CHRISTMAS – IT JUST IS

In 1697 the philosopher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, raised an interesting question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” He didn’t invent the question, of course. It’s the most intuitive of all questions. But he did manage to word it in an obvious and memorable way.

I don’t know if anyone will ever think up a very good answer, but the question itself is worth thinking about. It implies that nothingness is intuitive and, therefore, that the universe and all of our experience, is counter-intuitive. And, since there is, in fact, something rather than nothing, this implies that intuition is a most unreliable guide.

I love Christmas precisely because there’s something so delightfully, and relentlessly, counter-intuitive about it.

• The king of the universe is born in a stable.
• The stable is in a little town on the backside of nowhere.
• His mother is a young peasant girl, the wife of a simple carpenter.
• Shepherds are invited immediately, and they come.
• The king is invited, but his invitation seems to be an afterthought, perhaps even a mistake. At first he doesn’t come. Then he sends people to spoil the fun.
• This “newborn King of Israel” finds himself a refugee, in Egypt of all places.
• The people who should get it (the priests and teachers in Jerusalem) don’t seem to have a clue.
• And the people who don’t seem to have a clue (shepherds and peasant folk) get it immediately.

I hear people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens expressing frustration that so many people persist in believing something as unbelievable as The Christmas Story, and sometimes my heart goes out to them. After all their hard work this must be very difficult, and I’d love to have something encouraging to share with them, especially at Christmas time. But I really have no good answer.

Why do people, including me, come back to this story again and again? Perhaps its just dogged tradition, or foolish ignorance, or a stubborn streak. But, then again, maybe it just reminds us of the counter-intuitive way things really are.