Why Honor Must Meet the Manger: A Christmas Family Tree of Life, and Walking the Talking

In this season of nativity scenes and candlelight hymns, when Christians reflect on the birth of Jesus and the humility of the manger, we are reminded that faith is rooted, rooted in truth, covenant, and continuity. Christmas is not merely sentimental to the true disciple of Christ; it is declarative. It proclaims that God entered history to restore what was broken, not to excuse it. This is taught throughout scripture. And that is precisely why certain modern distortions of “honor” stand out so starkly when placed next to the true Gospel and Christian Faith of Christ.

Consider a familiar scenario: a serial monogamist mother who has finally remarried after over a dozen long and short term relationships while her first husband is still alive. She claims to have renounced her old life of sexual bondage, but returns to it in order to fill the void. Her renewed profession of faith to Christ demands that her Christian daughter and son-in-law “honor thy father and mother” by affirming and celebrating her new relationship founded in adultery and lies. And now her new legal marriage, without repentance or obedience to Christ's word. The Wealthy Matriarch frames their refusal to accept her return to her old life as rebellion, disrespect, even spiritual failure. Yet the contradiction is both immediate and unavoidable. She appeals to biblical and historical authority while standing in open defiance of the very covenant and family that authority is meant to protect and preserve.

It is like asking someone to honor the tree they came from (the real marriage) while the one making the demand has already cut herself off from its roots, and shakes her fist at the idea of its validity. She insists, “You must honor your father and mother cause the bible says so,” while simultaneously refusing to honor the very father herself by remaining true to her vows and her husband while he yet lives and is in need of grace and prayer. (1 Cor 7:27-39). The commandment is invoked in vain, because the covenant beneath it is discarded. The result is not just hypocrisy - it is absurdity.

This contradiction has become especially visible within a broader cultural pattern, one often normalized by post-1960s Western attitudes toward the sanctity and permanency of marriage. What sociologists now call serial monogamy - a cycle of divorce, remarriage, and reinvention - has been quietly baptized by a generation that equated personal fulfillment with moral progress. Under this mindset, vows became provisional, repentance became optional, and consequences were reframed as “growth or progress.”

Within this boomer-era framework, divorce is no longer treated as rupture but as renewal, remarriage as courage rather than compromise, and resistance from faithful children as intolerance rather than conviction. Scripture is selectively quoted, context stripped away, and the command to honor parents is weaponized, detached from the equally biblical call to faithfulness, repentance, and singleness or reconciliation as Church history demands.

But Christmas tells a different story of the new Family Christmas Tree, it's a new Jesus.

The incarnation is about God entering the broken family line, not escaping it. Jesus is born into a genealogy filled with failure and restoration, not abandonment and reinvention. He does not discard covenant anywhere in his teachings and when it becomes difficult; He fulfills it at cost to Himself. When his disciples said, "If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."

This is why the words of Jesus regarding family carry such weight. When told that His mother and brothers were outside seeking Him, He did not rush to re-center His mission around natural ties or his earthly mother's feelings. Instead, He looked at those sitting before Him- those listening, learning, and obeying- and declared: “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

“Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

The significance is often softened, but the context matters. His natural family was outside, not participating in the moment, not aligned with the work at hand or his headship. Jesus was not dishonoring them; He was redefining honor itself and requiring that any claim his family had to access him must be in line with his Father's will. He made clear that spiritual alignment with the will of God, not biological proximity, determines true familial authority and validity.

That distinction matters here.

A parent who refuses repentance, rejects covenant faithfulness, and demands affirmation of an unbiblical union is not standing within the authority they claim. They are, in effect, asking their children to honor a version of family that they themselves have already abandoned and which has no life or eternity in it. It is the equivalent of demanding reverence for a family tree while refusing to remain grafted to its trunk.

And Christmas, of all seasons, exposes this contradiction. The manger reminds us that God values humility over entitlement, repentance over reinvention, and faithfulness over feelings. Honor, in the biblical sense, is not blind affirmation - it is truth-rooted alignment. The Boomers may go down as the worst generation in the last century for this very reason. Happiness over Holiness.

So as we celebrate Christmas, let us remember: true honor flows downward from obedience to God, not upward from unrepentant demand. Parents do not retain spiritual authority by title alone, and children do not dishonor their lineage by refusing to bless what Scripture does not. If their vows and promises of inheritance meant nothing, perhaps it is they that need to grow up, before they meet their maker.

May this season remind us that the light of Christ does not decorate broken foundations, or Fig Trees with no fruit, it calls to them to produce fruit worthy of repentance. And may our understanding of family, honor, and covenant be shaped not by cultural trends, the inability to reconcile or hang tough, but by the will of God made flesh and laid in a manger for the salvation of the repentant and courageous, not the rebellious and effeminate.”