated Lewis with a picture of the world that seemed to make sense of his desires and convictions. Myths will do that, the lasting ones will at least. Their power is in their pointing to something real, something we feel deep in our bones.

As an atheist, Lewis had described myths as “lies breathed through silver,” beautiful and compelling stories that are ultimately false. Nonetheless, Lewis couldn’t shake the belief in the values he found in them, things like goodness and justice. It’s at this point that his friend J.R.R. Tolkien proposed an alternative. What if the power of these stories was that they were rooted in something true?

“In Pagan stories,” C.S. Lewis once wrote, “I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even tho’ I could not say in cold prose what it meant.” That’s what Lewis was getting at when he said myth transcends thought.

Tolkien helped Lewis see in Christianity the same quality he appreciated in other myths, with the distinction that Christianity was based on a real historical event, the Incarnation. In this way, the story of Christmas is the true myth that undergirds not only our deep longings and values. It’s the secret sauce of all our favorite stories. That’s what Lewis meant when he said that the Incarnation — the birth of Jesus — transcends myth.

This Christmas, I hope you see the beauty and power of the creator entering the Cosmos as a child to overturn evil and offer peace. What a wonderful story. But what if it’s a true one? Would you be open to considering that option? It’s okay to leave all the junk woven through formal religion behind. But maybe, you don’t have to leave Jesus too. If Christmas is true, he’s not leaving you.