To use this as a take-home service for Christmas Day, follow the red.
I have a stupid tree this year. It looked so
great at the lot, the guy held it up and it was glorious and full, the perfect
tree. We debated between two, and finally chose this one for being even more
perfect than the other one.
But we got it home, and it turns out it
doesn’t sit right in the tree stand. It has this thick branch too low down but
hacking it off would leave a huge bald spot on the bottom so we left it on. And
it was too tall, so we had to saw off the tip of the top with a meat knife and
jam the star on the sticky, prickly nubs.
The lights just didn’t go on well; they are clumped in some parts and
missing in others, and a few days after its arrival it became the setting of an
epic stuffed animal battle so there are bent branches and still the occasional
stuffed dog or hamster forgotten deep in the branches. But even if all these
things were fixed, it turns out that the trunk itself has a weird bend in it,
so it leans dramatically to the side no matter how much time we spend
rearranging it, and we’ve spent far too much time rearranging it.
Usually this time of year I love getting up in
the early morning and turning on the tree. I will sit by the fireplace, the
room lit by the tree’s soft glow, and feel peaceful and hopeful. This year I wake up and sit with my coffee
glaring at this belligerent mess, brazenly slouching against my wall like it’s
trying to pick a fight. I wanted to love this tree, even ironically, but I
can’t muster anything but irritation for it.
It is not cooperating with my plans.
Apparently I expect Christmas to make me feel
cozy, sentimental and serene. But to be honest, I’m not sure Christmas can take
the pressure this year. And my tree leans defiantly in my constant
sightline as an irksome reminder that things are not quite right.
Today people are going to sit around not
quite perfect trees, eating not quite perfect food, opening not quite perfect
gifts, having not quite perfect conversations.
And between the joyful moments of laughter and connection, for lots of reasons,
lots of people will also be feeling mixed up, anxious, and sad, and then
they’ll chide themselves for not being in “the Christmas spirit,” even though
the weather isn’t really in the Christmas spirit either.
Christmas is not cooperating with our plans
for it.
But guess what? Neither does the first
Christmas, actually.
And neither does God, almost never, in fact.
So let’s step out of a shallow dependence on
holiday cheer, and into a different story, one that has very little to do with
a jolly version of Christmas contentment -
God’s story of deep darkness pierced by unquenchable light, of
expectations thwarted and salvation glimpsed, of love born into in a tense and
weary world.
Read Isaiah 9:2-7
Write on a bit of paper, Where do I want God to come in? Collect and set aside.
We all belong to God, and we all belong to each
other. This isn’t trite and shallow: a plea to “just be
nice,” or a campaign slogan lying in a muddy puddle under people’s departing
feet.
It is the very lifeblood of it all.
And it looks like this: Mary, Don’t be afraid; You belong to God. So does the whole world and everyone in
it. Because this is so, God is coming to
share life with us, to set us free from everything that tells us
otherwise. And you, Mary, are going to
be part of this. Don’t worry about how
it will happen; it will break every rule, because God loves to do impossible
things. And because belonging to God means we belong to each other, you wont be
alone - even now, in fact, your
impossibly old and undeniably pregnant relative is part of this too.
(Read Matthew 1:18-25)
And then there is Regular Joseph with his
regular life, comfortably stretched out before him, predictable and planned,
now suddenly shattered. She is not mine after all, and I am not to
be hers. Dear, brokenhearted
Joseph, resolving to quietly, in the least harmful way, sever ties, pick up the
pieces and start over.
Don’t be afraid, Joseph. Don’t be afraid to belong to her. God is coming
share life with us, to set us free from everything that divides us from God and
each other. And you, Joseph, are going to be part of this. God will come as a
helpless baby in need of belonging, and you are to love him as your own son.
A hugely pregnant Mary and a stressed out, worried
Joseph make the trek to Bethlehem, one little, inconsequential family among the
masses, traveling under orders of a powerful empire that dominates the people’s
lives. But when God’s celestial army assembles, instead of wiping out the oppressive
enemy in the blink of an eye, it forms a giant choir, and belts out God’s
persistent, undermining promise of peace on the whole earth to all who belong
to God and each other, into the stunned and terrified faces of simple shepherds
in a nowhere place. Don’t be afraid,
the angels will joyfully holler. You are
going to be part of this too! Go and
see!
God doesn’t play by the same rules as you and
I do. The world wants strength; God comes in weakness. The world values status
and power, God chooses the ordinary and unnoticed. The world praises shiny and slick, God
prefers broken and real. God chose to come in scandal and shame instead of honor and admiration.
Nobody in the Christmas story got to keep
their armor. Their illusions about where their strength or purpose or value or
identity come from have to die, because really belonging to each other means
that all that separates me from God and from others has to die in me. It means
all that buries my true self and yours, all that makes me feel like I have to earn
my esteem or defend my worth, and all my reliance on things in the world to guarantee me security and stability, that dies. It all gets
taken away to make way for the real. Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph,
Shepherds, Magi, all of them get reduced to their simple humanity before they
are brought into the Kingdom of God with the words, Now Don’t be afraid!
(Read Luke 2:8-20)
A different story is unfolding, even now,
within and through your life, this life, this world. In this reality, everything seems upside down; shepherds become preachers and virgins are mothers, and in a dark and
smelly stable, with no doctor or place for them in the inn, the God of the
universe lays aside invincibility to be born as a defenseless human baby.
The Kingdom of God is here, grown
up Jesus will later say, It’s right here.
Among us, within us, between us. Hidden and backwards, it comes in weakness,
asking us to let go of all that we use to protect ourselves from our most basic
humanity and divide us from each other. God’s Kingdom is seen when we step out
of our strength and stand with someone else in their brokenness. When we name
our own brokenness and need and let someone stand with us. That’s where Jesus
already is, already has been, always will be. That’s where we can feel that
primal and permanent belonging, to God and to each other, that we were made for
and are returning to.
Sometimes
we call it love. And nothing can
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Darkness is real, but Love is the
deepest reality and the final word.
(Take out the papers you wrote at the beginning. Read them one at a time, For each one, say, "God is with us in this." Or, "Into ______ God has come. Response: God is with us.")
Right into the very mess of it, God comes.
Into a tense and weary world braced for worse, God
comes, thwarting expectations and upsetting plans, threatening power with
undermining peace, and piercing the darkness with unquenchable light.
This is
the story you belong to.
Now, don’t be afraid.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment