Stressed On December 3RD

This past Sunday, driving home after worship, Bettyann pointed out to me the tents set up in front of a well know electronic store.  I asked, What's with that?"  She discribed to me that the tents were occupied by those who want to be the first into the store to make their purchase the day after Thanksgiving.  Why, I asked, would they want to be the first persons in the store. It is because they are affraid the special item or special price might disappear  within a few minutes or hours after the store opening.  I now have reason to believe that BLACK FRIDAY has a very strong definition. I can imagine myself hiking a wilderness trail and tenting at night but never five to seven days in front of a store!  According to the Mental Health America organization, dedicated to the study and aid of mental health, holiday stress is a widespread occurrence that plagues more of the population every year, for more time each year. In an article entitled: Survey Identifies Top Holiday Stressors, Who's Most Stressed, we are told: "Americans are stressed during the holidays, we've long known this," said David Shern. "However, on January 2, when a person may expect the stress let up, they instead find themselves feeling down, physically ill, or anxious.  This is because stress takes a serious toll on a person's overall health—both physical and mental. Hardly unique to America.” 

If there were somehow miraculously a way to transport someone from the time of the Old Testament into this conversation and he listened to me, alone, describe the stress I feel as I move closer and closer to Christmas, he would concur. I would of course first have to explain what Christmas is—namely, the remembrance of the birth of the Messiah, the day
God came among us. But at this explanation, he would immediately understand. In fact, he would find it completely remarkable if anyone should not face with stress, awe, and trembling the thought that God is coming, that God is here.

Now, of course, I am well aware that this is not why I am stressed at Christmastime. Every year for as long as I can remember, I have been, more or less, stressed at the approach of Christmas because of finances, because of family, because of the absence of family, because of over-indulgence, because I have had much to do, or because I have too little to do and feel the pointed edges of loneliness. This year, it is that I am relocating my shop, while behind on making gifts, decorating the exterior of our home with holiday curb appeal five days prior to joining our youngest daughter and family in New Jersey for an annual  week of joyful Christmas celebration, holiday pageantry and large doses of hugging around the Christmas tree.  Then it's back to Florida in time for friends and family celebration, concerts, pageantry, and gatherings. There have been times, the thought that Christmas is coming is indeed one that invoked fear, trembling, and attention, though much for all the wrong reasons.

In the times of Moses, David, and the prophets, the nearness of God awakened a sense of awe and consciousness. "Should you not fear me?" declares the LORD. "Should you not tremble in my presence?" Jeremiah 5:22.  "Woe to me!" Isaiah cried when God appeared before him. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" Isaiah 6:5. The early church, too, spoke of Christ's coming in terms of power, majesty, and the requiring of a radical response. "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty....and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place" 2 Peter 1:16-19. The coming of Christ bids, not alone me but the world to stop and take notice, to tremble at a powerful story that changed everything.

So, I ask, have I become so accustomed to the thought of God's coming at Christmas that I no longer feel the trembling of power when God comes near? Have I lost the ability to see a light shining in a dark place and by it my own impoverished reflections? Can I consider the unthinkable love of a God who comes near? Or will I see first the confining aspects of a stressful holiday and only second or not at all the coming of a child?

Ironically, the season of Advent, which in spirit is quite different than the seasonal bustle of Christmas, has been compared to living in a prison, though far from the prison-scenario I have  envisioned this time of years past. Advent envisions enslavement, but not in the lists of things that need to be done or the emotional waves of the season. It is a far more real type of confinement: the enslavement of self, the imprisonment of sin, the dependence of creatureliness.  At seventy I am once again learning that Advent envisions me waiting for the One who breaks in and sets me free. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who knew well the cold walls of a prison cell, writes this of confinement: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 224-225.

"Christ is breaking open his way to you. He wants to again soften your heart, which has become hard. In these weeks of Advent while we are waiting for Christmas, he calls to us that he is coming and that he will rescue us from the prison of our existence, from fear, guilt, and loneliness. Do you want to be redeemed? This is the one great question Advent puts before us.... But let us make no mistake about it. Redemption is drawing near. Only the question is: Will we let it come to us as well or will we resist it? Will we let ourselves be pulled into this movement coming down from heaven to earth or will we refuse to have anything to do with it? Either with us or without us, Christmas will come. It is up to each individual to decide what it will be."
 In all my preparing lists, decorating, and company on its way, Advent is reminding me that Christmas will come. Christmas will come because Christ has come, because Christ is coming. It is all up to me of what kind of reception am I going to offer when he breaks in?