My challenge to Christians this year is this: have a holy and thoroughly worldly Christmas

A post in one of the Christian Facebook groups I belong to really got my back up this week. It read thus: “Jesus gave us Good Friday. The world gives us Black Friday. Take your pick!” That quote could easily be substituted with these words: “The Bible gives us the Christ child. The world gives us Santa. Take your pick!”

With the start of Advent, we can expect to hear a familiar complaint from those for whom Christmas holds deep religious significance: the religion has gone out of it, and it has been taken over by worldliness and naked commercialism.

It is us versus them: those of us who believe in the real meaning of Christmas, versus a world of hijackers which, for those who work and play in the real world, probably includes many if not most of our less religious friends and relations.

I’ve probably whinged about this myself in the past, to be fair. But here’s the thing: I got it wrong.

I got it wrong, first, because I looked at the end product, not the motivations behind it. We see Jesus being replaced by Santa; we see shopping centres rather than churches as the hub for our festive preparations; we see kids more interested in the gifts they will receive than those of the wise men in the Bible story. We see people not caring one bit about God but enjoying our festival anyway.

But we need to dig a little deeper into the motives that lie behind all this. First, gift-giving is about the bonds of love, kinship and friendship that unite us.

I remember as a social anthropology student learning about a group of Indian Jains called the Svetambara. Those who needed to beg among them had a particular practice where they would go to each house with a begging bowl or cup, seeking food. Each house, however, would only provide a tiny amount of food – not enough for a meal or to sustain the person in any way. A meal could only be achieved as a collective result of each household’s little act of generosity. In this way, since the beggar had not gained meaningfully from the kindness of anyone, he had acquired no debt to anyone. He had, in fact, received a gift in the truest sense.

Secret Santa makes me think in a similar way: some nameless, faceless person has taken their knowledge about me and what I like to buy me something small which, though not life-changing, reminds me that I am in their thoughts, that even in what was probably a frantic and hurried dash around the shops, I mattered to that person. I cannot see anything more Christian than gift-giving and the joy it brings.

And as for Santa, often the target of the religious complaints, well he’s a character that should connect us with the season’s Christian message as well. Santa makes the world magical for kids. Somehow, growing up, it doesn’t seem impossible that all the world’s children receive a visit from Santa, whose army of helpers have got all their gifts right, and who somehow doesn’t dolefully exclaim “not another bloody mince pie!” As he approaches his millionth home that night.

For one night, children believe in magic. For one night, children believe that this great act of kindness is brought to them just because a mysterious figure in Lapland values them for who they are.

As Christians, that feels remarkably similar to how we talk about Christ’s coming into the world in the lowly setting of a stable, lying in an animal feeding trough. God comes in this humble form not because we deserve his revelation to us, but as an almost magical, unfathomable act of love that we have in no way earned, but have been given anyway.

Second, for the Christian, the events we will remember in the coming weeks are not other-worldly or profoundly disconnected from our time.

Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem is remembered with fondness and nostalgia, but it’s worth remembering that political events brewing far away mandated their trip. The ordinary, forgettable couple forced to have their baby miles from home, was the ordinary and forgettable story of a greedy, grasping and corrupt Roman empire.

Behind the headlines of today’s conflicts are unremarkable, forgettable stories too: families torn apart; families living in fear; families displaced, impoverished and frightened, fighting to survive from one day to the next; babies bringing the hope that comes with new life and perfect innocence that warms the hearts of the hopeless.

And what about the unmarried, pregnant mother? She would have caused a scandal in her day. Already disenfranchised and unimportant, this would have sealed her fate as one of the marginalised outsiders: those that society judges to be outside the club. Her husband, too weak to rid himself of her as a man ought, wouldn’t have done much better.

We haven’t lost our capacity to marginalise, exclude and create outcasts and outsiders. Perhaps they are the forgotten homeless who will sleep on our freezing streets over the winter. Perhaps they are those who won’t get invited anywhere as our world narrows to our own families – networks that they don’t have. Perhaps it is simply those who, because of loss or some other sadness, can’t enjoy Christmas this year but feel our judgemental expectation that they get into the spirit. Who are the Mary and Josephs of our time at Christmas?

My point is a simple one: the Christian story we will remember and celebrate is not at odds with the world. Rather, it should connect us more fully and embracingly to it. Rather than fix our eyes towards heaven and lament how the secular world welcomes Christmas, we should look at the complicated picture of humanity all around us and ask what we can do.

We should also be less sneering of that worldliness. We should delight in the fact that our joy as Christians can be shared by people of other faiths and none, because, for one special time of the year, culture, commerce, myth and legend have been blended to make an occasion where, whatever we believe, we can all experience joy and see glimmers of light shining beautiful and bright in our dark world.

We should delight in equal measure over santas and snowmen, to stables and shepherds. For the last few years I and friends from work took part in carol singing at King’s Cross and Euston stations. I remember the laugh we all had after giving a particularly heartfelt performance of Silent Night. A woman approached us, generously contributed to our collection and told us how nice it was to hear proper carols for a change. What she didn’t know was that next on our list was the most ungodly Jingle Bells.

But as Christians we can, and should, have it all: Silent Night and Jingle Bells have their festive place. We should make time for our faith: read our Bibles, sing our favourite carols and make an effort to get out to Midnight Mass. But we should throw ourselves fully and joyously into whatever traditions we have, no matter how little they relate to a saviour’s birth.

They relate to hope. They relate to our belief that sometimes, life is beautiful. They relate to togetherness and community. They relate to light. They relate to friendship. They relate to fun. They relate to humour. They relate to unity in difference.

My challenge to Christians this year is this: have a holy and thoroughly worldly Christmas!