As John Lennon sang in a song from my youth, “So, this is Christmas!”
Our images of Christmas are of warmth, good cheer, and peace among people. While there is a good deal of merry-making and celebrations small and large, the world doesn’t stop for Christmas. If anything, our hopes of what Christmas should be make the realities of life seem more harsh and frustrating.
Our fantasies about Christmas gloss over the sacred stories of the birth of Jesus that are the foundation for this holiday day. Perhaps we forget that it was a poor young couple who made a difficult journey and had no safe place to stay. Or we romanticize the shepherds and miss that they were viewed as second class citizens who lived with their animals, didn’t maintain the religious laws of cleanliness, and were not welcome in most social circles. We mistakenly refer to the magi as “kings” but they were foreigners of a different religion and culture. Then, much like today, foreigners of a different culture and religion were viewed with suspicion not a warm welcome. The bottom line is this: the sacred stories of Christmas are about those who were outsiders, down on their luck, without any redeeming social value. Yet, they were the ones who are the central characters for the beginning for our stories about the birth of Jesus.
The sacred stories of Christmas are meant to remind us that hope is born in the lives of people who are struggling, facing hardship, and live in fear. These stories are the most significant when we allow the darkness of our lives to be filled with light – even if that light is just the glimmer of a single star. The depth of meaning in the stories of Christmas is most relevant for those living on the edge who aren’t sure what may come next.
I think the meaning of Christmas is captured in a sermon from the fifth century by Peter Chrysologus, a bishop in Central Italy, who wrote: “God saw the world falling to ruin because of fear and immediately acted to call it back with love. God invited it by grace, preserved it by love, and embraced it with compassion.”
The essence of the sacred stories of Christmas is that because the world is falling apart, because people experience pain and tragedy, because wrapped in fear we fail to do better, grace calls again and again to be people of love and compassion. The hope of Christmas is that struggle and strife aren’t the end of the story. Instead, something new can be born into our world that calls us to do better and to be better.
Yes, so this is Christmas! It’s not plastic sentimentality sold to us by commercial opportunists but it is the opportunity to allow hope be born anew. It is the hope of Christmas that bring us out of fear to a new faith that sets things right.
As I think about the pain and tragedy in the world and in the lives of people I know, it seems to me that we need Christmas more than ever. Indeed, we need to allow our lives to be transformed by love and compassion for the healing of the world.
On these last days before Christmas, I look for this hope as I pray the words of the ancient hymn: O Come, Emmanuel!
copyright by Rev. Lou Kavar Ph.D., 2014
Visit Lou's blog here:
http://blog.loukavar.com/2014/12/22/so-this-is-christmas/
