Traveling in Place

Suffering There; Silence Here

During his remarks made on the Feast of St. Stephen (Christianity’s first martyr), Pope Francis lamented the growing persecution of Christians, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. He strayed from his prepared remarks to say that some of today’s Christians suffer greater hardship than the first generations of Jesus’ followers, who were the frequent target of Roman persecution.

Francis’ remarks came on the day after Christmas, when three bombs in Baghdad, Iraq, resulted in the deaths of 38 Christians.

A month ago, during a meeting with leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Francis defended the right of all people, regardless of their religious faith, to dignity and freedom of worship. But he was clearly most concerned about the fate of Christians. “We should never resign ourselves to thinking of the Middle East without the Christians, who for 2,000 years confess the name of Jesus, as full citizens in the social, cultural, and religious life of the nations to which they belong.”

Indeed, given the deafening silence on this issue in the West, one wonders if most Christians here have already “resigned themselves” to the end of Christianity in the very part of the world that gave birth to it.

Why Do We Dream of a White Christmas?

A week ago, it didn’t seem possible that folks in our part of the world would be wondering whether we’d have a white Christmas. As late as Tuesday, “snow was falling, snow on snow, snow on snow,” to quote the carol, and plows were having trouble keeping up. But in the last two days, the temperature has vaulted into the 50’s, and now the only snow left is in the shrinking banks at the ends of driveways. Forecasters are teasing us with a chance for more snow today and tomorrow, but if it comes, it will be very light.

There’s an interesting post by Jesse Ferrell on Accuweather.com about why we Americans dream of a white Christmas. Considered objectively, it seems odd that snow should be associated with Christmas at all, since the vast majority of us rarely if ever experience both at the same time. Even Syracuse, the snowiest city in the lower 48, is covered in snow only two of every three Christmases. So what gives?

According to Ferrell, our mythical view of Christmas owes to the “Little Ice Age” of the early to mid-19^th century, when snow was more common in December in both the U.S. and Europe, and when much of our holiday lore was composed. In 1844, Lydia Maria Child wrote, “Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go,” and described a snowy Thanksgiving near Boston, Massachusetts. In 1843, Charles Dickens penned “A Christmas Carol” and described Londoners on Christmas Day “scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms.” In 1822, Clement C. Moore wrote how, on Christmas Eve, “the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.”

Afraid of What?

Have you ever noticed how fear is a prominent theme in the Christmas story?

An angel told Joseph, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife”… King Herod was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him…When Zechariah saw the angel, he was terrified, and fear overwhelmed him…The angel said to Mary, “Do not be afraid”…When John, Jesus’ cousin, was circumcised, and his mute father began to speak, fear came over all their neighbors…When the angels came to the shepherds, they were filled with fear.

When you think of Christmas, you probably think of warmth, hope, peacefulness, love, and joy. Or maybe you feel anxious about finding the right gifts for everyone on your list. Or perhaps you experience grief over the loss of people who made past Christmases so special. About the last feeling we would associate with Christmas is “fear.”  What is there to be afraid of?

Well, nothing. That’s why the angels said, “Do not be afraid” four times in the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth. There is nothing to fear, but you don’t need to know that unless you feel afraid – unless you are determined, like King Herod, to resist what God is doing, or feel so lowly, like the shepherds, that God’s presence seems threatening. Nevertheless, our familiarity with the Christmas story has so sugarcoated the radical nature of the Incarnation that we have lost the sense of awe and wonder that struck fear in the hearts of those who experienced the first Christmas.

Passing the Light

Yesterday, I received a card from an elderly gentleman who used to attend our church before he and his wife moved down south to be with their son. She suffers advanced stages of dementia and now resides in a nursing home. His mind is still good. Every year, he sends a Christmas card with a heartfelt hand-written note letting me know how the two of them are getting along and expressing how much he misses our church.

The front of this year’s card reads, “Happy Hannukah.” He’s not Jewish. He’s a Christian with failing eyesight. Evidently, he went to the card aisle at the store and struggled to choose the right one from all those blurry images. It’s not hard for me to imagine him squinting and grunting in frustration, but taking all the time he needed. Finally, he was able to make out a row of lighted candles and thought to himself, “That’ll do.”

His note on the inside, as personable as ever, is in a shaky, barely legible script. I couldn’t just glance at it. I had to spend some time deciphering it, which allowed me to picture his face as he scrawled the words out on the card. He sent it as a Christmas card, of course, but for me, those candles represent Advent. As hard a time as he had making out any of images in the card aisle, he recognized the candles. He saw the light.

His card is precious to me. He lives a thousand miles away. He faithfully visits his wife who no longer knows who he is. He can barely see to get around. His body is full of aches and pains. But he takes the time to get to a store, pick out a card, write a note, and mail it. The lighted candles on the front of his card are testimony to the hope he embodies. Just when I was rushing through yet another busy day that threatened to completely erase the Advent spirit, he passed the light to me and invited me to pause. So I did. Just for a moment. And I smiled and gave thanks.  

©2013 by J. Mark Lawson

Starting Over, But Not in the Same Place

The season of Advent has begun, which means the church year has started all over again. We’re back to the beginning of the story of Jesus, preparing to celebrate his birth, just like we did last year at this time, and many years before that, on our way to Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.

This does not mean, however, that we are simply going over the same ground again and again. Though the church year is cyclical, it is not a two-dimensional circle. Think of it as a three-dimensional upward spiral. When you come back around to any point on the circle, you are in a different place than you were a year ago, because you have lived that much longer. You have gained another year of experience. To be attentive to the gospel story is to discern how that same story speaks anew to you at each stage of your life. How is God present to you now? What new word is God speaking to you through the old story?

The purpose of reliving the gospel story every year is not to go backward but forward, reinterpreting its meaning as our own personal stories continue to unfold. The accounts of Jesus’ birth should not mean the same thing to us when we are 50 or 60 as they did when we were five or 15.

And yet, Christmas, because it is so hugely important to our culture (quite apart from any religious significance) is a very difficult season to experience this way. Christmas, it seems, always draws us backward. It drips with nostalgia, which is a powerful narcotic against hearing the word of God. Immersed in cultural sentimentality, we define Christmas in flat two-dimensional terms. We want it to adhere to the picture we have of it in our minds. We do not want it ever to change. Or, if we do, we want to go back to the way it was at some happier time in our lives.

How, then, do we experience the Christmas season as a way forward instead of backward? This is the whole purpose of Advent, which the secular culture not only ignores but also runs over with a commercial bulldozer. Advent is all about looking forward. It’s about preparing for Christ to come to us in new ways that we do not expect. It’s about God’s word breaking into our lives with surprising news.