Christmas is coming We gather at church on this third Sunday of Advent well aware that Christmas is drawing nigh. It's little more than ten days away, that's all. Many of us are older but we remember how when we were younger we might count the days till Christmas. Now it is different. When you are older your perspective on Christmas changes. Christmas can become a more pleasant, satisfying, or meaningful season. Those words describe the season more than, say, ``exciting.''
I think we can all agree that we want to observe Christmas of the right reasons and in good ways. I assume that most all of us will want to participate in some sort of gift-sharing in a way that does not feel like crass commercialism.
We want Christmas to have some depth to it, some deeper, sustaining significance. Something more than a wreathe hung on a door. Something more than another candle lit on this, the third Sunday. Something more than lights rimming the house, trees, holly and ivy, and jingle bells. Can Christmas, with its roots in the baby Jesus born to Mary and Joseph so long ago, can it take on power and meaning even today?
We are in a tough time Earlier we heard the string group play ``In the bleak mid-winter.'' This is based on a poem by Christina Rossetti written in 1872 for Scribner's magazine, a British magazine. Rossetti came with her family as political exiles from their Italian homeland. The poem begins with this stanza: In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
It's a stark portrait of life at low ebb. The moaning wind, the hardened earth floor, water frozen. It's a time of depression, frustration, sorrow and suffering. All of creation, all of life, is yearning for restoration and for life. It's the bleak midwinter time of life.
Amnesty International tells the story of Amina Masood Janjua of Pakistan. In July, 2005 she and her three children had breakfast with their husband and father, Masood Ahmed Janjua, before he went off to work. They haven't seen him since as he slipped away into Pakistan's secretive intelligence never-never land, a world from which such ``disappeared'' often never return. For Amina and her three children, it's the bleak midwinter.
For a couple of families in our community, who just in the past couple of weeks lost their sons in car accidents, it's the bleak midwinter. The Herrald family lives over near the high school and the Egoians live out in the country east of town. Some of our youth, particularly Ben and Oscar, were good friends. And now, in just that one horrible moment, life is over.
I noticed in the obituaries, during this same week, the obituaries of two high school girls. A girl interested in the outdoors and horses from one of the Fresno high schools. The other a Redwood High School of Visalia strong student and water polo player. The fog has been settling over us at night and into the morning. For all these families, and the vast web of friends who surround them, it's the bleak midwinter. The earth is hard and silent, water frozen and cold.
Then there are our friends who are older, whose bodies are weak and tired. I visited with one friend this week who told me in response to my perfunctory ``how are you?'' that ``I'd be less than honest if I said it is going really well. The truth of the matter is that I am very weak and tired.'' Then as we talked more his mind kept turning, over and over again, to the same refrains, repeating them over and over again, with all sincerity. It's sad to see this slow deterioration in people we love, and whom we remember, not so long ago it seems, as vigorous and strong. And now they are a shell of what they once were. Here too, midst the joyful strains of Christmas time, it's the bleak midwinter.
And I remember on this December morning friends I know who are struggling in that most intimate of areas, for their marriages are under great stress. Some of us have been there in our own lives and so we know this pain. For these folks too, while somewhere the sleigh bells ring, they are living the bleak midwinter.
Every one of us is impacted in some way by the economic downturn which is steadily tightening its grip around businesses, corporations, government, schools, and families. Private school teachers let go just before Christmas, a trucking company finding it difficult to make ends meet, the American auto industry hemorrhaging, postponed doctors' visitssome of us have more of a cushion to fall back upon, to soften the blow, but more people than before are near the precipice. It's the bleak midwinter.
Isaiah 61 The familiar Isaiah passage we read was given to people who had just returned from Babylonian exile. As they return Isaiah it is given to the prophet to remind the people of what kind of people they are to be, of what the ``good news'' is all about, after all. They are returning to find their land in shambles but are given this word, that in time, that they will rebuild ``the ancient ruins.'' But for what purpose? The people who were carted away into Babylonian captivity tended to be from the upper crust of Hebrew society. Now, as they return, they hear the words of Isaiah directed less toward them and more toward others. Isaiah says that the good news he has been anointed to give is really for the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, and the prisoners.'' He couches his words in Jubilee language, saying this is ``the year of the Lord's favor.'' Isaiah wants it to be known that he has been anointed, called, appointed, to bring this good word, this good news that those who have been ignored, those who have been left out, those over to the side, that their day is at hand, the Lord's favor is upon them.
It's made very clear in Isaiah. The Lord desires justice and righteousness, the Lord wants righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. And also, the Lord disdains robbery and wrongdoing. The Lord wants those who praise him, who call upon him, to practice what is right and fair, and to do what is just and true.
This 2008 Christmas season This week I've found my heart and mind pin-balling back and forth, around and sideways, up and down, all over the place. It was on NPR the other day that I heard an interview with a Pakistani journalist describing his plight and that of his country. He's for an open, more progressive, inclusive Pakistan. He says these things in print and has received a series of death threats. His country, he fears, is being overrun by people, religious people, with whom ``you cannot hold a civil debate. They are not open to a free and honest dialogue.''
Also, my mind and heart keep returning to the recent teenage deaths in our town. I think about a young man teetering on the edge of gang life. Then it's back to Zimbabwe and the cholera outbreak, and the stubborn President Mugabe. I was at a meeting yesterday in Pasadena so some of our conference issues infiltrate my mind. The other night we were reminded again about Iran. Francisco Rodriguez will be paid 37 million dollars to pitch the ninth inning for the New York Mets over the next three years. I read a review of a new book The Bridge at the Edge of the World, about environmental issues and global warming, which was very sobering. The complexities of Afghanistan. How people can ever survive in Congo. The tremendous challenges facing pubic education. The severe challenges facing Mennonite colleges.
And in the middle of all of this, in the middle of all the craziness and complexity and desperation of our world, into this world comes Jesus, a lowly infant baby, born in a stable bed. And somehow, facing this world with all the pain and struggle we know of, we are supposed to adhere to this baby?
Isaiah seems to say to us that since the Spirit of the Lord God has been upon him, anointing him to bring this good news to the oppressed, the broken down, those in captivity, the prisoners, bringing comfort to all who mourn, that this is our challenge too.
And indeed, when this baby grew up and became a man, and then one day walked into the temple at Nazareth, he found a scroll. He took the scroll in hand and took a position where everyone would have to listen to him. He unfurled the scroll and found a passage from Isaiah. He began to read: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And then he set the scroll to the side on a table, looked around at everyone, and announced, to the astonishment of everyone who was there that, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The words of Isaiah are taking new life and meaning in Jesus.
We have the utter audacity today, in the midst of all that is wrong and unfair in our world, in the face of unexpected death and total unreasonableness, we nevertheless say that this infant holy, this infant lowly, is the one in whom we place our trust, our hope. This Jesus offers comfort and this Jesus restores as we line up our lives with his, as we give our lives to him in faith and trust.
He beckons us to take up the cross with him and find our way standing with the brokenhearted and to releasing those who are in bondage. It's a huge task, a sacred responsibility.
But we do well to remember this as well. One of our readings for today was from John 1, about John the Baptist.
John was out in the desert, doing his thing. People started coming around, and eventually some of the more religious and leader type folks asked the blunt question, just who are you. They asked things like are you Elijah, or perhaps a prophet, just who are you. John denied it all, and to the implicit suggestion that he thought of himself as a messiah he made it very clear, I am not the Messiah.
No, he said, I'm but a pale reflection of what is to come. I'm just the guy out here in the desert saying, get ready, get things in order, make straight the way of the Lord.
It's a good word for us to remember. You and I are called to do a lot. We want to be faithful. We want to serve the Lord. We want to be that kind of Spirit anointed person who pays attention to those who are being left behind. At the same time it's comforting (to me at least) to remember that I am not the Messiah. I'm not going to get it right much of the time. I'm not going to care as I ought to. I'm going to look out for myself instead of someone more deserving more often than I ought to. So it's good to remember, it's not all up to me, for I am not the Messiah. I want to be like John the Baptist, something of an imitation, even a faint one, of the one who is to come.
So our call is an old familiar one. Even in the midst of this complex, slowly crumbling world, we take on this baby Jesus as our very own. We remember that this baby Jesus was born for you, and born for me. Born for you, and born for me, to love, to serve, and to follow.
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Our God in heaven cannot hold him nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.
IN the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed,
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But his mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshiped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give him: give my heart.
