If you strip away the mythic aspects of the story of Christmas, you will see the basic structure of it, namely that it is about an individual—not relationships, not a group.
This is why Jesus is called the "only" Son of God. Only means one. One means individual. Without the individual, no relationship is possible. No group is possible. And the quality of both is entirely dependent on what the individual brings to the table. The sum is greater than the parts, but the parts have to be there, and they all have to work.
This is the central message of Mystical Christianity—it's the individual that is primary, not the group. If the group is primary, the individual gradually disappears, along with creativity, initiative, and personal accountability—all of the things that make soul development possible.
Be sure to check out the article in Geaneologies of Modernity:
Contemplatives in Conversation on Cinema
It's a collaboration between Arthur Aghajanian and me analyzing the Paolo Pasolini film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew. We discuss the role that cinema plays in our conceptualization of Jesus.
Here's an excerpt:
So much of our relationship with Jesus is deeply psychological. It's a projection of our childlike relationship with our parents. And I think where the church has really gone off the rails is that they have equated Jesus with God in a naive and unsophisticated way. You can see this in all the renditions and all the movies of Jesus. We're not dealing with a man; we're dealing with God. That makes it unrealistic in a way that I think does more harm than good.