Historic Christmas

"What is it that makes Christian faith unique among all the religions of the earth? It is not a big philosophical idea (though we've got some good ones, like the eternal Logos as a better explanation for the intelligibility of the world to human minds than any secular philosophy can offer). It is not a great ethical principle (though we've got some good ones, like the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments). It's not even a story, for other religions have their mythologies. It is the fact that our Story, while being every bit as suspenseful and dramatic and satisfying as any fiction, actually happened in History. As Dorothy L. Sayers said, Jesus is the only God with a date in history. As C. S. Lewis put it, Myth became Fact. Nobody knows when Krishna appeared as an avatar of Vishnu. But Jesus was born when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Christmas has its legends, but the birth of Jesus is not one of them. Like the Exodus from Egypt which preceded it and the Resurrection which followed, it was History and it changed History. That is what we celebrate." ~ Donald Williams

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