True Christmas
…The genuine Christmas story is far more subversive, far more powerful, far more dangerous, than all the coded or decoded ramblings of scrolls and paintings and secret gospels. The church rightly rejected all those as it took the message of God-inside-out into Caesar’s world, the world where what counted was not how clever you were with your spiritual interiority but how loyal you were to King Jesus when faced with lions in the amphitheatre or being burned at the stake. As Matthew saw, the true Christmas story was what made Herod shiver in his shoes; as Luke saw, it was the birth of Jesus that upended the world of Caesar Augustus. This truth is far more dangerous, not least because it was dangerous for God, the God who turned himself inside out to become one of us. That’s why the conspiracy theories are so popular: they give you the thrill of apparently knowing secrets without any corresponding cost or challenge. They debunk the truth and leave Caesar secure on his throne. The real secret, the secret we celebrate here this morning, the secret of God-inside-out, demands my soul, my life, my total loyalty. O come, let us adore him.
–Bishop Tom Wright, God Inside Out.