Narrative v. Prophets

I guess this is going to be my "Bah. . . humbug" moment, but I've decided that, at least this year, I really don't have much interest in the Nativity Story.  At least not as much interest as I have in the prophets.

We (my mother and I) went what amounted to a choir concert with some readings (they called it a "Candlelight Vespers Service") at the First Congregational here last week and it was lovely, they had two children's choirs, a big youth choir, a small adult choir and the chamber orchestra from the high school down the street.  They all did a great job, the music was very good, I don't have anything bad to say about the event itself.

It was the readings that struck me, though.  They started with the standard Christmas stuff from Isaiah, then moved on to the birth narrative in Luke 2 and then to the Epiphany story in Matthew.

I was really surprised by my reaction when the man started to read Luke 2, I wanted to stand up and yell, "no, go back to the prophets!"

While the birth narrative is beautiful, I feel like it's been overdone and so co-opted by the culture that it has lost something vital.*  There doesn't seem to be anything there to convict us or to surprise us anymore, not only do we all know every little detail of the story, we all know that we know every little detail of the story so there is no need to really hear it anymore.

The prophets on the other hand seem to me to be alive and electrifying, they have new things to say to us, more so, I think, than the same old Christmas stories that we have heard all our lives.

So I guess I'm going to have a good old-fashioned Old Testament Christmas this year.

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* On a similar note, I have been struggling with the idea of nativity scenes this year, I guess I don't understand them anymore.   I understand that they began when people couldn't read and they needed the statuettes to remind them of the various parts of the story, but what are they for now?  I can see admiring them for their artistic merit, but as the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities demonstrates there are a huge number of them out there with no artistic merit at all.  So what are they for?  Are they supposed to be evangelical tools?  Or What?

Comments

[katie]

i think they're yet another "but we've always done it that way" tradition. i'm on a personal crusade to remove the wise men from the christmas story. um, they have their own holy day?

[bethany]

hey, yeah. i've talked to a lot of friends lately who have also run into the wall of feeling like we've read certain stories over and over again and they've lost their luster. but we've got a big Bible, and i figure that the new becomes old and the old becomes new over and over again. enjoy your prophetic Christmas. :)

[Jill]

Hi friend. I'm with you on the nativities. The boys wanted to put one IN THE YARD this year, and in my mind, I said "HELL NO!" I know they meant well with the suggestion...that if we were going to have lights, we should have a reminder of the "real reason" for Christmas, but still...! We have one that they enjoy putting out, and when Christmas is over (actually, when Advent is over), I pack it away, but we leave the baby in the manger out all year as a constant reminder that it should be about Jesus all year, not just at Christmas.
We're off to lessons and carols at church this morning, and I will listen anew to the OT readings, thanks to you. Happy Christmas, Meghan.