Christmas Is More Than a Single Silent Night

The message of Christmas is an eternal one. It's not just the Creator becoming the created, the King walking among His people, allowing them to raise Him from a child and teach Him in the synagogue about --who? Himself? It's not just God, condescending to live the life of a carpenter, then becoming an itinerant preacher, though that is a pretty incredible thing to ponder. But what would be the point? To model for us real humility? To show us how to live in a supernatural way? To show us that temptation can be resisted, and God's Kingdom can come to earth, and we can selflessly, radically love our enemies? That's all great. It's something we could spend years, maybe, trying to wrap our heads around, the benefits of such an un-godlike act. But then what? We learn, and maybe we even follow --faithfully. We believe the message that we can change, and this world can be better through us. And then we die. What would happen when we die? Where would we go? And what would happen to the message of Christmas? It would, maybe, get passed down from generation to generation. But like the Israelites in the days after Joshua, it wouldn't take long before the message becomes watered down and its impact wanes. I think we see that now. So many add-ons and distractions. Black Friday, elf on a shelf, ballets and light shows, school pageants and Secret Santa shops, tinsel, trees, and reindeer. What is the message? What is it all for? A glance toward an heirloom creche? A service by candlelight? A single silent night? If we miss the message of Christmas --the entire, eternal message --we get what we see in many places today.

The message begins in heaven where a creative triune God, designed and produced a perfect offshoot of His relationship, a world brimming with life. God could have left things as they were; He was not incomplete or unhappy in any way. He was not ignorant of outcomes. Yet He chose as He did. Man, His creation, chose as well. Humanity's representative, Adam, did what any one of us would have done --have done: he chose his own way, and sin entered the world. Without some reconciliation between mankind and our Creator, we were destined to pay eternally the penalty for our sin. Jesus, the Christ Child, the God-Man is the Way. He brought more than a message, for a message --even when obeyed --is just a message. No reconciliation occurs without the penalty being paid. Christmas nudges our thoughts a few miles further than Bethlehem to Golgotha where reconciliation took place, and nudges us days (?) centuries (?) millennia (?) further in time to the second coming of our King who will reign eternally with those who have been reconciled.

Christmas illuminates our need to be reconciled --whether we acknowledge it or not --and our inability to fill that need. It celebrates the glory of a God willing to humble Himself and make Himself known to His creation so that we might love Him and accept His means of reconciliation. It recollects a cross and an empty tomb, tangible proof of victory over sin and death, as tangible as a host of angels and a great star heralded His nativity. It points to a day which we may imagine to be far off, but in light of eternity is soon, a day in which this Savior will return as The Reigning King, a station to which He is more than entitled. And Christmas reminds us to live according to Christ's message, His example, and His work, in anticipation of that day, today and every day into eternity. 

Midweek: Christmas Time

For the three Wednesdays preceding Christmas, I'd like to share with you the thoughts of others with regard to the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Today's selection is So Hallowed, from Frederick Buechner: 

"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time."

SO HALLOWED AND so gracious is the time --these lines from the first scene of Hamlet in a sense say it all. We tend to think of time as progression, as moment following moment, day following day, in relentless flow, the kind of time a clock or calendar can measure. But we experience time also as depth, as having quality as well as quantity --a good time, a dangerous time, an auspicious time, a time we mark not by its duration but by its content.

On the dark battlements of Elsinore, Marcellus speaks to his companions of the time of Jesus' birth. It is a hallowed time he says, a holy time, a time in which life grows still like the surface of a river so that we can look down into it and see glimmering there in its depths something timeless, precious, other. And a gracious time, Marcellus says --a time that we cannot bring about as we can bring about a happy time or a sad time but a time that comes upon us as grace, as a free and unbidden gift. Marcellus explains that Christmas is a time of such holiness that the cock crows the whole night through as though it is perpetually dawn, and thus for once, even the powers of darkness are powerless.

Horatio's answer is equally instructive. "So have I heard and do in part believe," he says to Marcellus, thus speaking, one feels, not just for himself but for Shakespeare and for us. In part believe it. At Christmas time it is hard even for the unbeliever not to believe in something if not in everything. Peace on earth, good will to men; a dream of innocence that is good to hold on to even if it is only a dream; the mystery of being a child; the possibility of hope --not even the canned carols piped out over the shopping center parking plaza from Thanksgiving on can drown it out entirely.

For a moment or two, the darkness of disenchantment, cynicism, doubt, draw back at least a little, and all the usual worldly witcheries lose something of their power to charm. Maybe we cannot manage to believe with all our hearts. But as long as the moments last, we can believe that this is of all things the thing most worth believing. And that may not be as far as it sounds from what belief is. For as long as the moment lasts, that hallowed, gracious time.

~ Frederick Buechner

from The Faces of Jesus

Timing Is Everything

What makes a comedian successful? an acrobat death-defying? a ballet beautiful? It's timing, synchronicity. Sure, a comedian's material can be funny, but chances are, it's been written by someone else. His (or her) talent is delivery, presenting the joke in a manner that actually makes the comedic elements land just where and when they need to land. Timing is vital. And the acrobat. Without measuring the rhythm of the catcher or the swing, the acrobat would miss the catch or grab, falling to the net or something much more unpleasant. Synchronicity is critical. The ballet is breathtaking because the choreography, the execution, the pageantry, and the music all work together in perfect harmony to bring the story to life. All things working together for the good of the audience and the consummation of the plan.

The Hebrew Scriptures close with God's promise to His people:

“Remember the Law of Moses, My servant,
Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel,
With the statutes and judgments.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” ~ Malachi 4:4-6

I keep a small piece of paper in my Bible, between these words and Matthew 1:1. The paper simply reads "400." Four hundred years lie between God's promise of a coming redemption and the arrival of the Redeemer. Four hundred years of silence from Heaven. Four hundred years of His people either hanging in there, trusting what God had sworn, or letting go, giving up on anything ever coming to pass.

Advent has begun. The season in which we turn our thoughts to the Gift of Jesus and the salvation He purchased for us according to the plan and purpose of our loving Father God. Maybe silence has fallen in your world this season. Maybe foreclosure proceedings have begun, or you have said a tearful goodbye to any hope of having a child. Maybe your wife has announced her decision to abandon your covenant. Maybe the prognosis is accompanied by a recommendation to hospice. Maybe your knees are buckling under the weight of a thousand little things. And through all of this, you have cried and cried out until you are cried out. Silence. But just as a good laugh requires skill unseen by those watching, just as acrobatics requires the executioner to control many moving parts, just as a ballet's beauty is woven gently and methodically by designer and performer alike, redemption is coming. God is working all things out for the good of those who love Him, those He has chosen (Romans 8:28).

The Redeemer has come! When the fullness of time had come (Galatians 4:4-5). He was not slow in coming. You've not yet missed your chance. As long as Advent is celebrated on this earth, those who would come to the King may come. It's the perfect time!