Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay

Writing in the 1950s, William Cole lamented the cultural tendency to view couples as separate from the larger community and offered the following corrective: “The inescapably interpersonal character of all life is a note the Bible strikes again and again, from the Old Testament stress on the family and its demands, the community and its concerns, to the New Testament assertion that ‘we are members one of another.’” (Sex and Love in the Bible, Association Press, 1959) Indeed, in the opening chapters of the Bible we read that it is not good for man to be alone, and the concepts of family and community quickly follow. 

Central to the human experience are relationships, both with God and with other people, and these are on full display at Christmas. We have in the manger a poignant picture of God becoming man, thereby anchoring the Creator to His highest created being and announcing a relationship between the two that will last forever. We also see in the manger scene a relationship between child and parents. This was the beginning of an earthly nuclear family, and siblings of Jesus would soon join him in that family.   

His life as an adult can’t be fully appreciated apart from many other relationships:  his interactions with commoners, the elites of the day, and a government that would become complicit in his death. All of these played a role in building the Kingdom of God, which is nothing if it does not include relationships between people—and between people and God. 

Merry Christmas.