“I wonder as I wander out under the sky, ‘bout poor human folk like you and like I” is the refrain in an old spiritual. Each year in the Christmas season I wonder as I wander out under the sky about the impossible thing that began its fulfillment in the annunciation to Mary so many centuries ago. Unlike the White Queen in Alice Through The Looking Glass who could believe in six impossible things before breakfast, I can believe in only two impossible things: that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, and that dead and buried he rose bodily, fully revealed as the Word of God made flesh. Really impossible? Of course they are, in human terms, but not for God, the great “I Am” through whom creation itself exists. For Christians Christmas is the hinge on which all history swings.
The problem with the Christmas season is that we expect too much and it delivers too little. I suppose some of it is due to the romantic sentimentality made of it by stories and movies defining the “meaning” of Christmas that has dominated America’s entertainment for over a hundred years. Even the annual remembrance of the birth of Jesus, the “prince of peace,” has become a disappointment because we are enticed to expect God will finally deliver peace on earth and good will to all, only to enter January and discover the same old broken and flailing world. What happened to the promise of peace and good will? Hallmark movies end in happy fulfillment of holiday wishes. Why doesn’t Christmas?
God told us through the prophets of old what the way of peace and good will was and how to live into it. When the time was right, the way of peace and good will was demonstrated in the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ whose authority as God incarnate was manifested in the Resurrection. If the promise of peace and good will has not been fully received, it is because we expected it to be delivered to us as if a present under the tree. We did not expect to have to live into it through our own effort aided by the Holy Spirit. The gift of peace and good will can be received only by living into it. “It came upon a midnight clear that glorious song of old, from angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold , peace on the earth, good will to ‘men’,from heaven’s all gracious king, the world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing. …“Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long; beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled two thousand years of wrong; and warring humankind hears not the tidings which they bring; O hush the noise and cease your strife and hear the angels sing.”
Where is the peaceable kingdom? Jesus said it was near at hand for those willing to receive it.
Your Christmas message is an excellent reminder that we all have work to do to help this world be a peaceful place!
Merry Christmas!