LET THE ANGELS SING -- EVEN IF THEY DIDN'T
A story doesn’t need to be true to convey truth. Stories that aren’t true often convey the truth more effectively than stories that are true.
After David sinned with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered, the LORD sent Nathan the prophet to David with a fabricated story about a rich man who, rather than butchering his own sheep to feed guests, stole a poor man’s pet lamb and killed it for his feast. The story was fiction, but its emotional impact convicted David of his sins.
Jesus made-up stories all the time. Parables were His favorite method of teaching truth. The characters in the parables are realistic, but not real. Parables thus are not technically true, yet they effectively convey truth.
From the dawn of history people have told stories that aren’t true to teach truth. Parables, allegories, fables, myths, and legends embody and present complex values and truths in ways that even children can grasp! Children, for example, would never understand the many historical accounts that testify to George Washington’s integrity. But it’s easy to understand “I cannot tell a lie, father. I chopped down your cherry tree!” – even though Washington neither chopped down his father’s tree nor confessed to it.
How about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”? Its lesson about human nature is as true today as it was 2500 years ago when Aesop wrote the fable.
How many children who feel like misfits have been encouraged by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling”. And almost every day we adults see, not only Andersen’s naked Emperor parading the beauty of his ‘new clothes’, but the useful idiots who are his chamberlains walking behind him carrying the train which does not exist!
Finally, Christmas might be a completely different holiday today if Charles Dickens had never imagined Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghosts of Christmas, characters who have moved the hearts of several generations with emotional truth.
Unfortunately, we have come to use words like “myth” to mean, not only stories that aren’t true, but stories which are lies that ought not be believed. But a fictitious story may be untrue without being a lie. More importantly, a myth may have been crafted for the very purpose of presenting truths that ought to be believed.
I say all that to say this: The gospel accounts never say the shepherds saw the star, or that the angels had wings or that the angels were in the sky or even that they were singing! The gospels don’t mention Mary riding a donkey or animals being around baby Jesus. The gospels don’t say how many wise men there were or that they visited Jesus in the manger.
And yet carols in our hymnals add all these ‘false’ details!
I don’t see such romanticized imagination and artistic license as cases of lying. It is just something that people do in storytelling. These fictitious (and now familiar) details have become a part of the endearing and enduring mythology around Christmas and add color that speaks to our God-given propensity for loving good stories.
So let the angels sing: Glory to the newborn King!
And God bless us, every one!
P.S. Just to be clear – Luke states that he interviewed eyewitnesses and intends his gospel as history, not fiction (Luke 1.1-4). My point is that over time well-meaning artists have added imaginative details in painting, poetry, and song that have become part of our larger picture of the Christmas story – and THAT is what I am calling ‘the mythology AROUND Christmas’. So long as those details don’t deflect attention from the truth of Christ’s birth, let them stay!
After David sinned with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered, the LORD sent Nathan the prophet to David with a fabricated story about a rich man who, rather than butchering his own sheep to feed guests, stole a poor man’s pet lamb and killed it for his feast. The story was fiction, but its emotional impact convicted David of his sins.
Jesus made-up stories all the time. Parables were His favorite method of teaching truth. The characters in the parables are realistic, but not real. Parables thus are not technically true, yet they effectively convey truth.
From the dawn of history people have told stories that aren’t true to teach truth. Parables, allegories, fables, myths, and legends embody and present complex values and truths in ways that even children can grasp! Children, for example, would never understand the many historical accounts that testify to George Washington’s integrity. But it’s easy to understand “I cannot tell a lie, father. I chopped down your cherry tree!” – even though Washington neither chopped down his father’s tree nor confessed to it.
How about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”? Its lesson about human nature is as true today as it was 2500 years ago when Aesop wrote the fable.
How many children who feel like misfits have been encouraged by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling”. And almost every day we adults see, not only Andersen’s naked Emperor parading the beauty of his ‘new clothes’, but the useful idiots who are his chamberlains walking behind him carrying the train which does not exist!
Finally, Christmas might be a completely different holiday today if Charles Dickens had never imagined Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghosts of Christmas, characters who have moved the hearts of several generations with emotional truth.
Unfortunately, we have come to use words like “myth” to mean, not only stories that aren’t true, but stories which are lies that ought not be believed. But a fictitious story may be untrue without being a lie. More importantly, a myth may have been crafted for the very purpose of presenting truths that ought to be believed.
I say all that to say this: The gospel accounts never say the shepherds saw the star, or that the angels had wings or that the angels were in the sky or even that they were singing! The gospels don’t mention Mary riding a donkey or animals being around baby Jesus. The gospels don’t say how many wise men there were or that they visited Jesus in the manger.
And yet carols in our hymnals add all these ‘false’ details!
I don’t see such romanticized imagination and artistic license as cases of lying. It is just something that people do in storytelling. These fictitious (and now familiar) details have become a part of the endearing and enduring mythology around Christmas and add color that speaks to our God-given propensity for loving good stories.
So let the angels sing: Glory to the newborn King!
And God bless us, every one!
P.S. Just to be clear – Luke states that he interviewed eyewitnesses and intends his gospel as history, not fiction (Luke 1.1-4). My point is that over time well-meaning artists have added imaginative details in painting, poetry, and song that have become part of our larger picture of the Christmas story – and THAT is what I am calling ‘the mythology AROUND Christmas’. So long as those details don’t deflect attention from the truth of Christ’s birth, let them stay!