Christmas–even on the wrong day, even with the wrong stories surrounding it, even with a lot of pagan ritual attached to it–celebrates the entering into the world of the person who changed the world forever. From that time forward religion turned inward. Everything we could know about God was revealed in its entirety within us, not within a temple or on a mountaintop. It took us a long time to understand this. St. Augustine tried to explain it, and he got most of it right, and then others carried it deeper, and then we got to the 21st century and most of the ways that Jesus turned the world upside down had become . . . commonplace, not attributed to Jesus at all.

Perhaps that is how he builds the kingdom, by effacing himself as the builder.

I don't know if I agree with this completely ('revealed in its entirety within us'? I know the rationale, but it still makes me a little itchy) but it's thought-provoking and well-put.

Joe Bob Briggs in the Door.