Lee Van Ham’s new book, “The Liberating Birth of Jesus” came out in late fall. The timing and the title might lead one to expect that it’s a story of Christmas. It’s not, though there’s mention of how our culture crowds out the full meaning of Jesus’ birth.
It’s an Easter story. Specifically, it’s about two Easter people, whom we know as Matthew and Luke, who wrote for Easter people, to help preserve for future generations the mind-blowing experience of encountering Jesus.
Why do we have these two birth narratives in the gospels of Matthew and Luke? Because each writer is using different but complementary ways of making the case that the Jesus whom the early Christians encountered brought them to a new consciousness, a new creation.
Van Ham works through all the pieces of the story, the magi from afar, the shepherds close by, genealogy and dreams and angels, showing how they point to the arrival of a new creation. For us today, this new way of seeing can lead us to living radical creation-centered lives.
Christmas as we know it came in with government-sanctioned Christianity in the fourth century of our era. Over and over, the Easter message has been co-opted by human institutions. Over and over, prophets arise to bring us back to the main point: the energy of Easter that is a new beginning.
“The Liberating Birth of Jesus” is a short but solid book that would make a good group study. I highly recommend it.
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