The Annunciation to the Shepherds. Joachim Wtewael
The story of Jesus has no bite. A tame “baby Jesus” makes his annual, heart-warming appearance, and leaves us largely un-bothered and un-changed. Yet when I read the two Gospel accounts, I am struck by how strange these narratives are, unsettling and fantastical at every corner.
• W. David O. Taylor
• • •
Thank you, David O. Taylor, assistant professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, for putting it so bluntly.
In a piece in the Washington Post, Taylor calls the biblical Christmas stories “weird,” “incredible,” “bizarre,” “unsettling,” “fantastical,” “strange,” “disturbingly odd,” “decidedly troubling,” and “terrifying yet life-giving.”
And he criticizes the church and our cultural institutions for taming and sanitizing them.
One would scarcely know how bizarre these narratives are, in fact, by the activities of artists and advertisers, along with plenty of churches, during the Christmas holidays.
Artists will extract portions of the story, tidy them up, set them to pop or hip hop or classical music, then allow radio stations to play it to death. Grocery stores will play it to a second death. Gas stations will complete the cycle by turning the songs into dismissible clichés.
Sermons, for their part, will rehash the stock details of the gospels, with the hope that parishioners will feel the “magic” or “mystery” of Christ’s birth.
Church pageants will trot out the cute kids in bathrobes, a pretty girl will play Mary, while an awkward Joseph remains forgettable, and an angel-child will belt out the good news to shepherd boys dragging their broom-sticks, eyes wandering over to the cookie table, even as the violins reach their sentimental climax.
iPhones will record the whole business for posterity, so that parishioners will remember how cute and sweet the drama was, even if the actual birth narratives are decidedly troubling and incredible.
I find myself in the same position as he reports: “Year after year, then, I find myself desperate for the church to confront me with that strangeness.”
If the story were truly told, in all its bizarre glory, Taylor says, we might see that, in the coming of Jesus, God is offering us hope instead of good cheer, joy that accounts for suffering rather than mere happiness, and the kind of love “that bears all things, including death and the loss of privileges, so that the faithful might become agents of the kind of shalom that Jesus exhibits…”
He imagines how this might be so, suggesting that we might encourage artists to present us with images, literature, dramatic pieces, and music that show the true human pain revealed in the Christmas narratives: things like the agony of infertility, poverty and peasant life in the Middle East, shame, doubt and social stigma, injustice, political intrigue and persecution, human fascination with astrology and “foreign” beliefs, and the anguished questions of parents who lose innocent children to cruelty and violence.
What if churches, he asks, focused on characters like Simeon and Anna and presented the long-suffering and patience of the elderly whose hopes have been deferred for years?
What if worship leaders gave space in services for people to share their experiences of pain and doubt, travail and suffering?
What if artists were commissioned to create pieces that evoke the terrifying sight of angelic visitations instead of the prettified “Precious Moments” angels that “touch” us so gently?
David O. Taylor asks:
Might such artworks provide us the capacity to live more faithfully in the actual conditions and contexts of our lives? Might they enable the birth narratives of Christ to become fresh again with insight and sharp with tension, for the sake of a new kind of “Christmas in America”?
And might such a Christmas contribute to the healing of our broken world, a world marked by infertility, divorce, doubt, shame, violence, abandonment and strange dreams?
Once I preached in my home church using the ancient carol, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” I noted how we so often sell short the song’s repeated refrain: “O tidings of comfort and joy.” It usually evokes in me warm images and feelings of Victorian seasonal festivity, good cheer and contentment.
However, the true “tidings” that proclaim “comfort and joy” are the tidings of the gospel, the good news that — as the carol says — frees us all from Satan’s pow’r and creates a new world where God makes things right in Christ. These are the tidings of Mary’s Magnificat: casting down the powers that rule over and enslave us and raising the dead to life.
By domesticating the “tidings of comfort and joy” that this season proclaims, we rob ourselves — and our world — of what we need most.
David O. Taylor is absolutely right. The biblical birth narratives are weird and incredible. We can (and must) stop sanitizing them.
Tonight, in our traditional Christmas Eve candlelight service we will sing Silent Night, along with people all around the world. What’s special in 2018 is that it marks the 200th anniversary of the singing of this matchless Christmas hymn on this night. In fact, our entire service will be formed around its message and its themes.
Here is a CBS Sunday Morning overview of Silent Night and its history:
And here is Silent Night as sung in its original language by the Dresden Choir.
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht!
Alles schläft, einsam wacht
Nur das traute, hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh,
Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh.
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht!
Hirten erst kundgemacht,
Durch der Engel Halleluja.
Tönt es laut von fern und nah:
Christ, der Retter ist da,
Christ, der Retter ist da!
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht!
Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht
Lieb aus deinem göttlichen Mund,
Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund,
Christ, in deiner Geburt,
Christ, in deiner Geburt.
Sermon: Advent IV
Mary, Mother of God and Ultimate Matriarch of Our Faith (Luke 1:39-55)
• • •
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed…
• Luke 1:48
It’s that time of year again. Time for we who are Protestants to talk about Mary.
Unlike our Catholic or Orthodox brothers and sisters, we who come from the Evangelical and Reformed traditions tend to ignore or downplay Jesus’ mother. In church history that has mostly been a reaction to what many of us have perceived as an overemphasis or even heretical devotion to Mary by the Roman church and other traditions.
In the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, Mary receives attention all throughout the year in various ways. However, for children of the Reformation, the Advent and Christmas season is one of the few times we hear her name or think of her story.
But the Gospel of Luke will not let us ignore Mary or downplay her part in the unfolding drama of redemption. As he tells his story, Luke gives her great honor, portraying her as the ultimate matriarch of our faith. Mary joins and surpasses other women of faith in the Bible — Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah, Ruth, and Hannah — and is presented as the final Mother of God’s promises, the faithful woman through whom God brought his redemption promises to pass.
Mary’s song here in Luke 1, known as The Magnificat, draws from the song of another woman who bore an important child. Her name was Hannah, and her story and song is found in the early chapters of 1 Samuel. Hannah gave birth to the great prophet Samuel and then sang a song in which she praised God for the gift of a son and the greater promise of a king for Israel. That promise came to pass in King David. Later God reiterated that promise and said David’s line would produce a future King of kings. “The Lord will judge the ends of the earth,” Hannah sang, “He will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his Messiah.”
Mary’s song here in Luke 1 revisits these same themes. She praises God for giving his son, the greater son of David, who will reign as King over all the earth. Her words recognize that what God is doing in and through her is nothing less than the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, that through his offspring all the nations on earth will be blessed. The part she plays is so significant that she sings, “Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.”
Mary’s unprecedented blessedness happens in a context of significant obstacles. All the stories of the matriarchs in the Bible have this theme.
Think again of women like Sarah, Rachel, Tamar, Rahab, or Ruth. They suffered the inability to conceive children. They had conflicts within their families. They had to endure poverty. Some of them were marked by society with sinful reputations. All of them lacked power and were marginalized in their male-dominated societies. All of these women, these mothers who bore God’s children of promise and advanced his plan of redemption fought serious uphill battles and had to learn through much hardship and heartbreak to trust God to work in their lives.
And here we have Mary, another unlikely candidate to be one of God’s heroines. Think of it:
Mary was probably a young teenager at the time, limited by her age.
Her pregnancy before marriage marked her as an immoral, unwed mother-to-be.
She was forced to travel to Bethlehem in the last days of her pregnancy by the decree of an unfeeling government that cared only about keeping its records straight.
Away from her home and family, Mary could not even obtain a comfortable place to bear her child.
A short time later, according to Matthew’s Gospel, she and Joseph and young child had to hit the road again, this time as refugees to Egypt, running for their lives.
Finally, as we read the ongoing stories of Mary throughout the Gospel, we see that she struggled to grasp the magnitude of what had happened to her and the significance of the one she bore.
Despite all these difficulties, Mary continued in faith to the end.
Many times throughout her life, the powers of the world overshadowed, pressured, and threatened this woman. Yet in her song here Mary expresses what people of faith in all generations have learned — God is not with those who wield earthly power. His heart is with those who look to him in simple faith and entrust their destiny to him.
Mary is the true and ultimate matriarch of our faith. Though there are many women saints in the Bible, she excels them all. Every generation should call her uniquely blessed. How sad that our discussions about Mary have so often focused on dogma and disagreement when there is so much we can admire about Mary together. I agree with my friend, NT scholar Scot McKnight, who says that honoring and respecting Mary always leads us to Jesus.
Martin Luther honored Mary highly. He held her in high esteem for her role in God’s salvation plan. Though he had many objections to Catholic teachings and practices, he continued to hold beliefs about Mary that many Protestants have rejected as Catholic additions, such as Mary’s immaculate conception and perpetual virginity. Luther venerated Mary as the Theotokos (The Mother of God), and said that Christians should likewise consider her their “spiritual Mother.”
Luther called Mary the
…highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ . . . She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. (Sermon, Christmas, 1531)
And so, as we prepare for the Feast of the Nativity, when we welcome the Holy Child Mary bore, may God grant us grace to give also special honor to his Mother, and may we learn follow her example of faith, contemplation, and worship not only at Christmas, but throughout the year to come. Amen.
It’s the feast before the Feast, on this “Christmastime is here” edition of the Saturday Monks Brunch. Hope many will start the day with us before rushing out to complete their last minute shopping and getting the house ready for the annual family invasion on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Grab a coffee and a place at the table. There’s plenty to chew on here today.
• • •
Keeping “X” in Xmas
How unaware of church history are American evangelicals? Look no further than Xmas.
Griffin Paul Jackson’s article at Christianity Today notes that “Nearly 6 in 10 of those with evangelical beliefs (59%) find the use of “X-mas” instead of Christmas offensive.” This, despite the fact that the “X” in Xmas represents a thoroughly Christian symbol that has been used by believers for centuries. Since the days of Constantine, the Greek letter chi (X), which is the first letter of the Greek word Christos, has been used as a shorthand for Christ. Combined with the second letter (Greek rho, or R), it became a traditional sign of the faith.
In fact, there are even earlier instances — including some in the New Testament itself — where “X” was used as a substitute for writing out the entire title.
Another small instance of Christian silliness destroyed just by a little understanding of our past.
• • •
“Christmas” and “Nativity”
Here’s another enlightening historical article, also at Christianity Today. In his piece, “Why Putting Christ Back in Christmas Is Not Enough,” W. David O. Taylor traces how our American Christmas tradition has developed from
…four fundamental influences: the legal actions of Puritans in the 17th-century, the domestic celebrations of Queen Victoria, the publication of a Charles Dickens novel, and the work of poets and painters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Instead of being shaped by the actual stories of Christmas in the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke, therefore, our cultural celebration has almost entirely displaced the actual narratives and themes of Christmas. As Taylor says,
Because the story of “Christmas in America” is bound up with fundamental American myths, like baseball and apple pie, the difficult details of the Nativity narratives get swallowed up and repurposed by the nostalgic story of Americans at Christmastime.
What I like most about Taylor’s article is that his suggestions for dealing with this aren’t bluntly separatistic but nuanced and wise. He commends much associated with the “American” Christmas as positive and wholesome. We don’t have to fight against our cultural celebration or try to inject Christ into it. Let it be. And enjoy.
Enjoy it for both personal and missional reasons. Enjoy the twinkling lights that dot your neighborhood. Take pleasure in making the sugar cookies and homemade wreaths. Have a good laugh, or a good cry, by rewatching A Charlie Brown Christmas. Listen to your Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey records.
Enjoy them because the grace and goodness of God are not absent from these things. Enjoy them because we are always, as Augustine might say, citizens of two cities. Enjoy them because they become a way for us to be wholly present to the lives—and longings—of our neighbors.
But he also encourages us not to mistake “Christmas” for “The Feast of the Nativity.” That’s the Christmas that starts on Christmas Day, not the one that ends with gift wrap flying.
• • •
SUBLIME: Song for the Refugee King
Away from the manger they ran for their lives
The crying boy Jesus, a son they must hide
A dream came to Joseph, they fled in the night
And they ran and they ran and they ran
No stars in the sky but the Spirit of God
Led down into Egypt from Herod to hide
No place for his parents no country or tribe
And they ran and they ran and they ran
Stay near me Lord Jesus when danger is nigh
And keep us from Herods and all of their lies
I love the Lord Jesus, the Refugee King
And we sing and we sing and we sing
Alleluia
The singer and YouTube sensation LadBaby (real name Mark Hoyle) went to #1 on the UK Christmas song singles chart with We Built This City, a cover of the track by Starship. But where the 1980s glam rock band sang of a city built on rock’n’roll, LadBaby’s version imagines one built on pork-stuffed pastry.
All proceeds from the sale of the track are being donated to The Trussell Trust, a foodbank charity.
An article at BMJ wonders if the messages our Christmas (and other) greeting cards are promoting unhealthy behavior.
Sir Henry Cole is widely credited with “inventing” the first Christmas card in the UK in 1843. [1] His friend John Horsley was the illustrator and each card sold for one shilling in his first card run of approximately 1000 cards.
The first Christmas card was also controversial and unpopular with some people as the illustration depicted a scene showing people drinking, and included a young child being given a glass of wine (figure), but it heralded the beginning of an industry that in 2016 had grown to one billion cards sold in the UK alone annually.
175 years after Sir Henry Cole’s first card, the depiction of alcohol on greeting cards is commonplace, and while they may not depict children drinking, the messages they promote about drinking are still controversial.
…The idea that excess drinking as shown on many greeting cards cards is normal, enjoyable, and to be encouraged is at variance with public health messages. In 2016 new guidance was issued which recommended “that it is best, if you do drink as much as 14 units per week, to spread this evenly over three days or more.”
• • •
Christmas Quotes for Cynics
“Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.” (Victor Borge)
“Christmas is a time when everybody wants his past forgotten and his present remembered.” (Phyllis Diller)
“Next to a circus there ain’t nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.” (Frank McKinney Hubbard)
“Christmas is a state of mind and that special feeling that only comes with an empty bank account.” (Melanie White)
“That’s the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me.” (Jerry Seinfeld)
“Let’s be naughty and save Santa the trip.” (Gary Allan)
“Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it.” (Richard Lamm)
“I love Christmas. I receive a lot of wonderful presents I can’t wait to exchange.” (Henny Youngman)
“I was going to exchange my brother one time after Christmas, but my mom would never tell me where he came from.” (Melanie White)
“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together. (Garrison Keillor)
When I was 5, my mom asked me if I wanted to help her write holiday cards to people in prison who had been raped behind bars. She didn’t say it like that, of course, because I didn’t know what prison or rape was.
Instead, she told me that there were thousands of ladies and gentlemen who were spending Christmas alone, unable to leave their rooms as they pleased, and that other people had been really mean to them.
I can’t remember which I thought was worse — to be forced to stay in my room or to be mistreated. But either way, I agreed to help my mom.
I am 13 now, and I still write holiday cards to people in prison. It’s really fun to think of nice things to say to people you’ve never met. I always try to imagine what I would want to hear if I was forced to be away from my family and was being treated poorly. I would be terrified, sad and worried that nobody remembered that I existed.
I usually end up writing something simple, like “I care about you,” or “We will not forget you.” And then I make colorful little drawings of flowers or Christmas trees or smiley faces or fruit. I know that those silly drawings make people really happy; there isn’t much color in prison.
The holiday cards make some prisoners smile. Others cry because they didn’t think people on the outside cared about what was happening to them. I know this because Just Detention International, the organization that passes my cards along (and also where my mom works) has showed me many of the responses it gets from the cards it sends around. When I was a little kid, I thought that was so amazing to be able to make grown-ups smile and cry.
…Even for those of us not in prison, it’s been a pretty hard year. Everyone seems angry and afraid. But it’s not all bad. We can still choose to be kind and do something nice for someone else, someone we don’t even know — and we’ll feel better about ourselves as a result.
I write Christmas cards to prisoners. I hope you do something that makes you and another person feel good this holiday season.
• Sofia Robinson
• • •
A Favorite Traditional Christmas Album
My favorite classical singer of all time is Kathleen Battle, and her Christmas album, A Christmas Celebration, is a perennial must-listen for me. As you prepare to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, enjoy these magnificent, inspiring performances.
There are a hundred billion snowflakes swirling in the cosmic storm
And each one is a galaxy, a billion stars or more
And each star is a million earths, a giant fiery sun
High up in the sky, maybe shining on someone
And deep inside a snowflake, I am floating quietly
I am infinitesimal, impossible to see
Sitting in my tiny kitchen, in my tiny home
Staring out my window at a universe of snow
But my soul is so much bigger than the very tiny me
It reaches out into the snowstorm like a net into the sea
Out to all the lovely places where my body cannot go
I touch that beauty and embrace it in the bosom of my soul
And so brief and fleeting is this tiny life of mine
Like a single quarter note in the march of time
But my soul is like the music, it goes back to ancient days
Back before it wore a human face, long before it bore my name
Because my soul is so much older than the evanescent me
It can describe the dawn of time like a childhood memory
It is a spark that was begotten of the darkness long ago
What my body has forgotten I remember in my soul
So we live this life together, my giant soul and tiny me
One resembling forever, one like smoke upon the breeze
One the deep abiding ocean, one a sudden flashing wave
And counting galaxies like snowflakes, I would swear we were the same
Oh my soul belongs to beauty, takes me up to lofty heights
Teaches sacred stories to me, sanctifies my tiny life
Lays a bridge across the ages, melts the boundaries of my bones
Paints a bold eternal face on this passing moment — oh my soul!
Part 1, The Language of Mathematics, Chapter 1: This Chapter Has No Title
By Andy Walsh
We are going to blog through the book, “Faith Across the Multiverse, Parables from Modern Science” by Andy Walsh. Today is Part 1, The Language of Mathematics, Chapter 1: This Chapter Has No Title. Walsh begins by talking about paradox. He notes many people find the idea of paradox off-putting and aesthetically irksome, to the point that they refuse to acknowledge true paradox and attempt to resolve them to one end or the other. Walsh finds paradox to be illuminating because they invite us to closely examine what it is we really mean by a statement and each of its parts. Are we making assumptions that we don’t even realize? Perhaps what we think is a paradox is really a failure to understand reality from the right perspective.
When faith is set at odds with science, it usually is defined as unquestioning acceptance of dogma, or belief in the face of contrary evidence. When that definition is set up, you have a situation where boundaries are drawn so that faith can only ever be false because anything true would automatically belong to science. Walsh says:
Dogma is a product of religion, but I don’t have faith in a religion, I practice a religion because I have faith in God. Dogma is certainly up for questioning; no less a champion of faith than Jesus challenged the dogma of his day. And Jesus did not ask us to have faith in God regardless of evidence; he presented himself as evidence of God and his nature.
And that, he says, is where math comes in. Math encourages precise definitions of abstract concepts in order to clearly reason about them and their properties. Right? But, nevertheless, we have to choose a small number of statements we assume are true rather than proving them via the rules. These assumed truths are called axioms. The intention is to choose axioms so obvious and self-evident that no one would deny them. Unfortunately, self-evident has proven to be a somewhat slippery. Arithmetic, algebra, calculus, and other widely used mathematical machinery have been developed incrementally as needed, often to solve challenges in practical fields like engineering or architecture. They were not constructed from axioms initially. Thus the goal was to find the right axioms that would bring forth all the familiar math we wanted and none of the paradoxes we didn’t. A set of axioms and the math constructed from them that met these criteria would be considered complete.
However, here is where it gets interesting, not only did the proposed basis for math fail to be proven complete, it was actually proven incomplete; some questions were demonstrably unanswerable.
Kurt Godel- Here is the guy who proved that, in mathematics, it is impossible to prove everything.
Here’s Walsh’s explanation:
A simplified explanation of the proof of incompleteness is that you can create an expression whose meaning is essentially, “This expression cannot be proved.” And yet, since it is built up from proven expressions according to the rules of the language, it should be considered proved. In other words, what was proved was the unprovability of the statement. This essentially rendered that expression undecidable, meaning there is no way to know if it is true or false, given the axioms we chose. That doesn’t mean that in some absolute sense, it is neither true nor false; it just means we cannot prove it either way. Thus this system of axioms and formal language doesn’t get rid of our undecidable paradoxes.
Okay, John Barry, sit down right here and breathe into this paper bag for a few minutes. Ya alright, buddy? Let’s move on. Geometry provides another conundrum with no definitive answer. The fifth axiom of geometry defines two lines as parallel if they both intersect a third line at right angles. Picture football goalposts; the two uprights intersect the crossbar at right angles and so are parallel.
If you keep extending those goal posts uprights, they will never meet or cross; the official rules of football rely on this property. However, when we draw a globe, the lines of longitude all meet at the poles, even though they intersect the equator at right angles. Maybe parallel lines can intersect?
Where is Walsh going with all this? If one cannot prove or decide all questions of interest in rigorously and narrowly defined fields such as mathematics, maybe we shouldn’t expect to construct a complete and incontrovertible framework for understanding the entire world from first principles. Taking a cue from mathematics, we can switch instead to considerations of usefulness. If math can function without being able to prove everything perhaps other domains can as well.
What if we take belief in the God of the Bible to be axiomatic? Walsh asks the question, that instead of defining faith in terms of dogma or rejection of evidence, we instead say faith is choosing a set of assumptions, or axioms, for understanding the world. Assuming God rather than proving him might seem like a dodge to the requirement that we provide evidence. But if axioms cannot themselves be proven; as with pudding, the proof is in the tasting. Walsh is primarily interested with what conclusions follow from my belief in God and how useful they are in my real life.
The idea that God is not a provable conclusion but an axiomatic assertion, and just one possible axiom among several alternatives is obviously going to be uncomfortable for some believers, but isn’t the idea consistent with what the Bible says in many places? Psalm 34:8, “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” How about the refrain in Ecclesiastes (1:2) “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Rather than descend into nihilism, he ultimately choose to build a framework for understanding the world and living in it based on a belief in God, not out of the logical undeniablity of the premise, but because he found a life so constructed to be fruitful. In the parables, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God that follows from his view of the world, and invites us to be part of that kingdom. This is an appeal to the usefulness of his assumptions, not their completeness.
If thinking in terms of axioms and theorems is uncomfortable and difficult, then consider a game of chess instead. In chess, we have starting positions for all the pieces (axioms) and rules for how those pieces can be moved. Different arrangements of pieces on the board are like theorems; if you can get to a given arrangement by following the rules from the starting positions, then it is valid or true. There are many, many possible board positions, enough that you could play for your whole lifetime and not see them all. And yet they were all there in the rules, just waiting to be played out.
So when can you say you know the game of chess? Once you have learned where all the pieces start and how they move? Walsh notes you are not much of a chess player if that is the extent of your experiences with the game. The only way to acquire the skills of a grandmaster is to spend many hours playing. That is how one comes to know chess. Walsh says:
Translating that to our definition of faith as choosing God for an axiom, we see that the book of James says something very similar. “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works?” (James 2:14). In our terms, choosing the axiom of faith is not enough to know God; it is simply a prerequisite. Knowing God is the process of taking that axiom and figuring out what truths it contains. That means playing the game—living your life according to the theorems, the true statements that follow from belief in God. This is what James means by showing faith through works, and what separates knowing God from knowing of God, which, as James notes in verse 19, even the demons know of God.
This is no time for a child to be born, With the earth betrayed by war and hate And a comet slashing the sky to warn That time runs out and the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born, In a land in the crushing grip of Rome; Honour and truth were trampled by scorn– Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born? The inn is full on the planet earth, And by the comet the sky is torn– Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
I would suggest that aesthetics have much to do with the answer to that question. The lead-up to Christmas and its celebration is made sensible to us by means of the things we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch at this time of year.
Spiritual truth comes out of the closet of the abstract and makes itself real to us through our bodily, sensory experiences during the holidays.
God in heaven becomes incarnate in Bethlehem. Word becomes flesh.
We shiver at the chill. We grow warm by the fire.
We smell the pungent dung of the stable. And fragrant bows from the pine.
The song of the angels fills our ears. And the voices of children.
Our gaze is transfixed upon a newborn Baby.
We relish the special feasts we share with one another, as the Baby suckles his Mother’s breast.
Gifts are exchanged, hand to hand, paper ripped open and flung aside amid squeals of delight and smiles, tears, hugs, acknowledged later with handwritten thank-you notes.
It is not simply the Christmas “spirit” but the lived experiences of Christmas that we treasure.
All of our traditions and practices, the idiosyncratic celebrations of our families, and the special events in our churches, schools and communities take place in space and time in the lives of boys and girls and men and women of flesh and blood. We hold up our candles in the darkness and await the moment when “the dawn from on high will break upon us.”
Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day, Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom angels fall before, The ox and ass and camel which adore.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air; But His mother only, in her maiden bliss, Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
(Christina Rosetti)
Hear this marvelous testimony from Eric Gill. Don’t get sidetracked and focus only on the specific path he chose (Catholicism), but hear the larger message he brings:
I became a Catholic because I fell in love with the truth. And love is an experience. I saw. I heard. I felt. I tasted. I touched. And that is what lovers do.
Oh, that we, in all our faith traditions, might learn this. There is no “spiritual” faith. What God has given us is bodies, by which we receive his gifts. The path leads from the outside in, and not vice versa. To reach our hearts, he took on flesh.
We instinctively know this in the season around Christmas.
My prayer is that we will know it in all the gracious seasons of life.
Several years ago, we began another tradition that has proven to be one of the highlights of Christmas for us: the reading of the unedited, uncorrected “Letters to Santa” printed in our local newspaper. The authors are local 2nd graders, and these letters, read dramatically, are absolutely the biggest laugh you can possibly imagine.
This year a boy asked for seven different kinds of carrots. Another child told Santa that last year’s situation of watching his brother get more toys simply couldn’t be repeated. They want lots of real guns, real four wheelers, and camouflage outfits. Second graders. This is Clay County, Kentucky, after all.
One child refused to write to Santa, instead writing to mom and dad and lecturing the teacher on the evils of believing in this sort of thing. (Some of my TR readers will be greatly pleased with this child.) Another child promised to leave spaghetti and sauce on the table, a real break from milk and cookies. I sense the influence of dad in that one.
Of course, most letters contained recitations of personal virtue and a summary record of good deeds. The words “very good” get quite a workout. One child said very 8 times in a row. OK. I get it.
On the other hand, a rare fellow said “Santa, would you check and see if I am on the naughty list? I think I am on the naughty list. I’m always getting into things I shouldn’t be getting into.” Now there’s a young person with the right idea.
I read these letters and I recall my own childhood. I vividly remember how Christmas would come and bring hope that, finally, dad would say yes instead of no. Finally, being poor wouldn’t be the reason I couldn’t have what other kids had. In that last week of the year, things would change and everything would be alright.
The myth of Santa Claus gripped me deeply and still affects me emotionally to this day. You see, there are other things in those children’s letters that I am not reading to you. If you know our area and culture, and if you read carefully, you will hear the story of poverty, broken families, absent parents, substance abuse and despair that lives in the hollers and off the highways of Appalachia. You will hear, in those letters to Santa, the human prayer that somehow, at the end of the year, all will be right again. That broken, ruined, imperfect lives will be touched with love and magic. Don’t we all know that letter? Don’t we all know that story?
We are, as human beings, an unfinished story, and we yearn for the last chapter to be written so that everything comes out all right.
We are a child without shoes, and we long to be clothed.
We are discordant notes, aching for resolution.
We are listening to the song of the angels, and we can hear the words “peace on earth,” but we cannot touch those angels and know that they, and their message, are real.
We are hoping, yearning, aching for a savior. Not often for THE savior, at least not most of us. But for a savior. For someone to come and say the cancer is gone. Someone to bring shoes, or a job. Someone to put us to bed without fighting, or let us hear the words “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
We are hoping that just beyond this life, we can touch another life. A life where so much isn’t wrong, and our hunger for happiness will not be constantly disappointed.
We are so close. So close we can see and hear and feel the perfect world in the faces of children, at weddings, when choirs sing, in movies and at meals. But we cannot reach that perfect world.
It is frustrating to not be able to go beyond the door; to be so close, yet so far.
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