Christmas Eve 2006
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church
December 24, 2006
In a year of memorable moments, perhaps the most memorable –
and one for which I am thankful to God – happened on October
3, or rightly, on October 7, several days after the horrific
events that happened in the Amish community of Nickel Mines,
Pennsylvania, when five young lives were lost to unspeakable
violence. Members of that same Amish community attended the
funeral service of the one whose very acts changed that community
forever.
Why were they there? “Forgiveness” was the word
they used, though they uttered it primarily through intermediaries,
seeking to avoid contact with the outside world.
Forgiveness. The media and culture did not know what to do
with that act, or with that concept. I am not sure that I do.
And yet, on this night when we claim the good news that love
comes down, might we look at the world, and our own lives, with
the very eyes of this most tiny, fragile, and forgiving child.
I do not mean to be too culturally fixated on this transcendent
night. We do seem, however, to be living in a strange cycle
of action, apology, cynicism and skepticism. Athletes and entertainers
engage in damaging acts, then engage in acts of clumsy contrition,
copies of People magazine or Sports Illustrated jump off the
racks and the blogosphere goes ballistic.
Whether it is an athlete getting caught with a weapon or D.U.I,
or an entertainer uttering discriminatory epithets, you know
what I am talking about. And you track the conversation, including
a statement to the effect of “that’s not really
who I am,” blaming the pressure of their wealth, the Internet,
drugs, alcohol, the moon, who knows what. And then we spend
another few days dissecting the apology: was it sincere or a
gimmick, will it make a difference, how will it affect that
person’s career? Spin reigns, honesty loses, and we are
all just a bit diminished.
How I wish for these simple words: That is who I am. I messed
up, please forgive me. And then how I wish for the honest, hard
work of rehabilitation, away from the reporters and cyberspace,
of change, real change, of moving away from destructive behaviors
and destructive ideas and into health and healing and wholeness.
Among so many other things, that is what this night is about.
On a high theological plane, it is called “incarnation,”
the en-fleshment of God’s love into a human body, just
at the point when the world seems to be spinning apart.
On the real-life plane of human existence, it is about a grieving
Amish parent showing up at a funeral, demonstrating to us that
things need not be the way they are, but can be different.
We were not there. The new film, called simply “The Nativity
Story,” seems to present the story well, honestly, humanely.
Mary and Joseph are on the move, mostly, from place to place,
event to event, emotion to emotion, Nazareth to Bethlehem, youthful
obscurity to astonishing good news.
But even then, this is not God and the angels playing make-believe.
This is real-life, real flesh and blood. You can sense the confusion,
the fear, the competing expectations, from them, from us.
A friend e-mailed earlier this month, a minister colleague
in another town. Are things more subdued this year? Perhaps
they are. Perhaps what that means is that in a broken and fearful
world, this story is needed more than ever.
We crave, deep in our bones and deep in our spirits, this story
of divine love come down in human form, humanity at its most
vulnerable, because we’ve tried everything else and been
left wanting.
The late Christian Reformed minister James Van Tholen wrote
that “From this day on, from Christmas Day on, it can
never again be said with complete truth that God is God and
not a human being. Because the God who is God, the God who is
at times silent and testing and judging, that almighty, incomprehensible
God has become mortal, has become human. He has taken on bones
and parents and vulnerability and troubles and questions of
his own.” (“Christmas Meditation,” in Where
All Hope Lies, page 29)
The power of this night, and its truth, far surpasses anything
the culture does with it or to it. I don’t worry too much
that we can over-commercialize it, certainly not this night,
nor do I worry too much that we can impose it, force-feed it,
nor that it can be taken away from us. Christ will be kept in
Christmas whether we keep him there or not, and we will keep
Christmas quite apart from what the culture encourages or discourages.
What I do worry about is that we who hear this story hear it
part-way only, with too much sentiment, or that we somehow construct
a disconnect between those two-millennia old events and the
up-to-the-second events of our lives.
Incarnation did not happen just once. It happens again and
again and again. Love continues to come down. If it did not,
healing would not be possible, nor forgiveness, nor hope. But
since it does, we need not be defined by our fears, but rather
we let them be transformed because this tiny little baby gives
shape and form to our lives.
A century ago, well-known Presbyterian minister Henry Van Dyke
wrote that: “…there is a better thing than the observance
of Christmas day, and that is keeping Christmas. Are you willing,”
Van Dyke asked, “to see that your fellow-men and women
are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces
to their hearts, hungry for joy…to stoop down and consider
the needs and desires of little children…to remember the
weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old…to
bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their
hearts…are you willing to believe that love is the strongest
thing in the world – stronger than hate, stronger than
evil, stronger than death – and that the blessed life
which began in Bethlehem is the image and brightness of the
Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas,” Van Dyke assures
us.
And I would add…are you willing to forgive, as you have
been forgiven, and if not forget, then not to let those memories
define who you are…are you willing to pray and work for
peace in a world with its sights set on war…are you willing
to work with others, here in this church and everywhere, to
live out of the abundance of love we have received this night,
and not from the scarcity we perceive as reality?
Joseph was willing. Mary, certainly, was willing. We know where
this baby’s willingness would take him, not that many
years from now.
God has become human this night, love has come down, to live
with us, so that who we are is not who we will become, so that
we may live in our own skin and with each other in a better
way, a still more excellent way.
That will be the Christmas we keep, and give away, a sign of
forgiveness and hope and love – joy to the world. Amen.
