“Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call ‘real things’.”
C.S. Lewis
Tonight Patrina and I joined a couple of friends at the Aronoff in Cincinnati to spend the evening at “Christmas with C.S. Lewis.” The actor portraying Lewis told the story of the author’s conversion to Christianity and of his interactions with another famous author, J.R.R Tolkien of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Whether it is “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” or “The Return of the King”, at the end of any compelling story, we want more than just the facts. We want closure. We want to understand motives. And still, often we have few answers, right?
Not so with the birth of Christ. The reason we celebrate the birth of Christ is found in His purpose to redeem us and make reconciliation with God possible.
In order to fully appreciate the Christian meaning of Christmas, we have to be able to move beyond His arrival as a baby and be challenged as Lewis was with the “death and resurrection” in the one true myth. As you attend Christmas services this weekend, remember to look beyond the manger and to the freedom Christ provided for all of us sinners.
This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.
1 Timothy 1:15
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