Where to now?

What we often refer to as “The Christmas Story” is a combination of stories from different sources. You probably already new that. Some are biblical, some are tradition. The naming of the magi, for instance, is a tradition. The story from Matthew’s gospel doesn’t name them, but over the centuries we’ve come to know them as Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. There are other names, too, depending on the tradition. The bible doesn’t specifically say there was only three, either, we assume that from the three gifts. There are many stories that explore the idea that there might have been more.

We don’t know how many shepherds showed up, either. Even our view of the stable, full of traditional and not-so-traditional animals is more about tradition than the story itself. And then there’s that little boy with the drum.

I don’t think any of that’s a bad thing if the tradition is meaningful and gives us more experience of the story. It can draw us in and invite an insight into how the story is relevant to our life and faith.

That’s the great thing about the manger scene or creche that many people and churches have out at Christmas. It creates a little tableau that represents not just one story but many. It’s easy to just look at it and think “isn’t that a pretty pastoral scene.” Because it is. But there’s so much more to it, so much more that we could wonder about. Here’s a couple of thoughts about that.

First, try picking up each piece and wondering how they would tell the story. Mary and Joseph, of course, there’s some story in the bible, but you might wonder about how they met or what life was like for them. You might wonder how their stories might go if they were being told today. Especially in a year like this has been.

How about the shepherds? Again, we have a bit of their story, but there must be more that we could imagine. The magi, too, their story is even more sparse, less detailed. Pick up a figure and wonder where they’re from, wonder why these gifts were chosen or wonder at the faith they must have had to follow a sign that they interpreted to mean a prophecy was being fulfilled. What were they thinking?

Go ahead and try it. Pick up a figure, maybe learn a little more about them, if you can, and then wonder about how they got to be here, in this particular story. And don’t forget to wonder about where they’ll go next.

That’s the second thing. Every year, we get the box out, we unpack the figures and arrange them into the scene of that night and then, when Christmas is “done,” we pack them all up again in their box and put them back on the shelf. We put them away as if their story was over.

It’s not. They’re not just statues. They’re alive. Everyone in the story had lives that went on long after this one night. Lives that were lived one day at a time, beginning the very next day. Just like ours. Maybe they all went back to their regular jobs. But their lives were changed, just as Mary and Joseph’s lives were changed by the new life they welcomed into theirs. Love is in the world, not just this one night, in this one scene, in this one story, but everyday. You can’t keep that in a box.

Meet Me At The Manger

I’m sure it’s a long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem when you’re walking. It’s only a little over 100 km, but, back in the day, there’d only be a dusty dirt road made by the caravans and soldiers who travelled the route. It sure would have felt long. Even more so, if you’re pregnant. It would be nice to think riding a donkey would help, but you’d probably be more comfortable walking. Let the donkey carry the luggage over this bumpy, uneven terrain.

Even getting this far was quite the journey. When you’re expecting to begin married life quietly, in a relatively unknown corner of Judea, and suddenly there’s an angel and things change, well, Mary would have had a lot on her mind. Joseph, too. Carpentry was a good trade, but it didn’t make a lot of money and he wasn’t expecting an instant family or the Roman census that demanded they travel. It wasn’t good timing.

Then there was the whole child of God thing. That’s a lot of pressure, a lot of expectations, a lot of - well, who knows what? Who knows where that’s going? But let’s get to Bethlehem and find somewhere to have the baby. We just need to get to Bethlehem.

For shepherds, minding their flocks outside of town, the geographical distance to find the baby wasn’t that far to travel. But the social one was. Shepherds were the lowest of the low in society back then, but that night, they felt like royalty. Angels told them the best news and sent them to find Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. No one would believe we were worthy, they might have thought, we just need to get to Bethlehem.

But if you’re looking for a long, complicated journey, the magi certainly fit the bill. From far to the east, magi followed a sign, a star, they believed would lead them to the Promised One, a new king that would change everything. Sure, as wise astronomers, they knew what they were doing, tracking the star and figuring out a route, and maybe they had camels and were reasonably well off. But they still had distance and Herod to contend with. I don’t imagine the current king was comfortable with their arrival looking for the new one. And I doubt a child of poor parents in a tiny town in the backend of the Roman empire was what they were expecting to find. I’m sure they were glad to reach their destination, to finally get to Bethlehem.

That’s just it, though. Bethlehem isn’t the destination. It’s not the end of the journey, it’s the beginning. Not just for Jesus, but for all of us.

It was the beginning of a new family. Perhaps Mary and Joseph were anxious about what might be ahead for their new son. But I hope they also knew the joy of a newborn and were filled with hope for the future.

For the shepherds, they might have felt the beginning of a new sense of wonder and well being. They were chosen to be the first to hear the news. At the very least, they would have been filled with hope for the future.

And the magi went home having found what they sought. They didn’t just escape Herod, they stepped boldly into the hope of a promise fulfilled.

Come to the manger this Christmas. Perhaps you’ll find not the end of a journey, but the beginning of one.

The Story Will Be Told

We have a Christmas play in our church service this Sunday. Lots of churches do a Christmas play. Usually on the third or fourth Sunday of Advent, but sometimes, really daring churches will do it on Christmas Eve.

It’s a great idea, the Christmas play. It can be anything from a traditional dramatization of the Christmas story to something a little more exotic that explores a Christmas theme or one of the many social justice issues that are in the story (yes, they’re there) or examine questions of faith. It might be put on by kids or by adults for the kids or by everyone for everyone. It might have a script or follow the biblical narrative or be made up on the spot. It could be rehearsed and practiced for a few weeks or, well, not. There’s lots to be said for the spontaneity of an “on the spot” Christmas play.

We’ve done lots of those things over the past years. We’ve had a traditional “here’s the bible story” play, we’ve had plays about being stars and angels and giving gifts and finding the stable and, as I recall, one involved an altercation between ninja sheep and desert pirates. One year, we even handed costumes to people as they came in and literally everyone was in the play that day.

I think the whole point of doing it is to bring life to the story, to refresh a story that can become just a little too familiar and maybe offer a different perspective. The story is full of drama, why not dramatize that? Besides, what a great opportunity to bring people together, create community and find a way for an ancient story to still be so relevant to our lives today.

Hmm. Well that’s going to be tricky this year, isn’t it? Especially since we, like many churches, have decided to not have in-person services until next year. Even if we were, under the current restrictions, we still couldn’t bring people together and there’d still be no costumes. And who wants a play in which everyone would wear a mask?

Well, as it happens … did I mention we have a Christmas play in our church service this Sunday?

Thing is, Christmas will happen and the story will be told. It might be accompanied by the story of this Christmas. In fact, the story of this Christmas might well be how we found new ways to make an old story new again, to find new traditions, new ways - simpler ways, perhaps - to share the love which is at the heart of the Christmas story. It might be about how we overcame physical separation to realize just how deeply in our hearts love lives. It might be an opportunity to see just how much stuff we pile around ourselves that gets in the way of how we really feel, what we really hope for, and how we really love. However Christmas comes this year, it will come and the love that breaks into the world with Jesus’ birth will still find its way to us.

Oh, our Christmas play this year? It’s a video. It includes short video clips from some people in our congregations. It includes an odd assortment of animals, a donkey and a very pregnant couple and, yes, there are a lot of masks. There’s a pandemic on, you know.

There is Joy in You

I think this might be the year I don’t say “Merry Christmas.”

No, I’m not replacing it with “bah, humbug.” Nor do I think the “War on Christmas” is a real thing. It’s not. And I’m not looking to be politically correct, either, whatever that really means. Sure, I think we could be more inclusive and throw in a “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” every now and then. It also wouldn’t hurt to actually get to know people well enough to know whether to wish them well on whatever religious festival or celebration that has meaning for them, as well as our own.

Thing is, it’s not the Christmas part. It’s the Merry.

It depends on how you interpret it, of course, and we all will. The word’s been around a long time, but I think that, with Christmas, we’ve generally understood it to mean happy or glad. At least, I think that’s how we’ve seen it since 1843 when Charles Dickens pretty much rejuvenated, if not re-invented, Christmas with the publication of ‘A Christmas Carol.’

Not everyone is merry at Christmas, especially this year. There’s so much that can overwhelm our merry-making: grief, loneliness, pain, poverty, illness, unemployment, stress. There’s so much.

No, I think I’ll try and wish people a joyful Christmas.

Because joy’s something different. Sure, it can have merriment and happiness and smiles and laughter. But it’s more than that. True joy is something that goes to the very core of who we are. It reaches into the deepest corners of our hearts, into the shadowy places, and brings light.

I believe that true joy is found in the moment in which we find God, however we know God (love, energy, connection and more) is present in our lives in a way that brings wholeness to our spirit. Yes, there may be happiness, there may also be a sense of rightness, connectedness, wellness. But there is also healing in brokenness, comfort in grief, hope in uncertainty and, deep within us, the knowing that we are loved just as we are and we are not alone.

The story of Christmas should focus us on that very thing. It’s not the trappings of celebration that we pile on it. It’s the idea that, in this child in a manger, love is in the world. The Gospel of Matthew says this child is Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” The writer of the Gospel of John describes it as “the Word made flesh” in whom “was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” That child will grow up to show us how “the light of the world” is in us, too.

The story of Christmas plays out in a world full of struggle, danger and fear. There are the poor and the weak, there are the powerful and the seemingly rich, kings and shepherds and angels. But there is joy. Love is here.

Everyone has a place in The Story

In the weeks of Advent, leading up to Christmas, we meet some of the characters of the Christmas Story. The angel Gabriel (who really should have appeared nine months ago), Mary, Joseph, we’ll meet other angels, shepherds, an innkeeper, maybe even the magi (they seem to arrive earlier every year) and, of course, John the Baptist.

John the Baptist?

Yes, John the Baptist. He usually appears on the second Sunday of Advent. He became known for the baptizing thing, but he was meant to be a messenger, “the” messenger, a voice from the wilderness crying “prepare the way of the Lord.”

Well, of course, that makes sense. Announcing Jesus’ arrival. So he was also at the manger then? Well, no.

When Mary put Jesus to bed in the manger, John’s parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah, were likely changing his diaper and putting him to bed in his own crib. According to Luke, John and Jesus were cousins and born only months apart. John was older, but not by much.

The John we meet in Advent is an adult. He’s been living in the wilderness, “was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey” (Mark 1:6). He calls people to repent (loudly and not always nicely), his signature move is baptism and he tells everyone that someone much greater is coming. “I have baptized you with water,” he says, “but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John the Evangelist, who wrote the gospel, even tells a story of him pointing out Jesus to a couple of his own disciples, saying “there’s the guy I’m talking about.”

Well that seems a little out of sync, at least chronologically. Why do we need the adult John to tell us who the adult Jesus is right before he’s born? Here’s a few thoughts on why you should listen to John.

I don’t know that the adult John knew he was doing that. I think he was calling people to repent and be baptized because someone was coming, he doesn’t seem to know who or when. As far as he was concerned, he might well have been announcing a birth. John was probably ready to meet Jesus anytime.

Christmas doesn’t just mark an event of the past by celebrating it in the present. It reminds us also that Jesus promised to return. And, just as importantly, that we might be prepared to meet Jesus anytime. What if Jesus never really left? What if Jesus is alive in each of us and we might meet Jesus anytime, anywhere?

Maybe that’s the most important thing about John. He reminds us to be prepared to meet Jesus, in child and in adult, in story and in person, in friend and in stranger, in this moment and in tomorrow. Be prepared to meet Jesus anytime, anywhere. Because you will.

And just like Jesus, be prepared for the figures that point you towards him, that help and guide you on your way, to not necessarily look like you think they should. The Christmas Story is full of angels. What if they didn’t look like our traditional vision of an angel, with white robe, wings and halo? What if they all looked like John the Baptist? Or someone we might call “less desirable?” What if they looked like you and me? Are you prepared for that?

“I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes” (from the 1993 classic "The Sign" by Ace of Base)

In the weeks leading up to Advent, many churches will be hearing stories from the gospels about “the end times.” Not from the Book of Revelation, but from the gospels. This is Jesus talking about the end of things and, more importantly, that he’ll return. That’s why we’re hearing these stories. Jesus promised to return. So the season of Advent isn’t just the season of expectation leading to the day we recognize Jesus’ arrival in the distant past, but his coming this year and his expected return in the future.

We might also want to consider that he never left and that the point of Jesus is to show us the Jesus in each of us, that we may “see Jesus” always in ourselves and each other. Jesus is here everyday, not just Christmas Day. Something, I think, worth pondering.

But let’s talk about these stories of the end times and Jesus’ return as he describes it for his first century audience in the gospels. There’s destruction and death, wars and famine and earthquakes, great “distress” and “tribulation” and false prophets and people claiming to be the messiah.

Maybe it’s because we just finished a group study at the church on Revelation or maybe it’s because of the days we’re living, but I feel like there should be some plagues in there, maybe fires, hurricanes and murder hornets and civil strife, too. 2020 has sure been the year for that.

That’s another good reason to hear these stories. I don’t think the point of them is to scare people, though they’ve certainly been used that way. It’s that these are the signs, Jesus says, of what is to come next: “at that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26). So, Jesus says through all this, keep watch, be discerning, be prepared, keep awake.

The last few weeks, I’ve been talking about what Jesus meant by all that, emphasizing that he doesn’t mean just sitting around waiting, but rather living, with love, compassion, justice and grace, just as he showed us we could. So, maybe we could have a break now that Advent’s here. Well. No.

But there is something more. Each of Mark, Matthew and Luke, in the middle of all this distressing stuff, have Jesus use the fig tree as an example of how we should see what’s happening. When you see buds on the fig tree, he says, you know that summer is near. It’s a sign. Read the signs and you’ll see that the time is near.

Yes, of course. When we see buds in the spring, we know that summer’s coming (eventually), though you might not pinpoint the exact day. But it’s not just the new season that’s coming, it’s the new life. And. It’s the fruit.

That’s just it. Even now, we might look and see signs that the world is changing, but are we seeing the signs of death and destruction or the signs of new life? It’s the buds that bring the flowers that bear the fruit in the new season. Isn’t it the acts of love, kindness and caring that will bear the fruit of the future? Where do you see the promise of new life where you’re at?

It's about life, not afterlife

I try to be consistent. As much as one can be in such a diverse and complicated world. But I try to be consistent, especially in what I share about what I believe Jesus is about.

Jesus is about life. Yes, Jesus provides comfort about where we’re going next, but the life of Jesus isn’t about what it takes to get to the kingdom of God, it’s about what it takes to bring it here. That’s a life lived in love with the world. That’s a life lived like Jesus.

But I’m not Jesus, you might say. No, in the sense that you’re not me and I’m not you, but yes you are, in the sense that we are both divine (created in the image of God) and human (created of the earth), just like Jesus. I think that’s the main point of Jesus, that his life shows us that’s what we are and how to live it out.

But what about evil and the devil and hell and all that stuff? Sure, we find ways to try and understand what isn’t love or grace or heaven, because we have experiences and make choices that aren’t and we live in a world where, while we’d really like it to be simple and just what we want, it’s not and it’s full of other people and other things. And we can see those as “other” or we can see them as relationships we just haven’t explored yet, or lived yet. We can see them as an obstacle to overcome or part of the journey that is a full life. And, oh, that’s a struggle. Believe me, I know that’s a struggle. 

But what about judgement? Even Jesus talks about how, at the end of days, we’ll all be judged and some will go to the happy place and others to fiery furnace. Ok, but let me say three things about that. One is that, though we seem to like to do it and do it a lot, Jesus - and scripture as a whole - constantly reminds us that the ultimate judge is God, not you and me. The second is that God begins with grace and offers forgiveness. I do believe that we come from God and we return to God. And, I understand hell as meaning how sin distances us from God. In other words, we may be very far from God in this life, but we still return to God.

Third, let’s talk about sheep and goats for a minute. Despite number one above, we still see the need for judgement and yes, Jesus talks about it. But perhaps we hear that with ears listening for where we might be going next rather than consequences in this life. Take, for example, the story Jesus tells about how judgement will be like a shepherd separating the sheep and the goats (Matt.25:31-46). Already you might be thinking you want to be a sheep. You do, because the sheep feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, care for the sick and the imprisoned and therefore “come, you that are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” The goats don’t and are consigned to the eternal fire. So, do like the sheep and you’ll get to the happy place. Right?

Ok. Except. Neither the sheep or the goats in the story are aware that what they’re doing or not doing is for Jesus. The sheep aren’t doing it to earn anything, they’re just being themselves. It’s already in them - and maybe it’s in the goats, too. We’re all God’s creation. The difference is the sheep engaged the world, saw the need, and shared in it. That’s what Jesus is all about. Love, grace and compassion aren’t behaviours you use to get points to go to the happy place. They’re who you are. Look in you, look around you, and bring life to this world by living them.