In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. -John 1:1-4
Eight years ago, I spent
Christmas in Canton…that is, in Canton, China. In the center of that ancient
city, on north banks of the Pearl River, stands a massive cathedral constructed
by French missionaries in the 19th century. Canton’s Cathedral of
the Sacred Heart and the Christian community that met there endured both the Japanese
occupation during the Second World and the Communist persecution of the Church during
Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution, leaving only a small remnant of faithful
Christians to rebuild when Christianity became more openly tolerated in the
1980s and 1990s. But by the time I arrived in 2009, a thriving community met
there.
On Christmas Eve 2009, I
found myself outside the doors of this very cathedral amid thousands. In the
square adjacent to the church, countless numbers of Chinese Christians were
waiting for the doors of the building to open. You see, they had 8 services
back to back, every hour on the hour. When one service let out, those waiting outside
entered the building until it was filled up, leaving the remainder outside to
wait for the next service. This meant that those at the end of the line might
have to wait the duration of several services before they were finally admitted.
I, myself, waited at least an hour to get in.
Every single individual waited outside because
they wanted to hear the story of Christ’s birth, to sing God’s praises, and
receive Jesus into their heart in Holy Communion. In a word, they were so
excited about what God had done for them in Christ, that the inconvenience of
standing in line for hours meant nothing. Their waiting was joyous, and perhaps
as raucous as the line outside of a popular night club. And this was in a
culture, where atheism is the state religion and where being a Christian is
considered to be a huge social disadvantage, and even, a danger in some
respects. But here these people were, singing cherished hymns and carols at
maximum decibel, smiling, and praising God even after having stood in the cold
for hours.
This Christmas season, however,
I waited in altogether different line for hours – in the Strongsville, Target –
on the morning after Thanksgiving hoping to get a new IPAD at a deep discount.
And let me tell you, that was not a happy line to be in. Everyone looked worn,
weary, and maybe a little bit like the cast of the Walking Dead. Christmas music droned on in the background and
the store looked a little bit like the final scenes of Titanic with boxes tipped over and debris thrown every which way. Though
the décor may have been festive it was, indeed, a very bleak scene.
You see Christmas in America
has become a grudging obligation rather than a joy to be embraced and
celebrated. We find ourselves tired, and stressed throughout this season. A
friend of mine, who is probably one of the cheeriest people I know said to me
the other day, “I know this probably sounds bad and probably makes me a bad
Christian but I can’t wait for Christmas to be over.” Some of you might feel just that way right
now. But Christmas is not meant to be that at all. At Christmas, we remember
that God became truly human and we remember that the light of God has broken
into the darkness. We can blame the commercialization of Christmas. We can
blame that “eastern syndicate” that runs the whole racket. But the choice is
really with us as individuals as to how we are to celebrate. Do we allow
Christmas to become a cheerless series of obligations or, do we recognize the
magnitude of what we are remembering this day?
As Christians, what we
believe occurred in that stable in Bethlehem some 2, 000 years, is the most crucial
event is human history. Over the last few weeks, we learnt about the long years
of waiting and expectation leading up to Christ’s birth and his establishment
of God’s reign. All of human history, starting from the creation and fall was
led up to the event that we remember today when the invisible and transcendent
God became tangible and immanent. Those of you know me and my predilections,
know that I love to quote the Church Fathers and Mothers – those Christians who
wrote, taught, and pastored in the earliest years of the Church. This evening you
get this doozy from St. Ambrose of Milan, who among the greatest preachers of
the fourth century A.D. and the mentor of St. Augustine who is considered the
greatest theologian of the Western Church. He wrote,
(God) made himself a child (...) to enable you to become a perfect man:
he was wrapped in swaddling clothes to free you from the bonds of death (...).
He came down to earth from heaven to enable you to rise up to heaven; he had no
place in the inn so that you might have many mansions in heaven. He, being
rich, became poor for our sake - St. Paul says- so as to enrich us with his
poverty.[1]
By His coming among us at Christmas,
God bridges that gap that had separated us from him. At Christmas, God reaches
us out to us and draws us to himself. At Christmas, yes, God invites us to
worship him and to praise him as the Angels do in the Gospel of Luke and in the
countless hymns and carols we sing this time year. But God also calls us to
follow him and to trust that through Jesus’s birth, indeed through his whole life,
death, and resurrection, God has triumphed over sin and death and opened to us
the way of eternal life in him. He calls to trust that darkness that we
sometimes find ourselves can never overwhelm the light that broke into this
world 2,000 years ago in Palestine. And he calls, to join him in lighting up
this world with his love.
I am reminded of that famous scene
in the Charlie Brown Christmas
special when after all the annoyance and drudgery of trying to make a perfect
Christmas, Linus steps onto the stage and reads those words from the Gospel of Luke that you heard tonight.
And when, he finishes he turns to his friend and says matter of factly, “That’s
what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” And indeed that is what Christmas
is all about. If we have faith in the utter miracle of what we believe occurred
at Christmas, our keeping of Christmas will be transformed. And more than that,
our lives will be transformed
+ Amen
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