It’s Christmas Again
Call me old fashioned but I still insist that the official start of the Christmas season is not until the day after Thanksgiving.
This year as we see and hear of the human carnage and suffering in Israel and Gaza, the continued gun violence in America, political rhetoric that reduces the dignity of all humans I wonder how the Christmas story might inform our response.
As I ponder the meaning of Christmas again two words come to mind.
Revelation and Invitation.
REVELATION
The birth of Jesus came at a time of suffocating darkness for the the Jewish people. They longed to be out from under the thumb of harsh Roman rule. Their religious and political leaders had aligned themselves with Rome to advantage themselves over their fellow Jews. A once proud nation was reduced to a humiliating hopeless existence. There really was no good news anywhere.
Into that darkness God revealed Himself. It’s as if He said,”I see you, I hear you, I know your suffering. I am here with you.” Through an angel, a dream, a glory-filled sky, and maybe just an intuition God revealed Himself to common people. He revealed Himself right where they lived. At home assuming her duties, Mary saw Him. In a dream Joseph heard him. On the hills around Bethlehem while watching sheep Shepherds heard and saw Him. Learned intellectuals saw a star and knew it worth following.
Unfortunately the routine and expediency of our lives dulls our senses from seeing God. A tree is a tree, a sky is a sky, a cashier is a cashier, a song is a song, a bird is a bird. Except they are not. In all of them God is revealing Himself. I think, if we really saw the hand and heart of God all around us it would bring us to our knees.
In Annie Dillards book “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” she says;
“There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly stuffed and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But, and this is the point, who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sign of a muskrat kit padding from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty and simplicity indeed when man is so malnourished and fatigued and he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is, in fact, planted in pennies, you have with your poverty brought a lifetime of days. It is that simple.”
Indeed the world is planted with the endless pennies of God’s revelation.
Barbara Brown Taylor says in her book “An Altar in the World”;
“Most of my visitors of the divine have happened while I was busy doing something else. I did nothing to make them happen. They happened to me the same way a thunderstorm happens to me, or a bad cold, or a sudden awareness that I am desperately in love. I play no apparent part in their genesis. My only part is to decide how I will respond, since there is plenty I can do to make them go away”…
The path of a young maiden, a carpenter, a group of hardworking shepherds, and the enlightened intellectuals was strewn with the pennies of His revelation. AND, they all knew it was God. They did not dismiss it as happen stance, or coincidence of just a dream. All of them knew they had seen God and they responded with willing hearts.
INVITATION
God’s revelation to these people was accompanied by an invitation. God was about to reveal Himself in human flesh. In this unveiling he invited common people to be part of the plan. He invited each one to play his and her own part. Each one was being let in on the greatest revolution the earth would ever know.
Though these people longed for change they had grown accustomed to the way things were. They had adapted and carved out lives that were lived within the confines of the rigid rule around them.
Yet, things did change. Mary was invited to be the mother of Jesus. Joseph was invited to protect and defend his fiancee from the harsh treatment that awaited unwed mothers. The shepherds were invited to come down off the hills to a smelly barn to see a baby. The learned men were shown a star that filled them with enough curiosity to took a two year trip in hopes of seeing a toddler.
God is always inviting us to to find our deepest source of love and acceptance in Him. And then He invites us to be co-conspirators in spreading that love everywhere we go.
I am reminded of a poem by Rumi that says:
“ Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me”.
Of course you do not do this out loud;
Otherwise,
Someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this, the great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one
Who lives with the full moon in each eye
That is always saying with that sweet moon language
What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?”
We are invited to be both receivers and givers of this limitless unconditional love. To every bug, every tree, every person, every animal we are invited to flesh out Jesus.
What we don’t need in this time of gross consumerism is more stuff or more information. What we do need is a sense of belonging, of being seen, and of being cherished. And we need to be part of something much bigger than ourselves.
Hearing God’s constant invitation to receive and give His love requires that we see beyond the ordinary. It requires that our hearts are soft and ready to say “yes” and “yes”, and “yes”.
Oh Lord, this Christmas season may I see the revelation of You everywhere. May I see you in the eyes of the homeless, in the winter sky, in the stillness of new snow, in the face of the cleaners, and the waiters. May I see the revelation of you in every bush, every tree, every rock and every circumstance in my life.
And Lord, may I hear your invitation. May I hear the invitation to come to you with my weary heart. May I hear your invitation to hold and love me no matter what. Any may I gladly join you in your invitation fo be the fleshing out of your heart in a troubled weary world.