by CCW | 5 January 2018 20:00
The world divides between those who wish Christmas was over and done with and those who wish Christmas would never end. It can seem to be altogether too much, too much fuss and bother, too much tinsel and wrap, too much food and drink, too much travel; in short, the problem of too much of a good thing, perhaps.
There have been times when Christians themselves were anti-Christmas, particularly those of a Puritan persuasion. At Harvard in the 17th century, for instance, classes were held on Christmas day and in England during the Cromwellian Inter-regnum, Christmas was forbidden to be celebrated since it was viewed as mere superstition and “painted-over paganism”. Even earlier in the 16th century, the reaction in Cornwall to the first Book of Common Prayer (1549) was to dismiss it as being “like a Christmas game,” suggesting something frivolous and not serious, not holy. How to think about Christmas is not entirely a new concern.
Yet to think about it is the main feature of the Feast of Christmas in the Christian understanding however much it has been overwhelmed by a host of add-ons. There is a fundamentally intellectual character to the Christmas season liturgically considered. Christmas Eve, for instance, for centuries upon centuries, was not about the babe in the manger but the Word of God Incarnate, signalled in the thunderous words from Hebrews and the Prologue of John’s Gospel. No mention of Bethlehem really.
And on Christmas Day, it is only Mary and Joseph and the first-born son “wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger” who are in Bethlehem. The Shepherds are in the countryside, “abiding in the fields”, where they are told by the angel about “good tidings of great joy” found in the birth of a Saviour “in the City of David”. And on The Sunday after Christmas, the Matthew’s infancy narrative tells us only about Joseph’s dilemma in discovering Mary “with child of the Holy Ghost”. None of the representatives of our humanity, great and small, high and low, actually make it to Bethlehem until The Octave Day of Christmas, also New Year’s Day, when the Shepherds, finally, it seems “go unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass,” literally, ‘this saying which has happened,’ not unlike John’s Word made flesh, perhaps. And the Magi/King’s are not only the ‘Come-From-Aways’ but the ‘Johnny-Come-Latelies’. For Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christmas really only begins with the Epiphany, the coming of the Kings bearing gifts, the origin of the tradition of giving gifts which is really about honouring one another.
And yet, Bethlehem is inescapably and intrinsically all part of the wonder of Christmas. It’s just that it is before us more intellectually and symbolically than in any sort of linear narrative. To put it another way, the mystery of Christmas is all about the significance of God and God’s engagement with our humanity in ways that challenge all our assumptions. It requires a deep thoughtfulness like Joseph “thinking on these things” and Mary “keep[ing] all these things and pondering them in her heart.” It requires a kind of humility, the humility of Joseph and Mary, each yielding in an active way the whole of their being, heart and mind, to the divine will.
Christmas, like Easter, witnesses to the way in which the mystery comes to light and takes birth in our souls. We witness to the ways of pondering and thinking upon these things in the discovery of their truth and meaning.
Truth and meaning are inseparable. Meaning by itself might simply mean what is true for me which is not necessarily truth at all. But put truth and meaning together and then you have something powerful and wonderful, something worth pondering about our commitment to truth without which it has no meaning in us. Truth and meaning together have entirely to do with our participation in the mystery of Christ and his holy nativity.
It is not always easy. The most troubling scene in the New Testament, it seems to me, is a Christmas story that is often overlooked. We read it on Thursday and Friday of this week in Chapel. It is the disturbing story of the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, killed because of Herod’s envy and fear about a rival King, on the one hand, and out of unbridled power without truth, without justice, without compassion, without restraint, on the other hand. Just so it speaks to our brutal and disordered world.
That this story belongs to the Christmas mystery is itself most telling and most moving. If it is the most troubling scene, it is also one of the most moving. It shatters all of our sentimental nonsense about Christmas. In this story we confront the deeper meaning of Christ’s Incarnation and face the realities of human wickedness, then and now. We don’t want to hear it and many are utterly unaware of it. And yet it provides a necessary commentary upon the deeper meaning of Christ’s holy birth.
At issue is whether we are up to pondering this mystery. It speaks directly and powerfully to the worst of the worst in our sad and troubled world, fractured and broken, violent and destructive. Christmas by virtue of this story is not a pleasant distraction but a strong condemnation of human folly and its violence. None of us escape it. It belongs to the sad and sorry pageant of human violence, to the continuing spectacles of genocide and destruction that more than any other age belong to the story of the last one hundred years. It speaks as well to all of the deaths of the little ones in the name of convenience and expediency however complicated and complex the context. To ponder this story is to enter more fully into the Christmas mystery such that joys tinged by sorrow are deepened into faith and worship. In such thoughtfulness we might just be open to the wonder of human redemption and to the wondrous dignity God bestows upon our humanity. Something worth pondering.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2018/01/05/kes-chapel-reflection-week-of-3-january/
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