Yoder makes a very intriguing point when he writes:

"The 'original meaning' of a text or its author will not stand still, as an earlier scholasticism assumed, since every reader does something new with it. The 'History' itself 'as it really happened' will not stand still either, since the meaning of events is never free from interpretation."

This may very well be true, yet the goal of every Christian at least should be to interpret the text as it was meant when it was written. We have to read it with neutral eyes. We can't read our life experiences into what God is trying to tell us. I admit that it's almost impossible to pull off, yet that doesn't mean it shouldn't be our goal. Abiding by the law or the "principles of the Kingdom of God" are impossible as well, does that mean we don't seek to obey them? By no means!

Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" is a very interesting novel. It's an anti-war work about a man who fights in WWII and gets his arms and legs blown off and loses his sight, hearing, and smell. Yet he lives, although he wished he were dead. The novel is then basically about his thoughts as he lies in bed and is unable to communicate with the outside world.

In Chapter 17 he writes about Christmas as he finally is able to communicate with a lady nurse who figured out that he understands Morse Code. She wishes him "Merry Christmas" which gets him reflecting on his Christmas traditions of his youth. It's very moving and appropriate to this time of the year. Let me summarize as briefly as I can his reflections on the birth of Christ as he can remember. You really need to read this on your own.

"She (his mother) had a marker in the Bible and she opened it now to the place that was marked and began to read again. She read the story of the Christ-child of the baby Jesus and how he was born in a manger...All the people were going to Bethlehem because it was tax time and they had to appear at the court house and register and pay up...Joseph had to do a lot of chores before he could start out and Mary his wife was pregnant and couldn't help him so they were late...As soon as they got into town Joseph began making the rounds of cheap rooming houses. He wasn't much of a success at making money and they only had enough to pay taxes and one night's rent...Then Joseph began to talk very seriously to the hotel manager. See here he said I've come a long way and I've got my wife with me and she's going to have a baby. Look at her out there on the donkey, you see she's just a kid and she's scared...(Hotel manager talking)It'll be an awful mess if she has a baby on the premises, people who can't afford them shouldn't have babies anyway but what are you going to do about it...I don't mind telling you I hope very much she doesn't have the baby here tonight because it'll upset my guests if she screams and they're all very high class people including three Roman congressmen...Oh I almost forgot, don't light any fires out there in the barn because in my insurance it says they're forbidden...Back in the manger Joseph lighted a lantern and fixed up a nice bed on the hay and Mary lay down on the bed and had her baby...

And so the story of how our Risen Savior was born into the world...