It may be unpopular to trespass on popular images associated with Christ’s birth and to debunk myths, but it is theologically dangerous to allow the account of his birth to be hijacked by fiction. Christmas fables lure us to seasonal sentimentality and away from the year-round task of discipleship in which we are to deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily (9:23). They yield only superficial spirituality.
The fictional Christmas has been a long time in the making. It has been said that whoever (it is debated) wrote “’Twas the Night before Christmas” in 1822 changed the way Americans celebrate the holiday of Christmas. The poem manufactured the character who became Santa Claus by combining St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6) with Christmas. In 1863, Thomas H. Nast drew a cartoon of Santa as a fat, jolly man with a white beard, who became the standard image. A Coca-Cola advertising campaign from the 1930s dressed Santa in red and white clothing.
The same kind of fictional development happened centuries ago in the popular conception of what happened at Christ’s birth. The Protevangelium of James, an apocryphal, fictional account of Mary’s and Jesus’ birth, contributed mythical details. For example, it has Joseph as an older widower, Jesus’ birth in a cave, and the midwife’s astonishment that the Virgin Mary’s hymen remained miraculously intact even after the birth.
David E. Garland, Luke (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 128.
