By mid-December, you’ve seen the ads.
Buy this gift. Attend that party. Decorate perfectly. Celebrate bigger. Spend more.
The marketing machine tells us what Christmas should look like: twinkling lights, wrapped presents, family gatherings around tables groaning with food, and above all, consumption. The perfect holiday requires the perfect purchases.
But here’s what gets lost in the shopping frenzy and social media performance: the original Christmas story was deeply, radically, politically subversive.
It wasn’t about consumption. It was about rejecting the empire.
It wasn’t about perfection. It was about embracing mess and scandal.
It wasn’t about power. It was about God choosing the powerless.
Somewhere between Bethlehem and Black Friday, we’ve turned Christianity’s most revolutionary narrative into capitalism’s biggest sales event. And in doing so, we’ve lost something essential: the story’s ability to challenge, disrupt, and transform.
Let’s reclaim it.
The Nativity Story You Were Never Taught
Most of us know the Christmas story from children’s pageants and greeting cards:
Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem. There’s no room at the inn. Jesus was born in a stable. Angels appear to shepherds. Wise men bring gifts. Everyone rejoices.
It’s sweet. It’s sanitised. It’s safe.
But the Gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, who give us the nativity narratives, weren’t writing sweet bedtime stories. They were writing resistance literature.
A Scandalous Pregnancy
Mary is an unwed teenager who becomes pregnant. In first-century Palestine, this could have resulted in her being stoned to death. The claim that God caused the pregnancy? That’s not reassurance. That’s making the scandal even bigger.
Joseph has every legal right to abandon her. That he doesn’t makes him complicit in the scandal.
This isn’t a heartwarming beginning. It’s a crisis that threatens both of their lives.
A Political Registration
Why do Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem? Because Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor who declared himself a god, demanded a census for taxation purposes.
Luke’s Gospel begins by naming the emperor and making clear that this story takes place under Roman occupation. Under imperial violence. Under a system that extracts wealth from the poor to enrich the powerful.
The journey to Bethlehem isn’t a quaint road trip. It’s forced compliance with an oppressive regime.
No Room at the Inn
The traditional interpretation: the inn was full, so they had to settle for a stable.
The radical interpretation: there was no room for them in the structures of power and privilege. The religious establishment, the wealthy class, and the comfortable citizens, none of them made space for a scandal-ridden, poverty-stricken, politically powerless couple.
So the Messiah is born outside the system. In the margins. Among the animals.
Shepherds, Not Senators
Who gets the angelic announcement first? Not King Herod. Not the Sanhedrin. Not the priests in the temple.
Shepherds.
Shepherds were among the lowest classes in Jewish society. They were considered unclean, untrustworthy, and unable to testify in court.
And yet they’re the first to witness the divine breaking into the world.
This is not an accident. This is a statement.
Fleeing State Violence
Shortly after Jesus’s birth, Herod, threatened by prophecies of a new king, orders the massacre of all male children under two in Bethlehem.
Mary, Joseph, and Jesus flee to Egypt.
They become refugees.
The Holy Family spends years in exile, undocumented immigrants in a foreign land, fleeing state-sponsored violence against children.
This is the Christmas story. Not the one on greeting cards, but the one in scripture.
How Commercialism Sanitised the Scandal
Fast forward two thousand years.
The story of an unwed teenage mother, a refugee family, a baby born in poverty, and a government that tries to kill him has been transformed into:
– Hallmark movies about small-town romance
– Shopping mall Santas and luxury gift guides
– Instagram-perfect celebrations that cost thousands
– Prosperity gospel sermons that equate faith with wealth
How did we get here?
The answer is uncomfortable: because the radical Christmas story is bad for capitalism.
A story about God rejecting power, choosing poverty, and standing with refugees doesn’t sell products. It challenges the system that profits from Christmas.
A story about systemic violence, state oppression, and resistance through vulnerability doesn’t fit neatly into consumer culture. It demands we examine our complicity.
So we sanitize it. We sand off the edges. We make it soft, safe, and profitable.
We turn a story about rejecting empire into a celebration of empire’s favourite holiday.
What Joseph’s Letter Teaches Us About Institutional Storytelling
In Joseph’s Letter, Michael Battersby searches for historical truth about the resurrection. But what he uncovers isn’t just evidence about a miracle, it’s evidence of how institutions control narratives.
The Vatican, in the novel, isn’t interested in truth. It’s interested in maintaining power. When Michael’s research threatens to disrupt comfortable stories that keep people compliant and donations flowing, the institution’s response is suppression.
Cardinal O’Grady, the antagonist, doesn’t oppose Michael because the evidence is false. He opposes Michael because the truth is dangerous.
Sound familiar?
This is what happens when institutions, religious, political, or commercial, have a vested interest in a particular narrative. They shape the story to serve their interests, not to honor truth.
The Christmas story has been shaped, sanitized, and sold back to us in a form that supports consumer capitalism rather than challenges it.
But the original story? It’s still there. Waiting to be reclaimed.
The Radical Principles the Nativity Actually Teaches
Strip away the commercialism. Ignore the sentimentality. Look at what the Gospel writers actually emphasize.
1. God Sides with the Powerless
The Messiah isn’t born in a palace. He was born in a stable.
He doesn’t appear first to the powerful. He appears first to the shepherds.
He didn’t grow up wealthy and connected. He grows up as a refugee, a carpenter’s son, a member of an occupied people.
Implication: If you want to encounter the divine, look to the margins, not the center. Look to the excluded, not the celebrated.
2. Vulnerability Is Strength, Not Weakness
A baby is the ultimate symbol of vulnerability. Helpless. Dependent. Fragile.
God enters the world not as a conquering king but as an infant who needs his mother.
Implication: Power through domination isn’t divine. Power through love, service, and vulnerability is.
3. Institutions Often Oppose Truth
Herod tries to kill Jesus because the truth threatens his power.
The religious establishment later conspires to crucify him for the same reason.
The systems of power, political and religious, consistently oppose the message Jesus embodies.
Implication: Don’t assume institutions that claim to represent God actually do. Question authority. Demand accountability.
4. Resistance Doesn’t Always Look Heroic
Mary and Joseph don’t lead an armed rebellion. They don’t storm the palace.
They survive. They protect their child. They flee when necessary.
Resistance sometimes looks like simply refusing to let the empire destroy what you love.
Implication: You don’t have to be a revolutionary leader to resist. Sometimes the most radical act is protecting what’s sacred in a world designed to crush it.
How to Celebrate a Non-Commercial Christmas
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Okay, but I’m still expected to buy gifts and attend parties and decorate, what am I supposed to do?” here’s the truth:
You don’t have to opt out of Christmas entirely. You have to make conscious choices about what you’re opting into.
Reclaim the Story
Read the actual nativity narratives in Matthew 1:2 and Luke 1:2. Not sanitized children’s versions. The real text.
Notice what’s uncomfortable. Notice what challenges you.
Ask: What would it mean to take this story seriously?
Prioritise Presence Over Presents
The commercialization of Christmas thrives on the belief that love is measured by spending.
But the nativity story offers a different model: presence. Showing up. Being with people even when it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable.
Mary and Joseph didn’t have resources. They had each other.
The shepherds didn’t bring gifts. They brought their presence and their witness.
Support the Margins
If God sided with shepherds, refugees, and the excluded, where should you put your resources?
Instead of buying more things no one needs, consider:
– Donating to refugee assistance organizations
– Supporting community members facing housing insecurity
– Buying gifts from marginalized artisans rather than corporations
– Volunteering time with people experiencing homelessness
Let your Christmas spending reflect the values of the Christmas story.
Question the Performance
Social media has turned Christmas into a performance: who has the best decorations, the most elaborate celebrations, the most picture-perfect family.
But the nativity happened in a stable. With animals. In mess and chaos.
Give yourself permission to have a messy, imperfect, non-Instagrammable Christmas.
The sacred doesn’t require aesthetic perfection.
Resist Empire in Small Ways
You don’t have to dismantle capitalism single-handedly.
But you can make choices that resist the constant pressure to consume:
– Buy fewer, better-quality gifts
– Make things instead of buying them
– Give experiences instead of objects
– Explicitly talk with family about reducing gift-giving expectations
Every choice to prioritize relationship over transaction is a small act of resistance.
Reflection Questions: What Christmas Do You Want?
💭 If Christmas weren’t commercialised, what would you actually want to celebrate?
Strip away the obligations, the expectations, the consumer pressure. What’s left?
💭 How much of your Christmas stress comes from trying to meet external expectations rather than internal values?
Who are you performing for? What would it cost you to stop?
💭 What would it mean to celebrate Christmas as a story about refugees, scandal, and resistance?
How does that change the way you engage with the holiday?
💭 Where in your life do you need to choose vulnerability over performance?
The nativity celebrates weakness as sacred. Where are you pretending to be stronger than you are?
💭 If God sides with the marginalised, who in your community needs your presence this Christmas?
Not your money. Your actual presence.
The Courage to Reclaim What’s Been Stolen
Joseph’s Letter is ultimately about the courage to seek the truth, even when institutions want you to accept comfortable lies.
Michael Battersby risks everything, his safety, his relationships, his life, because he refuses to settle for the sanitized story.
And that’s what reclaiming Christmas requires: the willingness to reject the version that’s been sold to us and dig back to the radical, uncomfortable, transformative original.
It’s not an easy story. It doesn’t fit on a greeting card.
But it’s a story worth recovering.
A story about God rejecting the empire and choosing the excluded.
A story about refugees, scandal, and survival.
A story about love so radical it threatens the powerful.
That’s the Christmas story. And it’s time we started telling it again.
📖 Download the first chapter of Joseph’s Letter and explore what happens when someone refuses to accept the comfortable narrative.
Join the Conversation About Radical Faith
Reclaiming the Christmas story is easier when you’re not doing it alone.
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About the Author:
Robert Parsons is the author of Joseph’s Letter, a novel exploring institutional power, personal faith, and the courage to question comfortable narratives. After decades of teaching religion in Catholic schools, Robert understands the tension between honoring tradition and confronting its failures. His mission is simple: encourage people to think outside the box about religion, challenge institutions that prioritise power over truth, and reclaim the radical heart of faith from those who’ve sanitized it for profit.
Robert Parsons 