--- title: The Revolutionary Politics of the First Christmas description: Our culture has downgraded Christmas stories into sweet songs and Nativity plays. But the birth of Jesus announces the start of a revolution canonical: https://time.com/5754054/first-christmas-politics/ author: N.T. Wright article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-12-23T15:08:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T07:57:43.662Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Revolutionary Politics of the First Christmas og:description: Our culture has downgraded the Christmas stories into sweet little songs and primary-school Nativity plays. But the birth of Jesus announces the start of a revolution og:url: https://time.com/5754054/first-christmas-politics/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83aa5178cd501a07/698a07e3457a52a114d634e1/GettyImages-165531152.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4943 og:image:height: 2780 og:image:alt: Nativity, painting by Johann Rottenhammer (1564-1625) og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Revolutionary Politics of the First Christmas twitter:description: Our culture has downgraded the Christmas stories into sweet little songs and primary-school Nativity plays. But the birth of Jesus announces the start of a revolution twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83aa5178cd501a07/698a07e3457a52a114d634e1/GettyImages-165531152.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Revolutionary Politics of the First Christmas > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [N.T. Wright](https://time.com/author/n-t-wright/) ## N.T. Wright Wright is the author of 'The Visions of Ephesians' Dec 23, 2019 3:08 PM UTC  Nativity, painting by Johann Rottenhammer (1564-1625). Nativity, painting by Johann Rottenhammer (1564-1625). Getty Images/DeAgostini by [N.T. Wright](https://time.com/author/n-t-wright/) ## N.T. Wright Wright is the author of 'The Visions of Ephesians' Dec 23, 2019 3:08 PM UTC I stood at the back of the Cathedral at 1:30 on Christmas morning, shaking hands with the midnight worshippers on their way home. I had been preaching about God coming into our lives at [Christmastime](https://time.com/5752224/bethlehem-christmas/), especially in the form of the weak, the vulnerable and the homeless. Most of the congregation were happy, but one man had something to get off his chest. “You should stick to the script!” he said to me. “Christmas has nothing to do with asylum-seekers!” And off he marched before I could splutter out the obvious reply: The [Christmas story](https://time.com/5481431/birth-of-jesus-midwife-history-christmas/) in Luke’s gospel climaxes with Jesus in a feeding-trough because everywhere else was full. Matthew’s version ends with Joseph and Mary whisking the baby off to a foreign country because the authorities wanted to kill him. Putting these together, the heart of the story is precisely Jesus the homeless asylum seeker. Anyone who knows the history and culture of the first-century Jewish world would see the point. Matthew introduces his Christmas story by listing Jesus’ ancestry, all the way back to Abraham, highlighting King David on the way. It’s obvious where this was going: Jesus was the true “king of the Jews” — at a time where there was one of those already, Herod the Great. That’s why Joseph had to take Jesus and Mary away in a hurry. The same is true with Luke’s story, in which the Roman Emperor, the self-styled “son of God” Augustus himself, issues an order in Rome which causes a very different “son of God” to be born in a very different “royal city,” Bethlehem. The original, historic Christmas stories are about power. They are about the kingdom of God breaking in, dangerously and unexpectedly, into the kingdoms of the world. The misunderstanding arises from a larger problem. Western culture has placed Christianity in a box called “religion,” separated off by definition from the rest of “real life.” Some Christmas Carols try to break this mold: think of “It came upon a midnight clear,” which contrasts the song of the angels with the subsequent “two thousand years of wrong.” But most are content with the schmaltzy (“But only his mother/in her maiden bliss/worshipped the Beloved/with a kiss”), the sentimental (“the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay”) and the toe-curlingly moralistic (“Christian children all must be/mild, obedient, good as he”). Once you pull apart the seamless fabric of the original story, that’s all you are left with. And that’s what today’s younger generation, eager for real-life relevance, is abandoning in droves. Our culture has downgraded the Christmas stories into sweet little songs and primary-school Nativity plays. But the birth of a baby who will inherit “the throne of his ancestor David” —as the angel says to Mary in Luke 1:32—announces the start of a revolution. Nothing will ever be the same again. In Israel’s scriptures, David already ruled over the Twelve Tribes, but the Psalms and Prophets insisted that his ultimate successor would rule over the whole world. Anyone claiming David’s kingdom is throwing down a challenge to the rulers of the world, whether in the first century or the twenty-first. But what sort of a challenge? We are so scared of “theocracy” (think: mad clerics bullying people into submission) that the thought of Jesus and his followers posing a real-life “challenge” is enough to send people back to the anodyne Christmas carols. The question of “theocracy,” (literally, the rule of God), however, turns on _which God it is we’re talking about_. And here Matthew and Luke, starting with their Christmas stories, are clear. Their accounts of Jesus, right through to his [cruel death](https://time.com/5712369/crucifixion-religious-history/) at the hands of the Roman imperial power, are saying, from a hundred different angles, _This is what it looks like when the real God comes to the rescue_. They echo the ancient biblical stories about Israel’s God: the God who made the world in the first place; the one who heard his people’s cry and came to rescue them through Moses; the one who always wanted to come and live in amongst his people and through them to renew and restore his whole creation. The stories that begin at Christmas end with Jesus’ followers sent into the world to launch a new way of being human; a new kind of power; the divine power of self-giving love. Once we put Christmas back into its proper historical context we might just find that Christmas could reshape our own historical context. God knows we need it: the homeless asylum seekers, yes, and the rest of us too. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5754054/first-christmas-politics/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5754054/first-christmas-politics/"},"headline":"The Revolutionary Politics of the First Christmas","datePublished":"2019-12-23T15:08:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T07:57:43.662Z","description":"Our culture has downgraded the Christmas stories into sweet little songs and primary-school Nativity plays. But the birth of Jesus announces the start of a revolution","url":"https://time.com/5754054/first-christmas-politics/","keywords":["Religion"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83aa5178cd501a07/698a07e3457a52a114d634e1/GettyImages-165531152.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"N.T. 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