And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father
Christmas is really all about what we behold, about what we look at attentively; in short, to what we think about in a serious way. How strange and counter-culture that must seem in the hustle and bustle, the stürm und drang, the storm and stress of the Christmas season. And yet, perhaps, nothing is more needed.
What we are bidden to behold is the mystery of God, first and foremost, and then the mystery of God with us. This is the necessary corrective to all the frantic pressures and hectic busyness of Christmas and to its opposite in the empty loneliness of so many in the world of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. We look out, I fear, on a world of lonely people, isolated and afraid. “Look at all the lonely people, where do they all come from, where do they all belong,” as the Beatles sang in ‘Eleanor Rigby.’ It may be, too, that I am simply like Father Mackenzie, “writing the words of a sermon no one will hear.”
What does Christmas mean in our post-Christian culture? Apart from the commercial aspects of getting and spending, I suspect it mostly has to do with a certain desire for a kind of coziness and comfort with family and friends, hyggelig, to use a Danish and Scandinavian term. But the pursuit of such material comforts paradoxically seems to create all of the anxieties of Christmas and turns hygge into something more like Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream.” Cozy comfort and hugs become nordic noir! Instead of a more profound sense of the unity of our humanity we retreat into our little cubby-holes of comfort over and against what has become a fearful, uncertain, fractious and disordered world. We are trapped in a culture of divisiveness and fearful animosities.
But why? In part, because we make the mistake of thinking that we can and must make Christmas for ourselves over and against the other whoever that other may be; that we can and must make the world comfortable for ourselves which is always at the expense of others. We forget the radical meaning of Christmas which is about God and God’s love for his creation and for the whole of our humanity. We forget everything that belongs to the wonder and the mystery of the Christmas scene. What is that scene? What do we behold? Simply this: Bethlehem is paradise restored. The images of Bethlehem in our churches and even in our post-Christian culture signal the mystery of God and man, of a mother and a child, of men and women, of shepherds and kings, of angels and sheep and, by extension and beyond the Scriptures, of ox and ass, of camels and peacocks, quite literally the whole menagerie of creation in the Christian imaginary of artists and poets. Bethlehem recalls us to the harmony and peace of the Creator and his creation, to something universal and yet intimate, a hyggelig that embraces rather than excludes.
We cannot make Christmas. So relax and behold the mystery which is the real comfort and true joy for our world-weary souls. God, the great poet and maker of all creation, is the great poet and maker of Christmas night. In Greek, the word for poetry, poesis, means making. The great readings of Christmas Eve signal the divine grandeur and mystery of God’s Word coming to us in the awesome majesty of scriptural prophecy and in the sweet intimacy of his only-begotten son born of Mary in a lowly stable. Such is the mystery which we behold and which enfolds us in its light and truth.
It speaks to our hearts and minds about the real truth and dignity of our humanity. In the simple story of Christ’s birth, God bestows himself upon us and embraces us in his life and truth. All things are in God and nothing is but what comes from God and is in God. “Without him was not anything made that was made,” we hear. All that is, is of God and finds its truth in God.
The wonder of Christmas night lies in what we behold. The readings speak about the grandeur of God who “hath in these last days spoken unto us” not simply by words of prophecy but “by his Son”; though no mention of Jesus or Christ! Yet they speak to us about the mystery of God as Word, Son, and Light, powerful terms about the meaning of Jesus Christ that challenge our thinking and illuminate the wonder of Christmas. It is nothing less than the wonder of God who in his “infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible” (Art. 1, Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, BCP, p. 699) wills to be “made flesh and dwell among us.” It changes our humanity and our sense of ourselves because of what we are given to behold about God in his engagement with us.
The Gospel reading ends on a parenthetical note, at least as we have it in the King James Version which for some reason places in brackets our text, “and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.” It is almost as if something is hidden in plain sight and thus is paradoxically highlighted. Something is revealed for us to think and ponder, to behold and wonder. I was greatly tempted to use the Athanasian Creed in place of the Nicene Creed tonight and for two reasons: first, it provides a way to think the mystery of God and God with us that avoids collapsing God into ourselves and our concerns, as if we make God, turning him into Santa Claus, as it were, and, secondly, because one of its phrases reveals so powerfully the true mystery of Christ’s Incarnation: “not by conversion of Godhead into flesh but by the taking of manhood into God.” The real comfort and joy of Christmas is our being gathered into the life of God. Such is love for “God is love and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.” We abide in what we behold.
Here is the true dignity of our humanity. Love came down at Christmas. This is the Christian message: that love is God and God is with us and that makes all the difference. It is what we are given to behold.
And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father
Fr. David Curry
Christmas Eve, 2019