So hopefully Kierkegaard's parable will help to illustrate my view of Christmas. I don't believe that the celebration of Christmas was never intended to be taken so lightly. It was never intended to be a time of pine trees & candy canes. It was never intended to be a season of stressing out and giving gifts out of obligation. And it was most definitely not intend to be a time, where people must LOSE THEIR LIVES over commercialism and consumerism (that's a whole other issue - that deeply disturbs me - maybe I'll delve more into that later.) My eyes are slowly opening to see that the "Christmas Story" is not a cute little nativity scene, it is the most beautiful LOVE story ever told. Emmanuel - God with us. Why would our omnificent God who dwells in the heavens ever do such a thing for man? Well...Hopefully this story helps to explain...Enjoy!
Søren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian, once pondered how the gap between God and humanity could ever possibly be bridged. He constructed an answer to that question in the form of a parable called The King and the Maiden. It goes something like this:The King and the Maiden
There once was a king who loved a humble maiden. But there was a serious dilemma. There was a seemingly infinite distance between them. One, the king, was noble by birth and had great armies at his command and great riches for his delight. But the other was a lowly maiden, of lowly birth, with no riches whatsoever. Two people, totally different and separated by class, status, wealth, power and influence.To anyone who looked at this situation, clearly the maiden appeared to be very lucky. After all, this might be the opportunity for her to finally make something of herself, to leave behind a life of menial work and enjoy wealth and power and prestige. What a great favor the king would be bestowing upon the maiden, one which she could never be sufficiently grateful for. But it was this very notion which enraged the king. And a great many courtiers were put to death for just suggesting it.
For the king realized that if he were to simply make his beloved maiden into a queen, then she would never be truly happy and their love could never be sincere. Would she be able never to remember what the king wished her only to forget: that he was a king and she had been a humble maiden? She would begin to wonder whether or not she could ever match the king’s royalty or nobility, and ultimately, whether or not she loved the king for the right reasons. And she would be lead to conclude that it would have been better for her to have remained a humble maiden, married to an equal, content in her humble cottage. And even if the king were to overcome this dilemma, suppose the maiden could not even understand him? We may suppose a difference of mind between the king and the maiden such as to render an understanding between them impossible.
Moved by love, the king is then resolved to reveal himself somehow to the maiden. His love is a love of the maiden, and his aim is to win her. For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal, and it is only in equality or unity that an understanding can be effected between the two. But this love is through and through unhappy, for how great is the difference between them! The unhappiness of this love does not come from the inability of the lovers to realize their union, but from their inability to understand one another.
How does the king solve his dilemma? Perhaps the king could show himself to the humble maiden in all the pomp of his power, causing the sun of his presence to rise over her cottage, shedding a glory over the scene, and making her forget herself in worshipful admiration. But alas, this might satisfy the maiden, but it could not satisfy the king, who desires not his own glorification but hers. It was this that made his grief so hard to bear, his grief that she could not understand him; but it would have been still harder for him to deceive her. Not in this manner then can their love be made happy, except perhaps in appearance, namely the maiden's, but not the king's, whom no delusion could possibly satisfy.
Ultimately, the king and the maiden can come neither to union nor an understanding of one another, unless the king himself forgets his kingliness and becomes a lowly peasant like the maiden. It is only in this way that a true and authentic love can be forged between the king and maiden. And the king mustn’t just appear as a peasant or live as one for a certain period of time, but he must truly become a peasant in the most real sense possible. It is only in this manner that the king can solve his dilemma, for love is triumphant when it makes that which was unequal equal in love.
This is certainly a poignant parable to reflect on during this Advent Season, the season in which we celebrate that great mystery of God’s descent to earth and his assuming of our humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. For certainly, this parable could easily sum up two thousand years' worth of teaching and understanding concerning the purpose and mission of Jesus.
It is the same with the divine and the human. The divine must humanize itself in order for us to be able to at least acknowledge it and engage it. God becomes one like us in order to understand us, to make himself lovable, in a manner of which we are capable. There is a long tradition in Christian thought of "the human" needing divinization. But thankfully Kierkegaard challenges us to think of this notion in reverse, of the divine needing to humanize itself.
Truly this is the real meaning and significance of Christmas, that God loved us so much that he desired to be one like us out of sheer love.
We have really sentimentalized Christmas. We've become so accustomed to the image of Joseph and Mary peering in at a beautiful little baby in a cozy stable. But Christmas is really not that cute! It's about God's dynamic, raging love, which drove him to descend to earth and set the world ablaze! If we don't get anything out of this season, from all the shopping, and gift-exchanging, and commercialism, then at the very least we should be reminded of our great God, who became one like us in order to understand us, to engage us, and ultimately to love us...May your holidays be filled with love, joy & laughter and a new awareness of what Jesus Christ has truly done.
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