LAKE JAMES
NORTH CAROLINA
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LAKE JAMES NORTH CAROLINA
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Christmas I + Dec. 31, 2006 + Saint Paul’s Church, Lake James
I have a confession to make. Every year, usually early in November, I begin to feel “out of step” with the world around me. Stores are bombarding customers with Christmas carols and some neighbors are already putting Christmas lights on their houses while in Church, we haven’t even begun the season of Advent! Days pass and pressures mount to begin to observe “Christmas!” Each year, I resist, ignoring the places selling Christmas trees and wreaths, but sometime during Advent, my resolve has usually weakened to the point where Christmas music begins to come from the CD player and I guess I’m more or less “in step” with most other folks. But it doesn’t last very long! Suddenly Christmas Eve comes with its excitement and bustle of last-minute tasks. The wonderful Christmas Eve liturgy is celebrated, we sing O Come, all ye Faithful, the Sacrament is consecrated, we receive the Son of God in Holy Communion, and finally, the soft beauty of Silent Night. Through the years, Christmas Day has usually brought with it some family time and at least a few peaceful moments in which to catch one’s breath, both spiritually and physically. It’s the following day, the Feast of St. Stephen when it hits. If ever there is a time when one can see how different the focus of the Christian Christmas is from the secular Christmas, it is during the 12 Christmastide days as the Church celebrates the truth of the Incarnation and the rest of the world concentrates on “after-Christmas sales” and some exhausted people mutter “Thank goodness that’s over for another year!” My point is not to condemn the secular holiday (for it has many nice features which appeal to Christians as well as secular folks) but rather, to have us consider what is the message of our Christmas - the Christian Christmas. Let me suggest that that is much easier to do today than it was a week ago. The Department store Santas are gone and, by and large, so are Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and the other minor gods of the secular festival. The field, for a while, is now left to the Creche and the Gospel message that “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God!” The familiar words of the Creed connect that awesome truth to us when we affirm our belief that “it was for us, for our salvation, that HE came down from heaven and was born of the Virgin Mary.” Today, there need be no distracting thoughts of last-minute Christmas shopping, no worries as to whether one got the right size shirt for Uncle Harry or whether Susie will really like the perfume. Today, it’s just Jesus Christ and us! Priests are often asked how to find God. The Good News of Christmas is that we don’t need to “find God” because God has already found us! We worship the God who came and who continues to come into our world, the God who continues to come into our very lives! That also means we don’t need to figure out ways to love God. God first loved us and the capacity to love God in return is one of the wonderful gifts from that God to humankind. But what about those people who, in all honesty, don’t experience God in their lives, people who seem to have no connection at all to God’s love or have no awareness of God’s presence? What about those good people who may have searched, even yearned for God, only to find nobody - nothing! In fact, haven’t most of us, at one time or another, had a similar experience, feeling not God’s presence but what seemed to be God’s absence? Haven’t you known those terrible moments of wondering whether God really cares - or even whether there is a God at all? If so, relax. Most of the greatest Saints, the “experts,” if you will, in the devotional life have experienced times of dryness, emptiness, even great doubt. But, by God’s grace (not by human effort) those times pass and are replaced by greater, stronger faith and a closer relationship with God. Still, people quite naturally wonder what to do in those dry times, where should one look for help? Let me ask a question. If you or I had come to Bethlehem that Holy Night, do you think we would have found the Infant Savior? Would we have known where to look? Would we have gone first to the home of the village priest or the office of the mayor? Would we have gone to the best suite in the local inn? Would any of us have ever thought to look in the stable? In the same way, where do we look for Jesus when, in times of pain, or doubt, we go searching for God? The Christmas message that “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” means that God has come and is present not only in our moments of happiness and good health, but equally, if not even more so, in our times of pain, sorrow, and illness. To put it as clearly as I know how, the cute, cuddly baby Jesus of the stable is the same Jesus who hung, twisted in agony, on the Cross, and is the same Jesus who now reigns in glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It’s that Jesus who loves each one of us so much that He comes to us again and again and again. Perhaps in these twelve days of Christmas we would do well to look again at our awareness of that. How important, how very important it is to see in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar not merely a ceremony or just a symbolic act, but a way [perhaps the chief way] we come face to face with the true Presence of the Son of God, receiving Him into our very selves every time we are fed with that small wafer and sip of wine. We need to think again about what our response really is to the fact that Jesus is present in the Holy Word, that collection of books we call “the Bible.” It’s one thing to acknowledge that as truth, but something else to include room for regular prayerful reading of the Holy Scriptures in our busy daily lives. While we are at it, if we are really searching for God, how important it is to ask ourselves what we think it means to say that Jesus is present whenever 2 or 3 gather in His Name. But the place we are most apt to overlook when we seek God’s presence is within each one of us. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is within us and so is the living presence of that God. Given at Holy Baptism, that Presence can not and does not die. It never wears out or expires! Our awareness of it, our appreciation of it, our belief in it, even our desire for it, may be strongly felt at times or seem virtually to be gone at others. How and even why that can happen is puzzling, but that it can take place is certainly so and many of us have experienced it at times in our lives. The Christian Christmas sings “Emmanuel - God is with us!” Our faith teaches us that God is not just a vague Being “somewhere out there” but is here, within you, within every one of us! The words we heard in the Bible lessons, and the words we have sung in the carols all proclaim the same truth: Jesus, the Savior, came in Bethlehem, and continues to come to humankind. When we are aware of God’s presence in us, we can also begin to perceive God’s presence in others. Sometimes, it may be our assurance of that to others, especially those in pain, sorrow, or doubt, which will make a great difference in their lives. Sometimes it may be others who assure that to us. Perhaps that has happened to you. It certainly has happened to me. If anyone asks you “did you have a good Christmas?” May you be able to answer (and not too smugly) “Yes, I am!” because these twelve days now are the Christian Christmas. They are the Church’s gift to all who will receive them, reminding us once again of the awe-filled truths that God the Son came and that He continues to come. So, may these 12 days of your Christmas be filled with Divine grace and a joyous awareness of God’s presence in you!
The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr.
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This page last modified on Friday, April 11, 2008 09:40 PM |
