The fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas happened right on top of each other this year…. “bada-bing, bada-boom.” There wasn’t a lot of time to sit and reflect on the readings from the prophet reminding us that “the Lord himself will be peace” and from Paul saying “God, here I am, I come to do your will” and from St. Luke reminding us that “Blessed is the one who believes that the promise made to him/her by the Lord will be fulfilled.”
It’s too bad. We need time to reflect on these words.
Then, boom, in less than 12 hours, we’re hearing the great news about light overpowering darkness, God being enfleshed – taking visible form in this world. Promises are being fulfilled, not because we “earned them” but because God wants us, loves us, pours God's generosity over us for no other reason other than God wants to. Period. This is not easy to hear. We’re used to “fairness” and “tit for tat.” Even as we listen to those words, we’re making sure we give a gift of equal value to the gift given us by our friends. We are not used to “just because I love you.”
We are told by some that the first Christmas happened, that God came in the tiny baby in Bethlehem, so that God could save us from our sins, from hell, from the consequences of our weak human nature. I believe God came to teach us how to love, because we just weren’t getting it. Look at our world today! We still don’t get it. God came not because we sinned, but because God “so loved us.” And I believe when we die, we will be asked “did you love?” not “did you sin?” In other words “Did you get it?”
To get it means to live it and pass it on. In other words, we are called to continually incarnate – enflesh – God in this world. Where is God made manifest in this world? In the parking lots of crowded pre-Christmas malls? At the return counter on Dec 26th? How much more is the unconditional, inclusive, embracing love of God tangible in this world because of our actions and words? Do we add to the light or diminish it? Is God any more believable because of us? Or are we in a world where as William Butler Yates says, “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Again, these are the question upon which we need time to reflect between the last Sunday of Advent and Christmas. But it’s not too late. We can still reflect as we enter a new year.
We are told that the Kingdom of God provides a light that “darkness cannot overcome,” that will only happen if each of us is such a light. I know of several times during the shopping, spending, and preparation for Christmas where my light quickly became a smoldering wick. I got caught up in the nonsense, the frustration, the tension of it all. I lost sight. I didn’t get it, or got it and lost it. I had to “re-light” several times.
It has been said that Christianity is not a spectator sport. If it is not lived, fully entered into, passionately joined, it is nothing more than any other commercial endeavor. Incarnation was not a one-time event. It must continue if God is to be known and believed. Each of us is a potential spark of Divine life and love. Each of us is, potentially, is a reflection of the source of life, love, and being. We contribute to the light or the darkness – there’s no in between.
I end these Advent reflections where I began – Dom Helder Camera: “Be careful how you live your life. It is the only gospel that most people will ever read.” It’s that difficult. It’s that simple. Incarnation is a collaborative effort. It’s not something God does and we watch, but something in which to participate – fully, passionately, and consciously. It happens when we care for the poor, the alien (the immigrant), the widow, the prisoner, the hungry. It happens when we refuse to participate in an eye for an eye. It happens when we love inclusively. It happens when we demonstrate by our lives that there is, as Alan Jones of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco says, “something else going on in the world other than getting and spending, killing and dying.”
So…. the Christmas, incarnational message of every follower of Jesus? “The world doesn’t have to be this way! Let me show you.”
Let me end with a blessing I wrote several years ago.
“May the message of Christmas stir you soul with a renewed sense of purpose.
May the New Year be filled with a passion and enthusiasm for life.
May you maintain a perspective that recognizes what is truly important.
May you have the courage to take risks and expand your possibilities.
May you celebrate your life and reverence all life.
May each new challenge bring growth and deepen your compassion for others.
And may you know the wonder fo small and simple things.”
A Blessed Christmas Season!
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