Christmas is near. For many, the season begins with Santa Claus, a generous and magical figure that delivers gifts in the quiet hours of the night. However, I did not grow up celebrating a large, boisterous white man breaking and entering into my home as a child, who supposedly provided gifts but in reality robbed my parents of the appreciation they deserved for buying me the newest commodity solicited to me through advertisements embedded within my after school cartoons. At that time, it was probably the newest Game Boy or Nintendo DS. Nevertheless, instead of the aforementioned trespasser, I celebrated the miraculous events of Jesus Christ’s (Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ)) incarnation.

The birth of the Messiah is commonly referred to as the Nativity. The Nativity as recounted in Matthew’s Gospel begins when Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found with the child of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Then the angel famously cites Isaiah 7:14 to foretell of Mary’s virginal conception and to link the child’s name, Jesus (‘for he will save his people from their sins’), to the name Emmanuel (‘God with us’). 

Matthew’s Gospel says soon after Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea, ruled by the Roman King Herod, some men who studied the stars came from the East to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the baby born to be the king of the Jews? We saw his star when it came up in the East, and we have come to worship him.’ Thus, fulfilling the prophecies of Micah 5:1 and 2 Samuel 5:2. The magi are unnamed in Matthew’s gospel, yet their Western traditional names; Melchoi, Caspar, and Balthassar, are likely derived from an Armenian infancy gospel dated to around AD 500, which gives them the names Melkon, King of Persia; Gaspar, King of India; and Baldassar, King of Arabia. 

According to the Gospel, the three Magi had followed a star to the house where Jesus and Mary were. Upon entering  the Magi fell down, and worshipped Yeshua, and when they had opened their treasures, they presented Him gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Theophylactus, commenting on Saint Matthew’s Gospel, claim that the star that led the three Magi was no ordinary star. Rather, it was “a divine and angelic power that appeared in the form of a star.” Saint Demetrius of Rostov also claims it to have been a “manifestation of divine energy.” A later astronomical explanation points to calculations by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in the sixteenth century, suggesting that an extremely rare conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn occurred three times in the constellation Pisces in 7 B.C., appearing to observers as a single luminous star. Personally, I would like to believe in there being supernatural elements involved.

Outside of the greatest gift of all, that being eternal life, given through the conception of the Christ, the Nativity also gave birth, many years later, to another gift. This gift being a constitutional question. The baby’s name was Lynch v. Donnelly. 

In the case of Lynch v. Donnelly, the Supreme Court considered whether a municipality’s inclusion of a Nativity scene in a publicly sponsored Christmas display violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The dispute arose in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where the city annually erected a Christmas display in its downtown shopping district. The display included a Santa Claus house, a Christmas tree, a banner reading “Season’s Greetings,” and a Nativity scene, which had been part of the display for more than forty years. Daniel Donnelly challenged the display, arguing that the inclusion of the crèche constituted an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. Dennis Lynch, the mayor of Pawtucket, defended the practice.

In a closely divided five-to-four decision, the Court ruled in favor of the city. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren Burger acknowledged the “religious significance” of the Nativity scene but concluded that its inclusion did not violate the Establishment Clause. The Court emphasized that the display must be evaluated “in the context of the holiday season” and rejected the claim that the city’s actions were a “purposeful or surreptitious effort to advocate a particular religious message.” Instead, the majority characterized the crèche as a depiction of the “historical origins of the Holiday” that served “legitimate secular purposes.”

The Court further reasoned that the display posed no realistic danger of establishing a state church and warned that it was “far too late in the day to impose a crabbed reading of the [Establishment] Clause on the country.” On this view, the Constitution does not require the government to purge all religious symbolism from public life, particularly where such symbols have long been intertwined with civic and cultural traditions.

---

Staniel Brutis is a third-year student at BC Law. Contact him at brutis@bc.edu.