Source: Christian Science Monitor

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Today is a day on which we remember an old story that just about all of us know, a story that all of us could probably tell from memory. It is a common story about a baby, some angels, a some shepherds, a pregnant teenage mother, her bizarre account of how she ended up pregnant, her confused fiancé, a few astrologers, a nervous king, a hotel with no vacancy, and the fate of the world. This is, as I said, a story we’re quite familiar with.

One of my favorite things to do as a child was listen to stories. I had several favorites. Two that I remember in particular were called Milk and Cookies and Are You My Mother? I am certain that the only other persons besides myself who remember this are my mother and maybe my teddy bear. Now don’t be deceived by the title of Milk and Cookies. This isn’t so much a story about food as it is about a baby bear visiting his grandparents’ house, terrified of a furnace in the basement that he is convinced is a dragon. Scary stuff. Likewise, Are You My Mother? is a very dramatic story about a newly-hatched bird who strays from the nest, and suffers all kinds of confusion as he attempts to identify his mother. Again, scary stuff.

As a child, I wanted to read these books all the time. Now, have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that children do this? I remember my little sister Lizzie had a favorite book when she was a kid, and my mom would read it to her all the time too. And I know of other kids that do the same thing, so it isn’t just my family. Why is it that children can watch the same movie over and over again, or read the same book every night? It isn’t bad memory. Kids know what’s coming next. They wait anxiously for their favorite parts. They mumble along with the movies, having memorized all the lines. They correct you when you misread the sentence in the book. It isn’t bad memory. It is something else.

Perhaps for those of us who aren’t children, the best analogy to this in our own lives is the music we enjoy. Sometimes we listen to the same songs over and over again. In church, we like to sing the same hymns over and over again. And when we listen to a familiar song or sing an old, familiar hymn, it isn’t because we failed to memorize the words the first few times or because we’ve not prayed that prayer before. We listen to old, familiar songs because the stories and prayers of those songs are our stories and prayers–stories that are for us abiding, prayers that faith, however weak, cannot help but pray. We listen to them for the pleasure of knowing we are not alone, that another has felt as we feel, has seen the world as we see. And we listen for the beauty and excitement of newness found in old places–the subtleties of language or sound that we never heard before but were there all along.

But then we grow up, and the old children’s book that we read so many times becomes boring to us. We forget that old movie that we so loved to watch, and it collects dust on a shelf. We hear the old song that we used to love and it fails to speak to us like it used to, and we forget why we loved it so much in the first place. We move on. And then sometimes, we return, only to move on again.

The human is a strange animal, a tragic beast. With eternity in our hearts we turn our faces towards the future, and welcome the newness of tomorrow. But like the mortals that we are, we run to the past because it is safe. But in that past we find no rest, since, as Ecclesiastes says, he has put eternity in the human heart. So with one hand we cling to what is familiar to us, and with the other we courageously reach for the unknown. Yes, indeed, we are strange animals, caught in the trap between our fear and our hope.

This is, perhaps, what it means to live meaningfully in the present: to make peace between the past and the future, to discover in the past the promises for a future that is genuinely new, that is free from being just the same thing over and over again. And perhaps courage for the future comes from looking back at the past and discovering that the surprises of the present were promised all along, that the past the the future “rhyme,” that God has been faithful all along, even through the surprises along the way.

You see, we do not turn to the past simply because it is interesting, or because we ought to for some unknown religious reasons. We do not celebrate Christmas because it keeps getting printed in the calendar every year. We turn to the past to discover yet again that our present is no surprise to God, that today was once yesterday’s future, and that yesterday God made a promise, and that because God has made a promise we may face tomorrow with courage and hope. We remember the birth of Christ because somehow in this strange story we find the meaning of all history and the promised end of every story. Indeed, in the story of Christ’s birth we are reminded that it really is a story that we’re living in, that the events of our lives, all their successes and failures, all of our hopes and fears, are not random, are not meaningless; that this story is going somewhere.

Of course, there is a problem. There’s always a problem. And this time, the problem is that it’s the past. It is a story that we already know. Every year we come to Christmas already knowing the story. For some of us, it’s the same routine with the kids in a Christmas play, some of them shepherds, some of them sheep, and some plastic doll playing baby Jesus, and this prevents our ears from hearing the story, from seeing its beauty. For others of us, the story is the Pagan origin of the Christmas holiday that somehow was hijacked by Christians hundreds of years ago, and this prevents our ears from hearing the story, from seeing its beauty. Still for others of us, this is a story of rushed shopping, credit card debt, and not knowing what to buy that loved one who already has everything they need. This too prevents our ears from hearing the story and from seeing its beauty.

Our great problem is that we need to turn to the past in order to find strength for the future. We are not freed from the trap that lies between fear and hope unless we can hear the promises that God has made to us in the past, catch glimpses of God’s faithfulness in the present, and so find the courage faith to trust God for the future. But we turn to the past, and find that the old saying is true of us: “Hearing they do not hear, and seeing they do not perceive.”

Thankfully for us, God has provided for our need. We turn to the first few words of our Scripture reading: “In the beginning…”

Saint John the Evangelist, writing this, takes the reader into the past, takes us back to these familiar words, and we are tempted to say, “Yes, John, we’ve heard this story already. We already know. ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’”

But John says, “Wait.”

“In the beginning…was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

And the reader, familiar with Genesis, would say, “John, are you telling us the same story about the history of the world?”

And John says, “Wait.”

“All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

And John says, “Yes, see, this is the same story, the story of how and why our world was created, the story of our history. The problem is that you have heard it so many times, but you have not been listening. Listen closely.”

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

Millennia after God said, “Let there be light,” John says that the “true light” was still “coming into the world.” The history that God started at the beginning already had a goal; when God spoke at the beginning and there was light, he was in that act already promising to speak again in the future, and then there would be in the world the “true light,” and this true light would not be overcome by the darkness. Already in this past, there was the promise of God’s future.

The Gospel text continues: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”

Millennia after God said, “Let us make humanity in our image,” after God made for himself a son named Adam, John says that there was one coming into the world who would give the power to others to become God’s children. And not children just because of accidental birth or the plans of parents, but because of the promise of God. According to John, when God made that first human, he was in that act already promising the coming of the true human, by whom others would become God’s children. You see, already in this past, there was the promise of the future.

And the text continues, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

This is where history was going all along. From the moment that God spoke creatively at the beginning, this same God spoke his Word of promise. It is because of that promise and absolutely no other reason that we gather today. We remember Christmas because it is the surprise that was promised all along–God’s creative Word will become flesh, will live among you, and all will see his glory, the glory of the Father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Christmas isn’t just a cute story about a baby lying in a manger, or a time to sing certain songs. When a person says “Merry Christmas,” whether or not that person realizes is, she is saying, “Have joy–God has promised, God has kept his promise, and he will continue to be faithful.”

It is only because of the baby in Bethlehem that we are freed from the trap between past and present, the trap between fear and hope. This trap either tells us that there is no hope for the future, that all that lies before us is danger and death, or it tells us that tomorrow is just going to be the same thing that happened yesterday, that nothing new is going to happen. But we have heard a better promise than that. On Christmas, we remember that the one who created our history did so by making a promise. Because God has promised, tomorrow need not be like yesterday; because he has promised, yesterday need not be forgotten.

The child in Bethlehem, born to single a teenage mother, that child was the very promise that God spoke at creation. He himself, Jesus Christ, the fragile child, a human being like you and me, is the very goal of history. By God’s grace we remember him, and we look forward to him.

To say “Merry Christmas” is to repeat the promise, “You may have peace, since in Christ God’s promise has become flesh; this is grace and truth.”

Some of us spend our lives looking for God, and to hear the words “Merry Christmas,” is to find rest from the endless quest for God. God is not far off, not beyond reach. We love to search for God, to say that we have found him; yet the greater faith waits for him, believes that he has already come near. On Christmas we remember that the one from whom we are, the one among us, the one for whom we hope, this one is intimately involved in our lives. We do not need to call loudly to him so that he can hear us in heaven. No, he comes to us, he comes as a child; he comes as the Word of promise; he comes to share with us at our table fellowship, in common things like a little piece of bread, a cup of wine. And truly, he has indeed invited us to fellowship with him at his table, to call him with Christ our Father, to be welcomed with Christ as his children. And let us not forget, he dares us to welcome one another as sisters and brothers, for in him we have one Father.

This Christmas, let us hear the story as we have never heard it before. Let us revisit that old common story that we already know, and in it find the promises for our future. Let us speak those promises to one another, reminding one another that God is not far off, that, as Saint Paul wrote, the “word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart.” This Christmas, we remember Christ, the defenseless child, because in him our story is completed, and in him we find the courage and faith to face tomorrow, to hope yet again for God’s promises.

In contrast to the arrogance, lack of relationships, and abstraction embodied in the global meltdown, we find material concreteness, relationship, and humility affirmed in the Christmas story. The story celebrates a person with a face who entered into time; it celebrates a relational, family community; and it celebrates a humble baby Jesus. Christmas is the church’s re-enacting this major chapter of the fullness of the Christian story: the story that the Word of God became flesh in the womb of a Virgin only to suffer and die an unjust death, before being raised to new life and ascending to heaven. This true story schools us in concreteness: we recall the baby in the manger in Bethlehem. It schools us in community and relationships: Jesus was born of a woman, born into an extended family, born into a neighborhood, born into a village, and born into friendships. And it schools us in humility: the birth of our Lord was a modest birth, in the humble circumstances of a migrant family. Hence, the story of Christ’s birth offers contrasting ways of imagining globalization that can lead to constructive improvisation and concrete action that is re-framed by the Christmas story. Re-enacting the Christmas drama helps us re-imagine alternative practices to the current system of global money and global capital circulation.

- From The Fullness of Time in a Flat World by Scott Waalkes, p. 69-70

Garbage City, Cairo, Egypt

Here are three moving Christmas stories to ponder about justice, hope, and peace:

1. A Prisoner’s Christmas by Yuliya Tymosjenko
Yuliya Tymoshenko, twice Prime Minister of Ukraine, and leader of Ukraine’s political opposition, is currently imprisoned in Lukyanivska Prison, Kyiv. She reflects here on the meaning of Christmas as one wrongly imprisoned for her political resistance. 

2. Christmas Amidst the Rubbish by Rich Lowry
National Review Editor, Rich Lowry, tells the story of Coptic Christians in Egypt struggling for survival in Cairo’s “Garbage City.” Lowry reflects on how Christmas is about seeing the world from below.

3. Christmas Eve, 1914 – It Started in Ypres by Gabriel Gadfly
Poet Gabriel Gadfry’s poem about one of my favorite Christmas stories—a miraculous truce that occurred Christmas day 1914, in the trenches of World War 1.  You can read more about this amazing story on Wikipedia as well.

Christmas is the promise that the God who came in history and comes daily in mystery will one day come in glory. God is saying in Jesus that in the end everything will be all right. Nothing can harm you permanently, no suffering is irrevocable, no loss is lasting, no defeat is more than transitory, no disappointment is conclusive. Jesus did not deny the reality of suffering, discouragement, disappointment, frustration, and death; he simply stated that the Kingdom of God would conquer all of these horrors, that the Father’s love is so prodigal that no evil could possibly resist it.

-  From Reflections for Ragamuffins by Brennan Manning
Used in A Guide for Prayer for All Who Seek God, p. 27

]]> http://jeffreygang.com/2011/12/16/sabbath-in-the-burbs-13/feed/ 0 http://jeffreygang.com/2009/12/28/is-n-t-wright-a-grinch/ http://jeffreygang.com/2009/12/28/is-n-t-wright-a-grinch/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:44:54 +0000 Jeff Gang http://jeffreygang.com/?p=342 Here’s an interesting blog post about N.T. Wright’s take on Christmas based on the hymns we sing during the season. I came across it thanks to a number of RT’s on Twitter. It’s by Peter Leithart at the CREDENDAagenda blog. A really good read. I couldn’t agree with Wright (and Leithart) more.  You can read his post here. Here’s the punchline for me if you don’t have time to read the whole thing:

What does Simeon sing about?  When he takes the infant Jesus into his arms, he blessed God: “Let your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation.”  And what is that?  Access to heaven?  Forgiveness of sins?  No: “the light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

The angelic hymn to the shepherds should be understood in that context.  Peace on earth is not some lefty pipe dream.  It’s the promise of peace for Israel, and therefore peace for the nations.

Now, those sound like our Advent hymns, not our Christmas hymns.  And they sound like the kind of Christmas hymns that N. T. Wright might have written.  As it turns out, Wright is no Grinch.  He didn’t steal Christmas.  What he stole was a false Christmas, a de-contextualized and apolitical Christmas.  But we shouldn’t have bought that Christmas in the first place, and should have been embarrassed to display it so proudly on the mantle.  Good riddance, and Bah humbug.

I suggest a moratorium on new Christmas hymns, until we all learn the Magnificat and the Benedictus and the Nunc Dimittis so much by heart that they seep out our fingers at the keyboard, until we instinctively sing of Jesus’ birth like Mary, like Zecharias, like Simeon.

- Peter Leithhart, Did N.T. Wright Steal Christmas?

John Chrysostom, 4th C.

Here’s one of the earliest recorded Christmas sermons from one of the greatest preachers in the history of Christianity, John Chrysostom. It comes to me via way of the Spectrum blog, via way of Tony Jones‘ blog—they both provide some good introductory context. Here’s one of my favorite paragraphs:

What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infants bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness.

Go here for the post in the Spectrum blog.

Go here for the post in Tony Jones’ blog.

Gabriel visits Mary

Here’s a good quote for Advent from J.B. Philips (I don’t know the source but I found it on the Christian Prayers and Worship site, inspired by the Celtic Christian Church):

“If New Testament Christianity is to reappear today with its power and joy and courage, men [and women] must recapture the basic conviction that this is a Visited planet. It is not enough to express formal belief in the “Incarnation” or in the “Divinity of Christ”; the staggering truth must be accepted afresh — that in this vast, mysterious universe, of which we are an almost infinitesimal part, the great Mystery, Whom we call God, has visited our planet in Person. It is from this conviction that there springs unconquerable certainty and unquenchable faith and hope. It is not enough to believe theoretically that was both God and Man; not enough to admire, respect, and even worship Him; it is not even enough to try to follow Him. The reason for the insufficiency of these things is that the modern intelligent mind, which has had its horizons widened in dozens of different ways, has got to be shocked afresh by the audacious central Fact — that, as a sober matter of history, God became one of us.”