The Heart of Christmas

Dear Family in Faith,

NOW—right now—is the heart of Christmas.  …I know (I know …I K.N.O.W.) it doesn’t feel like it.  Everyone’s moved on.  “Happy New Year” is the new seasonal greeting.  We’ve grown weary of Bethlehem and almost everyone has moved on.  The Christmas section of Hobby Lobby is only half-the-size it had been, a few weeks ago.  The egg nog’s all gone. 

But these days are, in fact, at the HEART of Christmas.  And let mine be the voice that encourages you to spend a little extra time at the stable this year, savoring the mystery of the incarnation.  To sit, wide-eyed over the chorus of the angels, the visit of the shepherds, and the twinkling stars overhead—pulling us toward days of quiet rest. 

My friend, David Gambrell, who works in the Office of Theology and Worship at PC(USA) headquarters, writes of Christmas words I’ve shared in worship:

The twelve days between the Nativity of the Lord (December 25) and the Epiphany of the Lord (January 6) lead us on an expansive journey, from something so intimate and particular—an infant in a manger, revealed to local shepherds—to something so grand and universal—the hope of all the earth, revealed to travelers from a distant land. 

So, keep out one of your nativity scenes.  Light a candle beside it.  Be wide-eyed in the wonder of it all.  Be reminded that the infant we adore is the revelation larger than the universe.  And that the God we worship, is the one who holds everything together, as fragile as our world seems.  And that we have flesh, means that we share some part of Christ in each of us, that is the image of God, and ultimately that we are so beloved! 

Remember, too, that Bethlehem is a compound Hebrew word—pronounced “bait leck-um.”  “Bait,” the Hebrew word for house; and “leck-um,” the Hebrew word for bread.  Bethlehem literally means “house of bread.”  And we already know that Jesus is the “bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  So, Christmas is a kind of stop-over on the way.  A chance to rest and remember, a time to share and take stock of our lives, a place to bread bread together and be nourished by the one who comes as God in the flesh to journey with us. 

Be like Mary.  Ponder all these things in your heart.  Give thanks for what God has shared.  Remember that in response the Magi come bearing gifts.  This is also a season in which giving transforms lives. 

Then, lace up your sandals and take up your shepherd’s staff.  The long journey of discipleship awaits just over the horizon.  We’ll soon be reminded that even our path of discipleship leads from isolation to community, from brokenness to healing, from captivity to freedom, from sin to salvation, and from death to life!  Jesus will offer miracles, teach us that there are better ways of living and loving one another than we often express, call us as disciples to not only “fish for people,” but to take up a faith that focuses on helping and healing and feeding and teaching. 

Jesus is so much more than a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger!  He’s the one who will lead us out of destruction and death to give us life—again and again.  God’s gift, God’s gife—Emmanuel!  Emmanuel!  So that we are never walking along; never left to our own devices; and always capable of changing the world. 

I don’t know about you, but I think the whole world is wondering, again, how we will manage to “go on.”  This collective COVID nightmare for all of us, seems to have left the whole world anxious and eager, but suffering with lack and lethargy.  How do we get going again?  Who will have the answers?  And hopefully, it won’t mean we have to do much!  But I’m afraid that just like Christmas, pain and anguish and effort all come with the light, the love, and the joy.  And like the road leading out of Bethlehem was filled with danger and unknown—so ours will be, as well.  Except our joy has been made complete in the news of the one who is given to us, who walks with us, who helps us and declares for us, “we should not be afraid.” 

The world tries to tell us not to.  But pause.  Breath deeply.  Light a Christmas candle.  Join your heart and mind to others around you—even if only in your heart because they live far away.  Draw strength from the bread of God enfleshed. 

Yours may, or may not, include an experience of wet-smelling used hay and a well-worn feed trough.  But it might need to be handing out warm blankets on a wet winter’s night or a warm casserole through a car door, or a phone call, or showing up in the middle of the night at a hospital, or stopping to help someone change a flat tire, or rescuing a donkey-on-the-loose because beautiful and terrible things happen, and EMMANUEL, too.  You’re in the heart of Christmas.  Hold on!  And …carry it with you, like an ember for a fire, ready to light when needed.  I’m carrying one, too.