THE story of the birth of Jesus is found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

While they are both relatively light on the familiar Christmas details, both tell stories of the virgin Mary, Bethlehem and angels (though admittedly angels were understood as militaristic supernatural figures, rather than twee figures of more recent imaginations).

From Matthew’s Gospel we get the unnamed and unnumbered wise men from the east, the gifts (frankincense, gold and myrrh), the star over Bethlehem, Herod’s massacre of the infants and Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt with their baby.

From Luke’s Gospel we get the story of the birth of John the Baptist to the ageing Elizabeth and Zechariah, the Roman census to ensure that Joseph and Mary get from Nazareth to Bethlehem, insufficient privacy in the home (“inn” is a later mistranslation) and the shepherds.

Stories of miraculous births and accompanying celestial events were expected when creatively retelling the origin stories of famed figures in the ancient world.

Consequently, minimal historical detail about the historical figures of Mary, Jesus and Josephus can be reconstructed from them.

At most we can glean possibilities, such as Jesus being born some time towards the end of the life of Herod the Great, who died around 6 BCE.

Instead, the birth and infancy accounts are primarily works of propaganda. Luke’s Gospel has Mary give a speech (known as the “Magnificat”) about how God has “brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly” and “has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

This was connected to Luke’s promotion of the importance of shared goods in the community, a theme he developed in his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles.

While the Gospels recognise the need to remedy the stark inequalities in the world, we should not forget that they are pre-modern works of propaganda.

They retain common myths of a golden age in agrarian and peasant societies involving a just king who will right wrongs.

Matthew’s Gospel wants us to know that Jesus is the real king and begins with a genealogy which puts Jesus in the line (though via his other father, Joseph) of King David.

Luke’s Gospel too wants the audience to know that Jesus had kingly connections, hence the census story is designed to have Jesus born in the town of David.

The familiar Christmas story we know is an amalgamation of these two versions with all sorts of embellishments accrued along the way.

The precise day and month of Jesus’s birth were later worked out creatively by Christians and brought in line with the winter solstice — Christmas trees, Blackeye Friday and the rest being later additions still.

Today, in Britain at least, the story of Christmas is one of the few instances of a widespread public acknowledgement of a religious festival.

In line with dominant, decaffeinated understandings of religion, Christmas is treated with ironic detachment while still as a respected part of our cultural heritage.

Over the past 10 years, political leaders have given Christmas video addresses to the nation. Like Christianity generally, Christmas is used by them to stress the importance of vague notions of kindness, hope, tolerance and charity that are understood as both Christian and British values.

Anything but a pre-modern story, these speeches typically present Christmas as entirely compatible with liberal democracy and capitalism.

There is almost always mention of key workers and the armed forces, sometimes accompanied by an endorsement of military interventions which are still (remarkably) justified with reference to the Bible.

While political leaders are rarely too explicit about their political obsessions, big political issues of the day will usually be alluded to, from the “big society” (remember that?) through the EU referendum to Covid, with Christmas providing the implicit authority for a given political position.

Christmas even provided Tim Farron the opportunity to divert attention to a part of the Bible that isn’t Leviticus.

What we don’t get, of course, are those weirder details of the Gospels that make no sense in public presentations of religion in a liberal consensus.

Don’t expect to find reference to Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, why Elizabeth was thought a disgrace, circumcision, sacrifices of turtle doves and pigeons, or any number of details actually found in the Gospels. And we certainly don’t get reflections on sending the rich packing or removal of anyone from their throne.

What might we expect this year?

Christmas has been good to Boris Johnson so far by providing an ideal platform for his carefully crafted jovial persona.

He has previously joked about avoiding fights with in-laws over Christmas dinner, enjoying brandy butter and not “snogging under the mistletoe” in light of Covid restrictions.

For his Christmas address this year, however, it is difficult to know what to expect after stories of Tory partying last December, though three-and-a-half-minutes of Johnson attempting to avoid mention of Christmas parties would alone make it worth watching.

Against the backdrop of the Union flag, Keir Starmer previously presented himself at Christmas as the anti-Corbyn and a return to the identikit style of politician that dominated politics a decade ago with banal identikit Christmas messages.

He has taken up the mantle of previous centrist politicians at Christmas who look suspiciously like middle managers who might send you on a wellbeing course one day and politely but firmly lay you off the next. Expect little change from him this Christmas.

As the labour movement was growing in this country over 100 years ago, there was regular talk about the “religion of socialism” and how socialism absorbs all that is good about Christianity.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Christmas speeches as Labour leader stood in this tradition and offered something different. He spoke of the inspiration of the maxim, “From each according to their means, to each according to their needs,” which could be read as Marxist or Christian depending on your perspective.

He even spoke of the otherwise ignored “S-word” — socialism. He spoke practically about low pay, child poverty and the rise of rough sleeping and how to tackle these problems through social housing.

Don’t expect that from any frontbench politician this Christmas.

James Crossley is author of Spectres of John Ball: The Peasants’ Revolt in English Political History, 1381-2020 (forthcoming 2022).