As I stood there in the middle of the street admiring the curb appeal in the Nativity
“blow-up display,” it seemed abit disconceting; the child in the scene is not
quite the focal point that I intended; the fact hit me that the story of my spiritual
life is a story filled with nativity scenes.
In those stories, I have found a
God who was present before I have accomplished anything and longing to gather me
long before I knew it. Thus David can pray, "For you created my inmost
being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am
fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full
well." And God can say to the prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed you
in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you
as a prophet to the nations." And those who witnessed the miracle of
Elizabeth and Zechariah can rightly exclaim God's hand upon the child before
that child could say his own name: "The neighbors were all filled with
awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea
people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this
wondered about it, asking, 'What then is this child going to be?' For the
Lord's hand was with him." Psalm
139:13-14, Jeremiah 1:5, Luke 1:65-66.
In a world where significance and identity are earned by what I do, by what I
have accomplished, by what I own, and Christmas is about the lines I fought,
the lists I finished, the gifts I was able to secure, the kingdom of God
arrives scandalously, jarringly—even offensively—into my captive and often
content life. In this kingdom, my personal value begins before I have said or
done the right things, before I have accumulated the right lifestyle, or even
made the right lists. In this kingdom, God not only uses my infancy in the
story of salvation, not only called me to embrace the kingdom as a little
child, but so the very God of creation steps into the world as a
child.
Children are not usually the main characters in the stories I tell, (unless they are my
grandchildren “stars”) yet the story of Christmas begins and ends with a child
most don't quite know what to do with. Here, a vulnerable baby in a stable
of animals breaks in as the harbinger of good news, the fulfillment of all the
law and the prophets, the anointed leader who comes to set the captives
free—wrapped in rags and resting in a manger. Coming as a child, God radically
draws near, while at the same time radically overthrowing our conceptions of
status, worth, power, and authority. Jesus is crowned king long before he can
sit in a throne. He begins overturning idols and upsetting social order long
before he can even speak.
If truth be told, perhaps I feel a certain delight when I meet someone who’s
birthday is at Christmas time because it is the season in which it is most
appropriate—and most hopeful—to remember my fragility, my dependency, and the
great reversal of the kingdom of God: For God chose what is foolish in the
world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the
strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27. I'm thinking now, as I write that Advent, like childhood, reminds me that I am
in need of someone to hold me. Shamelessly, when my maternal grandfather used to do so; just out of pure joy and love of me. It also reminds me that, like the baby in a Bethlehem stable, I too am
somewhat out of place, homeless and longing, not morbidly, for my eternal home. The image of a tearful
baby in a manager is a picture of God in his most shocking, unbefitting
state—the Most High becoming the lowest, the face of God wrapped tightly in a
young girl's arms.
How true that to be human is to be implicitly religious, for even within my
most deeply felt needs for love and refuge, I am reminded that there is one who
comes so very far to meet me. Inherent in my most vulnerable days is the hope
that God, too, took on the despairing quality of fragility in order to offer
the hope of wholeness. In my most weakened state of despair and shortcoming,
Christ breaks in and shows the paradoxical power of God in an unlikely nativity
scene on my front lawn . Glory to God in the lowest, indeed.
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?
