This is a love story within a love story, and a humble gift to ALL of my new and wonderful friends here on Open Salon. It is, as you would expect, a Christian story written by a retired Christian pastor. Please understand that. I am who I am and my faith is what it is.
But I mean no disrespect to any who believe differently, or who do not believe at all. I have no interest in or intent to proselytize my faith. Had I any this would not be the place to do it. Christians may see this story as their story, others, of course, may not.
But I do pray that the many friends I have made here who are not Christians, who might have at one time been Christian but no longer are, who may be of another faith altogether, who have belief systems that does not involve organized religion, or who have no belief system at all, will find some words of love and hope in this message that are universally applicable expressions of the best of what the human condition can be.
Those who hold themselves to be superior to others and who hold their religion high over the heads of others, who look down on those who do not share their faith, have much to account for. Those of you who know me know that I am not that kind of man.
And so, my friends, this is my Christmas gift, humbly offered, to each of you.
Since Advent started and the preparation for Christmas began in earnest I have been thinking of the most important day on the Christian calendar. And, at the same time, I am sometimes painfully aware that you cannot turn on the television without seeing another repackaged “Holiday Special.” And every TV ad beckons us to buy, buy, buy, recession or not. We are told that this will not be a true Christmas without this new car, or perfume, or that toy, or these trinkets.
As my thoughts have drifted back to that most holy day on the church calendar they have turned to another Advent and Christmas season much like this one that occurred 16 years ago.
Sue and I were driving from St. Louis to Sedan, Kansas in the far southeast corner of that State. We left the interstate at Joplin, drove through Joplin on US 66 and then caught US 166 which crossed into Kansas and worked its way west to Sedan, about 90 miles.
This part of the trip was on two lane highway that took us through many small towns as dusk was falling. And each small town was decorated with lights. Lights and evergreen garland intertwined were wrapped around street lamps, and strung neatly on wires high across main street. Giant candy canes, Santas and candles topped each street lamp. It was all very pretty.
But amidst the glitter and the anticipation of both the Christ Child and Santa and his reindeer, there was a sadness deep in my soul that bore down on me. My “step” grandfather, Sam Shade, a man who did not know the meaning of the word “step,” the man who claimed both my father and me as his own, who loaned me money several times when I had no other way to continue college, was dead.
In some ways that seemed totally impossible for a man who was a legend in Kansas journalism, who owned, published and edited small Kansas county seat weekly newspapers for over 60 years. A man I loved with all my heart and knew that the feeling was mutual. Where was I to turn to even begin to deal with this loss? I, a pastor, knew what to say and do to help dozens of others go through the same grief process. But I was hopelessly out of my element when it came to consoling myself.
But in spite of the stark contrast of the happiness I could see out of my window as I drove through the decorated villages and the pain of losing Sam, something kept drawing me back to that holiest day of the Christian calendar. My thoughts kept turning back to the memory of another death, to another time and place, and to the great gift of hope that followed that death, because, for once, death did not win. My thoughts turned not to Christmas but to Easter, the greatest of holy days for those of my faith.
In the midst of all of my personal grief and pain and at a time when the world called me to be joy filled, my faith reminded me that we Christians are not so much a Christmas people; but rather we are an Easter people living in the shadow of the Cross, for each of us must on day go through the “valley of the shadow of death.”
That could be a somber thought if we do not remember that those words of the Psalmist are intended to be precisely correct: we go “through” the valley of the shadow of death, and death cannot contain us. We are promised by the One who did it that there will be resurrection and renewed life on the other side of that dark vale. And it is there, only there, in that saving promise, where our hope lies.
One can fairly ask what any of this has to do with Christmas. And my answer is everything. Christmas cannot, even when carefully understood in the clearest statements of orthodox theology, stand on its own. And yet most Christians focus mainly on the birth of the Messiah, in both its aspects of faith and of secular commercialism. And we often so confuse and conflate the two that Christ himself could not unravel the tangled mess that Christmas has become.
Most good Christians believe that spending an hour or two in church on Christmas Eve celebrating the birth of the Messiah in word and song and prayer pretty much does it; gets us through our Christmas obligations, and lets us get back to what is really important like food, fads and football.
We do this shamelessly. The church has been saying for two thousand years that Easter is the great feast day of the Christian year. But it has far less appeal to us than the promise of Christmas, with its confused conflation of religious and secular idols, its blending of Christian truth and pagan myth, secular fairy tales and commercial magic.
We are drawn like moths to the bright allure of the Christmas message of peace and good will, of close-knit, idyllic families gathered together, and of a mystical, magical baby lying in a manger. These are the things that tug at our heartstrings, even as the hucksters of consumptions tug at our pocketbooks.
The current Christmas message in many, many churches in American today, especially in the prosperity preaching mega churches, is “Salvation by Good Will.” This message says that a magic, mystical baby will cure our ills, ease our pain, pull our families together, restore our self esteem, overcome our loneliness, and relieve our bitterness, our resentments and our anger.
This message says that just to wait for, to hear a song about, to hope for, the coming of this miracle child will restore our faith in ourselves and in humankind, and, somehow, make us whole. And, depressingly often, we believe it.
I am not a scrooge. I do not intend to become the OS Grinch that stole Christmas. We need the hope and joy and the heartwarming truth of the real Christmas message. We rightfully hunger for stories that talk about peace and goodwill, about the innocence of a baby in a manger. We need our spirits lifted in a world sadly lacking in words of kindness, compassion and care. And, yes, we desperately need the Christian Christmas message to help offset the materialism that our consumption crazed society is determined to make the core message of this holy season.
But even as important as the Christian Christmas message is, it should never be confused with the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, it is not even the second most important message of the Christian faith. If one were to take the time to read the Advent scriptures in the Christian liturgical calendar you would quickly see that none of Advent is focused on building up to the coming of a magical baby in a manger.
Rather, the Advent message that precedes Christmas is an instruction for believers to be alert, stay awake, watch for, and prepare for the coming of the fully prepared Lord of All. The message is that the Master is coming and we know not when. The focus of all of the Advent passages, every year, is on preparation for the One who comes to save the world, not by his birth, but through his actions, his witness, his death, his resurrection and his enthronement as Lord of Lord and King of Kings.
Christians should not await the coming of the Christ child in the wide-eyed innocence of those who know nothing of what will happen to that child. No. We await the coming of a child with whom we are totally familiar, a child we already know. There have been over 2000 years since the coming of that child; 2000 years to learn and study who he was, how he lived, what he would become, and how he would die.
That is the true Christmas story. Christians should own this story, make it a part of us. Own the story of the baby Jesus in the manger, yes; but also own the story of a Messiah, a suffering servant foretold by the prophet Isaiah. It is the story of One who overcomes a stumbling, bleeding walk up a narrow path to the top of a dirty, wind blown hill outside of Jerusalem, struggling under the burden of a Cross on which he will die. And it is this same man, Emmanuel, God with us, who three days later will be raised by God the Father to live in glory; the same man who has offered to us a share in his everlasting salvation, in glory for all eternity.
And so, as we approach Christmas Eve and Day we are watching not only for the coming of a baby in a manger but for the coming of our Resurrected Lord and Savior. And “watching” in the Biblical context does not mean sitting around doing nothing else. The scripture is clear that watching includes preparation and working to be ready for his coming.
If we set our eyes too low we will never be able to truly watch for the coming of Christ. We must lift our eyes upward from the manger to the Cross, and then even above that, to the resurrected Christ and to his enthronement as Christ the King. Because it is there, and only there, where true Christian hope lies.
And when our eyes are properly focused on Jesus and his teachings we will know how to prepare for his coming, for he has already told us that we are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned. When we do that we are saying with Christ’s mother, Mary, ‘Here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.”
This salvation that Christ offers in not only for ourselves, not even primarily for ourselves, but rather it is so that we can be a blessing to others, to those who have little or nothing of this life’s blessings. Can we hear that message through the din of our holiday buying and feeding frenzy? That is the true question of Christmas.
Can we look down on the small babe in the manger and see who he will become, what he will have to do and how he will suffer? Can we look into his eyes and see the hope he has for us, the strength he offers us, while we go about the hard task of preparing for his return?
I think we can. I think we can because all of us, Christian or not, believer or not, are not innocents. We are a people who share a common human story. I figured that out 16 years ago.
As Sue and I stood that December on a bitterly cold, windy and snow blown day, gathered with a handful of others under a flapping canopy tent, I felt loss and pain and fear. But then an old Baptist preacher reminded us of the old, old story and of the promise it held for each of us. It was a story of promise for each who chooses to believe, a story of hope and of love beyond comprehension.
And as Sue and I drove back toward Joplin to the interstate on those two lane roads through the Chautauqua Hills that Sam so loved, we drove through the same small towns we had come through the day before. It was getting along toward dusk. The Christmas lights were coming on; reindeer were prancing in front yards, and, with the help of one faithful reindeer who struggled under his weight, Santa was trying desperately to climb back onto a rooftop that he had fallen off.
And in the lea of the wind, protected by some shaggy old cedar trees in the front of an old Methodist church, the lights came on as we approached, and we slowed to look at a well worn and slightly bedraggled manger scene.
And, finally the tears came, followed by a small sense of release in my heart. For at last I knew what it all meant to me, not what it should mean to others, but what it meant to my life, to my loss, to my fears.
I finally knew that all my preparation, all my helping of others, all the calls at 4 a.m. to come to someone’s side, all the things I had been studying and preaching all those years applied to me as well. I knew finally that it wasn’t selfish to want and need God to come to me as well as to those I prayed he would come to.
I finally figured out that he did all this for everybody, and that everybody included me. That same promise is offered today to all and will be offered until the last days.
At that time I could not have put it into words, which seemed pitifully small to contain such a cosmic reality. But I now knew the meaning of the real Christmas message, and the hope it contained. I knew that Christmas was nailed to a Cross, lay in a tomb and rose in glory that we might be found innocent in the eyes of God, though we yet be sinners.
And I knew that the loss and the pain that I felt on that windy Kansas hilltop could never take that knowledge away from me. I knew that in the hands of God Sam would be OK, that I would be OK, no matter what I had to face in the future.
I remembered through my tears what that babe in the manger was really all about. I remembered that his story was my story, the story of Christians everywhere. And I knew like nothing I had ever known before that there was hope and eternal life available for only the asking because of the coming of that child. I knew that if God could capture my heart and hold it gently in his hand that he could and would do the same for any who but asked.
And so my Christmas gift to all here in the family that is OS is that faith, hope and love can conquer any mountain we must ever climb, can bridge the widest valley between us and our fellow men and women, and that we can come to know and love one another without consideration of any boundary that any human may erect, because the God of the universe has made those boundaries irrelevant. We only have to ignore them.
May blessings and peace be with each of you and with your families from this day forward and for evermore.
Monte
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