non-metaphysical stephen

As of my count, today (2 Jan.) is the 9th day of Christmas. So there are still (counting today) four days left in the Christmas season.

The season is so odd to me. We spend so much time and energy preparing for it (during Advent), that once the season actually arrives, I’m not clear what we’re supposed to do. And then it gets interrupted by New Year’s (which for the church is the first Sunday of Advent, so it’s not our holiday)–and by football (which I don’t watch, but I know a lot of folks do).

It seems like we spend half the season recovering from Christmas Day, and the last part recovering from New Year’s. And all in all, the season is over so quickly, I’m never sure it really existed. Was there any spiritual growth occurring? Was there any spiritual ANYTHING occurring? If there was, it may be in spite of the season, not because of it.

There has to be a better way to celebrate the 12 days of the Christmas season! How can we make it more substantial?

My dad recently noticed that one of the Christmas albums we listen to every year has a bit of a “mixed-message” (his term–and what an understatement!). One of the lyrics goes:

Let us thank the Lord above that Santa Claus is coming tonight!

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

As one of my online colleagues put it, non-believers have taken the holiday and made it fit their own purposes. I guess the real war on Christmas comes not from the Jews and Muslims and Pagans who have different festivals altogether, but from the semi-faithful who prefer their American commercialist traditions over the penitential season developed by the Church over centuries.

I’ve said it for years now: Save Christ from Christmas!

I’ve been pondering this guy the past few days. Luke’s account is interesting for the way it parallels and contrasts Zacharias and Mary: both receive a visit from an angel about a son, and both respond with a question. But the differences in the accounts raise so many questions: Why does Elizabeth not receive the visit from the angel? Why does Zacharias’ question earn him nine months of silence? Why is John the Baptist’s birth announced publicly but not Jesus’?

This passage is Zacharias’ only appearance in the Gospels, and Luke gives him an extremely prominent position in his narrative–he’s the opening figure. To get a sense of the importance this position gives him, consider the other Gospels: Mark and John both begin their narratives with John the Baptist, while Matthew begins with Joseph. Zacharias becomes a crucial figure simply by parallelism with the other narratives. But why him?

I don’t know how to answer that question right now, but I do wonder if we are like Zacharias. Very few of us will be one of the central characters in the history of the church–we will not be the Peters and Pauls, the Marys and Teresas and the Francises and Luthers. We will have a much smaller role in the narrative.

But that role is ours to play, given to us by God in love and for his glory. The role is small but it is neither unimportant nor lacking in honor. For it is a gift of God’s grace and a sign of God’s favor. And even when we fail to understand what God is doing, as Zacharias could not, God can still use us as signs to the people of his love and faithfulness.

We may have no idea how important our smallest actions may be for the kingdom of God. Zacharias was simply fulfilling his purposes as husband and as priest. He didn’t go out of his way to seek greatness, but was faithful in doing his duties. Yet by his faithfulness, he became not only the father of one of the church’s greatest figures, but a public sign of God’s promise to the entire nation.

Like Zacharias, we have no idea what God will call us to later in life. Nor can we comprehend just how much God can do with our faithfulness in our daily duties. We do not need to be the star of the show–even the supporting players must play their part fully. But if we are faithful in our calling, we might find that our small role has crucial importance in God’s amazing work of redemption.

Let us not grow weary in doing what is good. And may it be done with us according to God’s will, no matter how small the part we are called to play.

Today is the 2nd day of Christmas. How has the arrival of the promised savior changed the way we live?

The amazing thing about the Christmas narrative is that God became an infant. We focus a lot on how Jesus willingly gave up his earthly life on the cross, but isn’t the greater miracle that the Eternal Child of God gave up eternity to become a fetus?

There is God, wrapped in blankets, lying in a feeding trough. He can’t walk, he can’t talk, he has no control over his limbs, his bowels, his sight. He is completely dependent upon his parents for everything.

This is God? This is the Creator of the Universe?

Yes.

This is God, the Creator, the Lord, the Father/Mother, the Savior, the Redeemer, the Lover of our souls.

This is God giving himself to us completely–the fullness of God, poured out in human form. God become one of us, to live with us and for us.

It is the second day of Christmas, and God has completely given himself to us. There is nothing that God has held back from us, and so we have all we need. For when God has so fully given himself to us, how can we doubt that he will be faithful to his promises to provide in every situation? How can we remain anxious about material needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs?

Isn’t God’s Grace, seen in his coming amongst us while we were still unworthy, truly sufficient for us?

It is the second day of Christmas. How does the arrival of the Christ Child change the way we live?

Today we celebrate the arrival of the promised one, the Christ child. How shall we celebrate?

The day itself is nothing special–we do not know when Jesus was born, and we assume that if his birth had coincided with a important day, we would have been told this in the scriptures. 25 December is merely a feast day, a day we have assigned to celebrate the fulfillment of a promise. It is special not because it is the actual day of Christ’s birth, but because of what the birth of Christ represents: the first-fruits of God’s new covenant with humanity.

What the birth represents. The details of the story are heavily symbolic: Jesus is born in Beth-Lehem, “House of Bread.” He is placed in a feeding trough. His name is related to the word “salvation.” He is visited both by shepherds, confirming his role as shepherd of humanity, and by the magi, whose gifts confirm his kingly role. He is thus a shepherd-king in the tradition of David.

We celebrate the truths of this symbolism. History records–vaguely, with great fuzziness–the existence of Jesus the man. As Christians, we celebrate Jesus the Christ, the Savior, the Shepherd-King. God-with-us (Emmanuel). Christ is the bread come from heaven; if we eat of him, we will have eternal life. He is our nourishment, our sustenance. We live and breathe and have our being in him, for he holds us together. God has loved us so much that God became one of us. We have been given everything God has, insofar as God has given us himself in Christ Jesus.

At Christmas, we celebrate the self-giving of God, and this self-giving is the grounds of our faith. Christ is God-with-us in his birth, in his life, and in his death. We have proof of God’s love, proof that can sustain us as we walk through the shadow of death.

At Christmas, we celebrate God’s overwhelming love for us. But today is only the first day of Christmas. Advent has ended, Christmas has arrived, and we have 12 days to celebrate it; the season lasts until Epiphany, when we celebrate the gifts brought by the Magi. From a liturgical perspective, it is more accurate to celebrate the holy-days as a season; brief though it may be, it is this season that can set the tone for our entire year.

Today is thus only the first day of Christmas. What is the most appropriate way to celebrate the season?

At some point during my Christmas shopping frenzy, while I was standing at a register, I was reminded of St. Catherine of Genoa–particularly, her ability to be so focused on God that she could tune out the entire world until she needed to respond to someone.

I’m not always sure how I feel about that–is tuning out the world really a good thing?–but in times like this week, I sure do envy her the ability. The noise of the world is so great, especially given the season is supposed to be a time of preparation for the arrival of Jesus into the world. The true meaning of the holy-day makes the hustle and bustle even more offensive to the soul. It is as though we are supposed to focus on anything other than the arrival of Jesus.

Sigh.

How wonderful it would be to be able to participate in the Christmas season (even though the Christmas season technically does not start until Christmas Day) and still to focus so fully on God as to be unaffected by the distractions, the misdirections of the world. How wonderful to be able to remember our true purpose for purchasing gifts and so truly to honor the Savior with our Christmas spirit.

How wonderful to be immune to the seductions and idolatries of the world as it tries to subvert the holy-day.

How can we redeem the holiday? How can we demonstrate a better way to participate in the season? How can we embody the true meaning of the season–both before and after Christmas Day?

Why is it so difficult to focus on Christ during the Christmas season? Advent is a penitential season, a season of examination and expectation, a season of quiet, hopeful waiting. Yet it seems impossible to live this season outside of a monastery. Traffic, noise, busyness, adornamentation, wish-lists (argh! to do away with the evil of the wish-list for Christmas! Christ has given himself completely to us; how dare we think we need or even desire anything more?), spend and buy and eat and drink and be merry and be busy and don’t slow down or you’ll be behind.

I continue to say, Save Christ from Christmas! Bad music, bad clothing, bad decorations. Teaching children all the wrong lessons, instilling them with the worst expectations. Was it for this that Jesus became the bread of the world?

How have we gotten so far away? Kierkegaard and Ellul were right: Christendom is the exact opposite of gospel Christianity. American Christendom even more so (more the opposite? is such a thing possible?). The true god of the season is greed/luxury. Celebrate the economy. Celebrate the capitalist virtues. Celebrate Jesus for one day when we ignore him all year.

The Christmas season does not start the day after Thanksgiving. It starts on Christmas Day and runs for 12 days. We have it completely backward. But do we care?

Christ be honored and glorified in spite of it all. May our hearts and minds return again to the bread of the world, born in the House of Bread (Beth-Lehem) and lying in the feeding trough. Eat of him and live eternally. Glory to God, Peace to mankind. O come, o come….