’Tis the season for getting upset about people using “X” in place of “Christ” in “Christmas.” I don’t deny that a good number of people do want to take “Christ” out of “Christmas,” but using “Xmas” isn’t really the way to do it; nor should “Xmas” be a huge issue to campaign against. Here’s why. The “X” is actually the Greek letter chi (pronounced “key”), which is the first letter of the Greek word “Christos” (Χριστός ), the one we call “Christ.” So “Xmas” is an abbreviated way, thanks to the Greek language, to say “Christmas.”

This X-like Greek letter comes up other places with respect to the Bible . . . like, for example, in the book of Daniel, specifically, in chapters 2–7. Its connection to these chapters isn’t as an abbreviation for “Christ,” but rather as a way to describe a literary structure. The block of six Aramaic chapters comprises a clearly structured group of stories. Take a look at the list below and see if you can identify the structure:

• Nebuchadnezzar dreams about four earthly kingdoms and a fifth kingdom, God’s (ch. 2).
• Faithful Jews (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) face death (in the fiery furnace) (ch. 3).
• A proud king (Nebuchadnezzar) is humbled (ch. 4).
• A proud king (Belshazzar) is humbled (ch. 5).
• A faithful Jew (Daniel) faces death (in the lions’ den) (ch. 6).
• Daniel dreams about four earthly kingdoms and a fifth kingdom, God’s (ch. 7).

Do you see it? Chapters 2 & 7 are similar, chapters 3 & 6 are similar, and chapters 4 & 5 are similar. The way scholars talk about this kind of reverse structure is by using a fancy word, chiasm (or chiasmus), from our Greek letter chi, that X-like letter with a reverse structure – you could fold it over on itself on the fulcrum at the middle.

What’s the point of doing this sort of thing? Well, unfortunately for us, no one in the Bible who used it bothered to explain its significance, so we’re left to figure it out on our own. The predominant theory is that the fulcrum – the center, pivot point – is the focus of the entire chiasm. All roads lead to it, as it were. It encapsulates the heart of the message.

In the case of Daniel 2–7, then, the center of the chiasm is chapters 4 & 5, which are both about God’s humbling of arrogant human kings. Why does God do this to human kings? Because, as the book of Daniel hammers home for twelve chapters, He alone is sovereign, and when human kings get the wrong idea about their dominion, He sets them straight. Every human king is subject to a higher King.

The chapters surrounding the center point of chapters 4 & 5 are also about the relationship between human and divine kingship (specifically, chapters 2 & 7) and about the way faithful people live in the tension between the two (specifically, chapters 3 & 6).

That much maligned little Greek letter can actually be quite meaningful, don’t you think?