Merry Metanarrative Christmas
And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…
Merry Christmas!
I mean it. On November 27 I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. Christmas is too big and too important for its celebration to be contained to one day or one week — it takes at least a whole month to do it right. So deck the halls and celebrate Christmas like a Christian should!
One of the ways we celebrate Christmas best is to tell the Christmas Story over and over with conviction, passion and wonder. This is also one of the most effective ways in which we advance the Kingdom of God: To tell The Story over and over with conviction, passion and wonder.
The Story.
The Story that makes sense of everything.
The physicists and cosmologists are searching for the Unified Theory. The “meta-explanation” that eluded Einstein and explains everything in the physical universe, from the Big Bang to black holes, from light to gravity, from astral to quantum physics.
Likewise, historians, philosophers, political theorists, revolutionaries and ordinary people are looking for the metanarrative of the human race. The metanarrative is the overarching story that explains history and existence; the Big Picture that puts everything into a comprehensive perspective.
Communism, Islam and Democracy are all competing metanarratives.
Communism is the metanarrative that claims history is the story of the workers’ struggle.
Islam is the metanarrative that claims history is the story of Allah’s intention to rule the world through Muslims.
Democracy is the metanarrative that claims history is the story of the triumph of political freedom.
Postmodernism is the anti-metanarrative that throws in the towel and claims that there is no metanarrative and that to try to make sense of human history and existence is futile.
Postmodernism is the philosophical equivalent of the Information Paradox proposed by Stephen Hawking in 1975. One of the implications of Hawking’s Information Paradox was that ultimately the universe could not make sense. But thirty years later Hawking conceded he was wrong.
Hawking was wrong and the postmodernists are wrong too.
History does have a metanarrative and existence does make sense.
The metanarrative is The Greatest Story Every Told.
It’s the story of the family of Abraham; the story of the nation of Moses; the story of the body of Christ.
Central to The Story is the Incarnation event of the God-Man.
Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King!
The Story is the epic of the King and His Kingdom.
Are you a believer? Do you believe The Story?
Then you belong to the community of the stewards and storytellers of the Sacred Story which is the true Metanarrative — the beautiful story that makes sense of existence and gives meaning to life.
In every way you can tell the Christmas Story with creativity and sincerity. Put up the tree, deck the halls, sing the carols and send out the cards. Meditate on The Story deeply and speak of it passionately.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King!
When you celebrate an authentic Christian Christmas you are helping to establish the true metanarrative of the Gospel in a culture that is trying to forget God.
G.K. Chesterton said it this way:
“Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars. His instincts and imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savor of religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby; some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God.”
-From The God in the Cave, Part II, Chapter 1 of The Everlasting Man
Merry Metanarrative Christmas!
BZ
PS
I’m really looking forward to The Nativity Story.
I think it’s going to be awesome!
Sundays in December I’m preaching a series on…
The Nativity Prophecies
December 3: Gabriel’s Annunciation
December 10: Mary’s Magnificat
December 17: Simeon’s Consolation
December 24: The Magi’s Omen