Christian tradition traces the origin of the Christmas tree to Martin Luther. Whether there's any truth in that or not, I cannot tell, but it apparently does have roots in Germanic pagan mythology, so much so that despite its Lutheran connection, American Puritan leaders forbad it along with other "pagan" Christmas practices, much in the same way that some Christians today rail against Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
In 1951, the German theologian H. Richard Niebuhr published a book entitled "Christ and Culture," in which he examined the different ways Christians have interacted with the social, political, and religious world in which we live. He spoke of Christ Above Culture, Christ Against Culture, Christ Of Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox, and Christ Transforming Culture as different ways of looking at how we do and should interact with the world around us. It is his latter category that interests me here: Christ transforming culture. Whether it's Christmas or Easter traditions, or churches capitalizing on Super Bowl Sunday, Mothers' Day, or the Fourth of July, I am grateful that we have been given the opportunity of being a leavening influence in our culture.
Culture is surprisingly resistant to change and resilient in reaction. Our own American civil life used to be far more "Christian" than it is today. Our president, and even many Christian leaders have gone on record saying we are not and have never been a Christian nation, but this flies in the face of public declarations by our national leaders of a generation ago. Blue laws, "sin taxes," military chaplaincy, and much of the cultural respect that Christianity has had are ample evidence of how Christian teaching and example transformed our culture in years past. But no transformation is ever complete in this life, and much has been yielded in the past forty years.
Nevertheless, the symbols remain, even if most have forgotten what they point to. Pagan though it may have been, the Christmas tree was embraced and transformed by the Gospel, and though that Gospel has been largely abandoned in our cultural landscape, we still set up the tree, festoon it with lights, drape it with garlands, and hang ornaments from it. Tonight I am sitting in our living room looking at ours. Linda and I set it up this afternoon, following strict traditional protocol. The antique star (The same as in the movie "A Christmas Story") goes up first, followed by the lights, and Mr. Monkey, a celluloid and rabbit fur prize I won at a shooting gallery at the old Barnard Exempt when I was six years old.
Tonight's reflection isn't particularly profound or even "spiritual," but it doesn't have to be when Christ is at the center of the celebration. He transforms it all, and even the Santas and elves that hang from its branches are there only because of Him. I sit here, humbled to know that there are countless of my Christian brothers and sisters living in places where such a display of anything that even has cultural Christian roots could be life-threatening. I am grateful for their faithfulness, as I am for those who generations before me did the hard work of transforming their culture till it reflected Jesus. And I ask God to keep me faithful to do the same in my world, in my time.
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