Shivering Babe, Glorious Lord

For many centuries the Nativity Stories from Matthew and Luke’s gospels formed a vital part of the church’s theology and worship. The virginal conception and birth of Christ, so starkly related by the two Evangelists, were included as two fundamental affirmations in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. The declaration that Christ “was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary” attested to the crucial role played by the Nativity Stories in the early church’s developing understanding of Christ’s divine/human nature. In the Middle Ages nearly every aspect of the complex narratives composed by Matthew and Luke was put to use at some point during the church’s liturgical year: the annunciation of John the Baptist’s birth to Zechariah; the annunciation of Jesus’ birth to Mary; the visitation of the two expectant mothers; the birth of Christ in a Bethlehem manger; the angelic announcement of Christ’s birth to the shepherds; the adoration of the Magi; the presentation of the infant Christ in the Jerusalem temple.

In comparison to this rich theological and liturgical tradition, the modern American Christmas observance is so truncated as to be spiritually impoverished. In many churches today a few passages from the Nativity Stories form the basis of Advent sermons, or selected verses are included in nativity pageants. Sadly, the Nativity Stories are seldom considered as a whole. The two Evangelists’ purposes in composing the accounts of John and Jesus’ births were far greater than the restricted way these narratives are often presented today. The manifold riches of this genre of Christian Scripture have regrettably been reduced to “The Christmas Story.” For those searching for a deeper, more Christ-centered Christmas celebration, the place to start is to understand the historical trends that resulted in this marginalized observance of Christ’s birth. Shivering Babe, Glorious Lord provides readers with the resources to begin this journey. No other book on the market offers all of the features found in this single volume.

The subtitle of the work is “The Nativity Stories in Christian Tradition.” The birth narratives are surveyed through the entire span of church history:

• their composition by Matthew and Luke late in the first century

• their theological and liturgical development in the pre-Reformation church

• the disruption of traditional Christmas observance brought about by Calvinistic reforms

• the two-century Puritan suppression of Christmas in seventeenth and eighteenth century America

• the appearance of a secular form of Christmas in the early nineteenth century

• the burgeoning of the commercialized/secularized Christmas in the twentieth century

The book is thoroughly researched and fully annotated and can be read profitably at any time of the year.