Great literature thrives on paradox. William Blake invited us to see the world in a grain of sand. Milton wrote
Paradise Lost to justify the ways of God to Man, but his hero is Lucifer. In T. S. Eliot’s
Four Quartets we are reminded that “what we call the beginning is often the end”. Some of the most profound paradoxes to test the mind of Man are at the heart of what has become known as the greatest story ever told — the story of Christmas. God chooses as the mother of the Messiah a woman neither high-born, wealthy or wise, but young, inexperienced and unmarried. The first to hear the good news of His birth are not the noble, influential or powerful, but a gathering of the lowest-paid agricultural workers on nightshift.
Each of these paradoxes reinforces one of the messages of the Nativity, the openness of the Christian message to all mankind. But the greatest paradox of the Christmas story is its central mystery. God decides to enter this world, but not in the way deities had traditionally been understood, as an all-powerful shaper of events. Instead He comes as a suffering servant, a human whose flesh is destined to feel its full measure of worldly pain on the path to redemption.
The collision of these two concepts — the divine and the worldly — is not easy for many in the West to understand today. In those countries once known as Christendom, a sympathy for Christian faith has ebbed as secularism has advanced. The tolerance which greater secularism has brought modern Europe is worth cherishing. But much is lost when we forget what faith brings. And one of the paradoxes of liberalism is that free societies are best at safeguarding freedom when they have a core set of cultural and historical values which their leaders are willing to fight for.
Historically, it has been the Judaeo-Christian roots of Britain’s culture which have ensured respect for honest dealing on the part of our leaders, a proper care for the disadvantaged and a robust belief in liberty of conscience. When we lose touch with those roots, and forget the faith which sustained them, we find ourselves not increasing liberty, but eroding the foundations on which freedom depends.
In our own time, the neglect of our religious traditions has been accompanied by a growth in shallow materialism, the cheapening of sexual relations, the coarsening of public expression and the replacement of deeper measures of value with excessive reverence for money and celebrity. The paradox of greater freedom to “be ourselves” is a society in which personal identity is increasingly defined by the external possessions, glamour and connections, rather than the more precious and rare internal virtues of character, trust and fidelity.
The Ten Commandments may seem archaic in such a culture, one which has come to revere a list of the best television advertisements of the year above a list of moral imperatives. Yet those ten basic principles set out so many ages ago do not seem redundant to modern life, not if they are deciphered properly. Such exegesis is particularly relevant at a time when cries of “Evil!” are heard around the globe, in response to almost everything from the deeply complicated decisions of world leaders to the popularity of sport utility vehicles. Our outrage has become scattershot, our confusion epidemic. We have neglected to consider the context of our own quotidian actions.
The Ten Commandments are, as ever, both particularly personal and embracingly broad. Their intention is to awe and instruct, but also, crucially, to make the constraints of decent behaviour understandable, even palat-able, to the largest possible audience.
The commandments provide guidelines which both the faithful and the faithless can, at least, respect. One need not be devout to understand that some truisms are ignored at one’s own cost: for instance, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” The battle against envy is one most of us wage at some level, until we realise, until events prove, that it is a waste of time. “Thou shalt not covet” acknowledges that we all may be tempted, while urging us not to succumb. It is a command, but an understanding one: a timesaver. In this way, it is remarkably modern.
Like the story of the birth of Jesus, the Ten Commandments are both eternal and evolving. Consider “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. One need not be religiously fervent, just up to date with current affairs, to see its relevance. Adultery is a uniquely selfish and, ironically, isolating act. It is often disguised as “passion”. But rather than invigorating the spirit, as passion does, it is demeaning. There are few exceptions to this rule, however many stylish films and “sophisticated” commentators suggest otherwise.
Today, perhaps, faith comes less easily to most than it once did. There is more competition for attention and, in the West, we seem to have more power to choose and a greater range of choices. What does it say about human nature that so many choices impoverish the spirit?
The case for appreciating what a religious dimension can bring has, of course, been made more difficult in a world scarred by fundamentalist violence and blinkered zealotry. But it was just such a world into which Jesus was born. And His message has endured, while the fanatics of His time have become history’s footnotes. It is paradoxical indeed that a message of love, which survived centuries of hate, is now in danger of being lost through mere indifference and self-absorption. Our culture would lose so much if what we owe to faith became forgotten. That is why we are glad to say to all our readers, whatever their beliefs, that we firmly hope the spirit of Christmas is with them.
