CHRISTMAS , 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Some years ago, the then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams caused a bit of a stir in a Christmas TV interview. Among other things, he remarked that we don’t know at what time of year Christ was born. The Church chose December 25th because it was already the time of a Roman winter festival. 

Nor do we know how many wise men came from the East bearing gifts. The New Testament doesn’t say that they were kings – that idea came from the application of the line from Psalm 72, “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall pay tribute, and the kings of Arabia and Saba offer gifts.” And the reckoning of them as three is simply an inference from the three gifts they brought: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

The Archbishop further pointed out that nowhere do the Gospels say that the birth took place in a stable or that any animals were present. That too, is an inference from Mary laying the newborn child in a manger—in other words, a feeding trough. On that basis, the tradition grew up of the birth taking place in the company of the ox and ass and a menagerie of other farmyard animals. Some biblical scholars point out that the manger’s narrative purpose is not so much to indicate the surroundings as to furnish the unmistakable sign by which the shepherds will recognize the child whose birth the angels have just announced.

The New Testament is in fact silent on whether any animals were present at all. So far as I’m aware, the first mention of the ox and ass comes centuries later in an apocryphal writing called the Infancy Gospel of pseudo-Matthew where they serve to fulfill a saying from the Prophet Isaiah—“The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib …” 

Moreover, Luke doesn’t say that the shepherds brought their sheep with them to Bethlehem. It’s entirely possible that they left their flocks in the fields under the care of junior shepherds and came by themselves. 

And again, Matthew says nothing about the wise men from the East arriving on camels. We aren’t told their mode of transportation. At some later date, however, the connection was made with another prophecy from Isaiah: “A multitude of camels shall cover you … they shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”

Despite the indignation that the Archbishop’s remarks provoked, everything he said was true. His purpose was, I think, to point out the difference between the barebones of what the Bible says and the details that popular piety has filled in down through the generations. The typical Christmas crèche represents the accumulated product of centuries of devotion rather than a forensically accurate recreation of the biblical text.

And yet—this accumulation of popular devotion may contain deep wisdom that it would be foolish to dismiss prematurely. This evening, I’d like to focus on one detail: the animals. As I’ve already noted, none of the Gospel accounts explicitly say that any animals were present at the Nativity.  But let’s imagine that they were. What theological wisdom might we glean from the ox and ass, the sheep and camels, surrounding the newborn Christ child?

 Well, for one thing, this imagery expresses the truth that the Son of God became Incarnate to redeem not just humanity but all creation. As the Prologue to Saint John’s Gospel puts it, “the Word became flesh.” Far from being unique to human beings, flesh is something we share with the entire animal creation. Indeed, I read somewhere that the structure of DNA is 70 percent identical between human beings and mice. 

One legitimate insight that we’ve gained from the ecological movement of the past several decades is that we urgently need to learn to see ourselves as an integral part of creation, rather than as somehow set apart from or over and above creation. It helps to remind ourselves that in the Incarnation, the Son of God comes down from heaven to share not only in our human condition but in the very life of the physical universe itself. So, in Bethlehem, he’s welcomed not only by his fellow human beings, but also by his fellow creatures—represented by the ox and the ass, the sheep and the camels.

Moreover, the animals gazing on the Christ child appear in their own way to be joining in the worship of the incarnate Son of God. Here we find fulfilled another one of Isaiah’s prophecies: “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” Not just all humanity, mind you, but all flesh. It’s no accident that Saint Francis of Assisi is credited with setting up the first Christmas crèche. As we know, Francis had a lively sense of fellowship with all God’s creatures.  So, in the nativity scene he naturally depicted the animals as joining in the adoration of the newborn Christ child.

The manger scene thus symbolizes what the seventh-century Eastern Church Father Saint Maximus the Confessor called the cosmic liturgy—all creation joining in the worship of God. Here begins the fulfillment of such biblical texts as the Song of the Three Young Men, which depicts sun, moon, stars, mountain, hills, streams, oceans, plants, animals, fish, and birds all joining together in God’s praises: “O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him forever.” 

A certain parish used to encourage its children to bring their favorite toy animals to place around the church’s Nativity set. Much to some of the adults’ consternation, one little girl always brought her model tyrannosaurus rex. But why not? Again, Isaiah prophesies that in the new creation “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” If Christ came into the world to redeem all creation, then he came to redeem in some way even the dinosaurs. If we’re unable to see that, then that perhaps reflects nothing more than our own lack of imagination. 

The good news of Christmas is that God sent his Son into the world to redeem fallen humanity from sin and death. As Saint Athanasius put it in the fourth century: “God shared in our human life that we might share in his divine life.” But we mustn’t fall prey to the temptation to imagine that our eternal destiny can ever be separated from that of the natural creation of which we’re a part. The Bible describes the life of the world to come not as an escape from this present world, but rather as this world itself restored and made new. 

So, while we really don’t know whether any animals were present at Christ’s birth, the popular iconography of Christian devotion expresses profound theological truths that go beyond the literal details of the biblical text. As we stand or kneel before the Christmas crèche, then, we do well to linger a moment on the ox and the ass, the sheep and the camels—and give thanks there for the promise in Christ of a new creation.