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Christmas Day: A Child is Born!
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this (Isaiah 9:2-7).
While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb (Luke 2: 6-21).
Christmas Eve (Advent #5)
Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. Then Isaiah said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (Isaiah 7:10-14)
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child (Luke 2:1-5).
December 23
Thinking about the hope of the Resurrection on the cusp of celebrating the Incarnation.
So Cash is more my dad’s speed than my mom’s really. But I dedicated Jay-Z to him on his birthday. So what you gonna do? Elvis and/or Amazing Grace just seemed to obvious this year. I have been over a lot of songs in the last 24 hours.
If it is really the thought that counts, then this one gets an A for effort and is the equivalent of the homemade birthday card or the praying hands on tinfoil that hung on the Christmas tree each year.
Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas Mom. I love you.
My Christmas Carol
That’s me as Ebenezer Scrooge in the film version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Okay, that’s not really me it’s Alastair Sim in the 1951 film version (I actually much prefer the the 1984 tv production with the incomparable George C. Scott).
But it is who I aspire to be to my family and friends this Christmas. I fear I have increasingly become a “Scrooge” this time of year the last five years or so.
I watched Jim Carrey and Disney’s rendition of A Christmas Carol with my daughter the other day and a number of things occurred to me for the first time. It was the first time I realized that Dicken’s tale has a lot in common with Jesus’ parable about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus, namely warnings from beyond the grave to miserly loved ones to change their ways.
It was also the first time I really took note how much the Ghost of Christmas past is showing Ebenezer about the formation of his unfortunate way of life and his aversion to Christmas. It wasn’t that his friend and business partner Jacob Marley died on Christmas Eve one year and Ebenezer then became a miser over night. The ghost of Christmas past shows a window into a world of a young Ebenezer who was abandoned by his father and withdrawn from his classmates with only his sister as an interested family member and friend. The wall of self protection and fortress of wealth he tries to build around himself loses him the love of his fiancée Belle, at Christmas time of course. There was the death of his sister. And finally, the death of Marley.
I have not reproached anybody with “Bah, humbug” or insisted that “anybody who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on their lips should be boiled in their own pudding and buried with a stick of holly through their heart;” but I have not really kept Christmas in my heart very well for some time now. I have went to most of the Christmas dinners, parties and gift exchanges I have been invited to by family and friends. But I have not decorated my own home or (gulp) even bought anything for my wife in several years.
Making a conscious decision to be different this year has had me doing a lot of self examination as to where and when my own aversion to Christmas started. The closest and most obvious things of course occurred to me first. My mom passed away in September of 2004. Her birthday is two days before Christmas and Christmas has not been the same since. This coupled with a (semi)legitimate complaint about the capitalist, Hallmark exploitation of the Holiday with Advent being almost entirely swallowed up in that, has been my excuse. But protesting Christmas on moral or religious grounds only finds me sharing much more in common than I would ever wish with the fundamentalist spirit that it is part of my life’s mission to avoid.
And well, I guess I could say a Ghost of Christmas past has showed me that my ambivalence towards Christmas started for me – like it did for Ebenezer Scrooge – as a young boy. When I was a little boy my mom made sure almost every year that there was an incredibly ridiculous abundance of gifts wrapped up in pretty paper beneath our Christmas tree. Of course as a small child I really liked this. I didn’t like the one Christmas I can remember when my mom couldn’t get much and the church we were members of brought us each one Christmas gift. But the following year it was business as usual: a new stereo, new head phones, a stocking full of candy and cassette tapes for the new stereo.
As each year my mother’s religious convictions about the meaning of Christmas became more and more my own convictions, I noticed a great conflict between the homeless infant we declared the meaning of the season and excessive materialism in the way we celebrated it. I also noticed more and more that it was not that we were broke just that one Christmas when the church brought us our gifts. We were always broke. We lived on school free lunch and government cheese for goodness sake. It was just that most Christmases my mom chose to max out credit cards and/or overdraft the checking account to get us all of the increasingly expensive things on the Christmas lists of three children. As time went on I realized a few more things. My dad never really celebrated Christmas with buying gifts. My mom usually bought herself a couple of things and designated my dad as the giver of the gifts. And finally, my parents biggest fights, periods of separation and my father’s biggest alcoholic binges usually began in January (right before my birthday) with a quarrel over money spent on Christmas presents.
In addition to all of this, I have been a full time student since the fall of 2003 (a year before my mom died). And this has usually helped guaranty two things each Christmas: As a one-income family we are usually broke by the time we buy gifts for three different family gatherings. And secondly, each year I would wear down my body with stress, lack of sleep and overnighters, cramming for finals and writing papers every year the week before Christmas and almost certainly be sick the week of Christmas.
So, the mourning of my mom and my disgust over exploitation of the holiday have been only partial explanation for my lack of yuletide spirit. But as I said, I am really trying to be different this year. I wish I could say I am not sick and I am not broke this Christmas. But that would be untrue. And I guess that would be an insufficient test of my resolve to be more graceful, patient and kind this Christmas. I want to be full of the exuberance and joy I knew as a child. But for now I am happy to not be so angry.
Last year on my mom’s birthday, two days before Christmas, I watched a dear friend of mine who lived with a great deal of heartache and anger stumble out the door in a drunken stupor. He refused my couch as a place to crash and sober up. He died a couple of days after Christmas. He drank himself to death. In many ways he is like my Jacob Marley. Except for, unlike Marley, I believe he is finally at peace. Nonetheless, his life, death and visits in my dreams have all beckoned me to deal with my pain and my anger differently, constructively and to allow myself to love and be loved in return.
So here is to trying. This year Christmas dinner is at my house (for the first time ever in my adult life). Stockings are hung, the tree is decorated. I even managed to set aside a little something for a gift for my wife before the annual, inevitable Christmas bankruptcy set in. I can’t wait to see the faces of my two small children this year as they open up their gifts for the fist time at home on Christmas morning. I am resolved to be more communicative to my in-laws this holiday. I hope my mother-in-law who has been the sole motherly presence in my life for the last five years knows how much I appreciate all she does for us. And I hope I can conduct myself with more tact and grace this year in the presence of my siblings, my father and his wife.
Most of all, I just want them all to know that, despite often failing in communicating it, I do love them dearly. I am slowly but surly learning to love myself. And, I hope and pray to “lean into” the peace on earth and goodwill toward all that is the true gift of this holiday season, and keep it in my heart beyond the season.
God bless us, everyone.
Peace,
Wayne
Advent #1
(That’s pretty close to how the show closed five months later when I saw U2 at the Palace of Auburn Hills with my wife, brother and sister in law).
Today is the first day of Advent 2010. It is the Christian New year. This was the old Testament lectionary text from the common lectionary for today:
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more (Isaiah 2:1-5).
Advent is all about hope, anticipation and waiting. We wait for several weeks to celebrate once again on Christmas day the coming of the ancient messianic hope of a people, the fulfillment of the many things one mother named Mary treasured in her heart, in the unexpected form of a an infant from Nazareth, by way of Bethlehem, who would grow up be brutally killed and then be declared not only risen again but also God incarnate by his followers.
As we wait to celebrate once again the events of Christmas past on Christmas day, we also hope with eager expectation for a day of return, a day when disputes between individuals and nations are settled. We wait for a day when in a startling reversal of history the tools of war are beaten or melted down and once again turned into tools for cultivating life rather than death. A day when men and women “study war no more” as the Isaiah passage was appropriated in one African American spiritual called “Down by the Riverside.” A day when all of the cosmos sings a new song. A day that Isaiah, Amos, MLK and Bono all have told us in their own way is coming.
As we await this day, sometimes amidst the hymns of expectation and Christmas carols you can’t help but also sing How long, How long to sing this song? How long to sing the one we are singing and have been singing throughout history, the song of waiting, longing and expectation for peace to finally come? Will the new day, the new song ever come?
