Christmas Highs and Lows
December 23, 2007
Isaiah 7:10-16
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25
It is not often that retired clergy have an opportunity to preach on
the Sunday before Christmas, so I feel privileged to be here.
Over the years, I have become increasingly aware of the ambiguities
surrounding Christmas. It is one of the most joyous times of year, but we
learned recently that there are 1/3 more heart-related deaths in
December and January, compared to the rest of the year. December 25 and
January 1 are even worse.1
Many people experience sadness about missing family members whether
because of death or military service or a host of other reasons. A few
years ago, Jenell conducted "Blue Christmas" services for people who were
alone or sad. The turnout was always small, but I thought it was a
very creative outreach to the community, and it filled a real need.
I received an E-mail this week from a woman who was widowed during this
past year. She said, "I can write about 10 Christmas cards; then I
have to take a break to clear tears from my eyes so I can see again." A
bank clerk asked her if she was enjoying Christmas, and she mumbled
"so-so" and left the bank. Some of you may have had similar experiences
with past Christmases.
Women are especially stressed out in the weeks before Christmas,
because the main burden of shopping and decorating and wrapping and cooking
often falls on them.
One of my happiest childhood Christmas memories was all the special
foods that we had only at that time. I think my favorite was the
Czechoslovakian kolachis that originated with my great-uncle's mother.
I was disappointed a few years ago when I made some for my new Slovak
mother-in-law. She was not impressed, and I discovered that Czech
kolachis are not the same as Slovak kolachis. I'm sure that is the reason
that Czechoslovakia is now two countries, not one.
I have given the old recipe to my three sons, and I have confirmed that
we will be eating them Xmas morning. At least one grandson has
started to help in making them.
But there is ambiguity about Xmas food, too. Most of us like all the
rich food, and then we complain about the weight we put on. And so it
goes.
For a couple years now, the left and the right have been arguing about
whether there is a "war" against celebrating Xmas or not. Wednesday's
Bakersfield Californian presented the two sides of the issue in its
"Woman to Woman" forum.2 I liked the closing words of the conservative
woman (Feldhahn), alluding to the bitterness of the debate: "Despite
increasing concern over the removal of Christ from Christmas, that holy
infant came to bring tidings of great joy and love. And in the debate
over preserving the reasons for the season, we cannot defend love with a
lack of it."
Then, Thursday I heard Rush Limbaugh complaining because the Archbishop
of Canterbury had called the nativity story a legend. I don't expect
the disagreement about a war on Christmas to be settled soon.
Whatever your position on that issue, you probably agree that our
economy is dependent on Xmas spending. I had occasion to go to two hardware
stores a day or two before Halloween this year. Both of them had Xmas
decorations out. (I said Halloween, not Thanksgiving.)
The Associated Press said on Friday that NY merchants are expecting a
boost this year from foreign shoppers who come from Europe to shop. The
falling dollar has made UGG boots made from Australian sheepskin cost
about twice as much in London as they do here. The FAO Schwartz toy
store will be open on Xmas day for the first time.3 And yesterday, the
local recorded voice from Gottschalks called to say that even though
they would be closed Tuesday for Christmas, they were having a big sale on
Wednesday. Some of us worry that the real "Xmas war" is between Santa
and Jesus.
Christmas has long since become a secular holiday in much of the world,
where gifts are exchanged without any sense that the holiday is
religious. That was illustrated for me in December 1961. A Japanese
Christian had come to New Delhi to attend the General Assembly of the World
Council of Churches. Afterward, he came to south India where I was
working, and he stayed with my wife and me. I will always remember the
story he told, which he said was true. He had invited a non-Christian
friend to church with him in Japan, and there was a Christmas tree set up
in the sanctuary. The friend was very surprised at that. He said, "I
didn't know that you Christians celebrated Christmas, too."
At that time, Christmas was a holiday for many government workers in
India regardless of their religion, whereas New Year's Day was a holiday
only for Christians. I never did figure that one out.
Everyone has different associations with Christmas, and that affects
how they feel when the holiday rolls around again. My wife and I had
spent the previous Christmas on the border between India and Pakistan. We
were attending student Christian conferences in both countries just
before and after the holiday. It was the first time my wife had ever
been away from her family at Christmas or spent the season without snow or
Christmas music, and she was very depressed. She was having a blue
Christmas at the same time I was excited by the camels and palm trees,
just like the pictures on Christmas cards.
Gift-giving in America has become excessive in my opinion. I don't
know if it still exists, but in the late 1970's there was a group called
SCROOGE. The word was an acronym for the Society to Curtail and Resist
Outrageous and Ostentatious Gift Exchanges.
I know that many of you fight your own little war against consumerism
by giving Heifer Project gift cards. I think one of my grandsons was in
kindergarten when I paid for a Heifer hive of bees in his name. He
knew what bees did, because my brother had shown him the hives he kept,
but I was not sure how much he would understand about the concept of
Heifer Project. His mother overheard him explaining to one of his friends
that "his bees" would make honey for poor people.
And no matter what you think about commercialism at Xmas, I don't think
any Scrooge could fail to be moved last Sunday by the long, long
procession of children bringing gifts forward for children who might not
have many gifts otherwise. If that did not bring tears to your eyes,
perhaps Vicki Philips' children's story did, about the second-grader who
took so much pleasure in giving up one of his few little toys to her son.
The ambiguity over Christmas goes right back to NT. And our OT lesson
complicates the picture even further. Let me start with that.
Some of you may know that the Hebrew word which is translated here as
"young woman" is often translated as "virgin." (Those were the "good
old days" when young women were virgins.) And that is the meaning
Matthew picks up. The angel tells Joseph that a prophet predicted that a
virgin would conceive a son named Emmanuel.
The angel takes Isaiah's words out of context and gives them a new
meaning, but there is nothing wrong with that. People were giving new
meanings to scripture centuries before Jesus, and we continue to do that
all the time. Both the ancient rabbis and Christian priests believed
that every verse of scripture has multiple meanings. Our denomination
insists that "God is still speaking," after all, so we should not complain
too loudly.
The hymn we sang just now, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," is part of that
ongoing interpretation. The Latin words originated in the Middle Ages.
The first verse was translated into English before the Civil War, the
second verse 65 years later, and our present hymnal, in a fit of
politically correct insanity, replaced the well-known "until the Son of God
appear" with "Child of God."
As a "recovering history major," I am glad that our lectionary includes
more context for the Isaiah passage. That makes it clear that Isaiah
is offering a very political statement, military even. The two kings
who are mentioned in the last verse are the kings of Syria and northern
Israel. They have formed an alliance against Ahaz, king of Judah, who
is running scared.
Prophets and kings were rarely good friends, and Isaiah is very
impatient with this one. But he does start to reassure the king: "A young
woman is pregnant, and by the time her son is weaned enough to eat solid
dairy products and honey, you won't need to worry about those enemy
kingdoms." In other words, "All this is going to happen very soon."
I said "start to reassure the king," because the next few verses, which
the lectionary does not include, make it clear that Ahaz is going to
suffer, too, because of his lack of faith.
That is probably more than you wanted to know about King Ahaz, but I
will just add that Jews had already understood these words as a messianic
prophecy in the centuries before Jesus was born.
One of the reasons I love the Bible so much is its incredible variety
and richness. And that brings me to the NT and back to the ambiguity of
Xmas.
The only references to Jesus' virgin birth are in Luke and in today's
gospel lesson. Mark's gospel is not interested in anything about Jesus
until he is baptized by John as a young adult. And in place of a birth
narrative, John's gospel has that lovely, "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word
became flesh" (1:1-14).
Paul never heard of the virgin birth, or if he did he never wrote about
it in the letters that have survived. He certainly believed that
Jesus was the Son of God, but it never occurred to me until I was studying
our epistle lesson this week that Paul at least appeared to believe
that Jesus was the son of Joseph, and he became the Son of God at the time
of his resurrection, or at least was not acknowledged until then: He
"was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be
the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by
resurrection from the dead."
Take your choice. Jesus was Son of God before the creation of the
world, as John says. He became Son of God at the resurrection, if that is
Paul's meaning. Or go with Matthew and Luke somewhere in between. I
cannot claim to understand any of that, except to say that Christmas is
both a miracle and a mystery.
The ambiguity continued in succeeding centuries. Most of you know that
no one has any idea when Jesus was born. December 25 was chosen
because it was the birthday of one of the Roman sun gods, and his cult was
the main competitor with Christianity in the 4th century.
Then for a time, some of our colonial Congregational ancestors made it
a crime to celebrate Christmas, because they were trying to purify the
church of all its Roman Catholic elements. Jehovah's Witnesses are the
only Christians I know of who do not celebrate the holiday.
For me, the argument over the date was settled by Meister Eckhart and
T. S. Eliot. Eckhart says, "If [Christ's birth] does not happen in me,
how could it help me? It is the eternal birth of Christ in [one's]
soul that matters." I think he is saying that the birth is not important
unless I internalize it. And it should not be just one day out of 365;
it should be celebrated constantly. (Never mind that Eckhart was
tried for heresy.4)
T. S. Eliot talks about Christmas as the most important event in the
world, not merely because it divides our history between B.C. and A.D.:
"Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time and of time,
A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history:
transecting, bisecting the world of time, a moment in time but not like a
moment of time,
A moment in time but time was made through that moment: for without
the meaning there is no time, and that moment of time gave the meaning."5
The holiday is a reminder for people who might not think much about God
or Jesus for most of the year. The fact that you are here this
morning instead of at home baking or doing last-minute shopping tells me that
Christmas is more to you than gifts or food. It can be a time for us
to reach out to God. And, more than any other day of the year,
Christmas reminds us that God is constantly reaching out to us. I pray that
if this is a blue Christmas for you that the Christmas carols and the
bright lights will remind you that God loves you enough to send his Son.
1 Susan Brink, Los Angeles Times, December 20, 2007.
2 Andrea Sarvady and Shaunti Feldhahn, December 19, 2007.
3 Anne D'Innocenzio, AP, December 21, 2007.
4 He probably died before a verdict was rendered.
5 Complete Poems, p. 107.
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