Christmas this year.
Lord, we come to worship the savior you sent us...
And we marvel at the manner of the sending.
In the midst of political upheaval, we hoped for a king.
In the midst of wars and rumors of wars, we hoped for a general.
In the midst of religious tumult and controversy, we hoped for a high priest.
But you send us a baby.
[pause for bewildered reflection]
Interesting choice, God.
-Lawrence Lee
Peeking
By the time Christmas morning arrived, I usually knew which presents under the tree were mine - which bore my name, written in the shaky blue Bic Pen ink of my mother’s hand.
My skinny arm would have already braved the gauntlet of pine needles and reached below the bottom branches for bright boxes, hoping a quick shake might reveal the mystery of what they held inside. I would have studied the size and shape of each, foolishly calculating its value based on size. A couple times, a gap in the wrapping between the little strips of scotch tape allowed me to lift just a liiiiiiittle bit and peek.
My investigative skills paid off once when I was maybe 9 or 10. I could see, through the white of Santa’s beard on some terribly thin wrapping paper, the unmistakable pink box of a Madame Alexander doll. Not just the gift I had wanted, but the one I had expected. But in that moment, the gift went from being anything to being one thing. Before I just HAD to know what was in it, that box held possibility, and after, it held certainty.
The Shock of Mud and Glory
I’ve been thinking about the shepherds this week, and how when they went to work that day, they had no idea what was going to happen. No clue.
They were just standing there, minding their business, drinking a little more coffee out of their metal thermoses, maybe just rolling one more cigarette, telling another story as if the other shepherds hadn’t heard it a million times before, trying to keep awake another night so they would start the next morning with the same number of sheep as they had the morning before. There is just no way in hell they expected an angel. Or the glory of God to shine on their mud-caked selves. Or a multitude of heavenly hosts to burst out in song. Or that all of it was about … a baby, of all things.
The World Is Weary
I don’t usually go in for a performative rending of garments while others are happy and celebrating just so everyone will know that I pay more attention to The Very Important Things in this world than they do.
But it’s just impossible to ignore, as I wrote earlier this month:
Celebrating Christmas feels a bit off this year, given the war and the increasingly oppressive military occupation of the very town where Christ was born.
And in case you missed it, here is part of a joint statement of the heads of churches in Jerusalem (including the Anglican and Lutheran bishops…)
“In extending these greetings, we are well aware that we do so during a time of great calamity in the land of our Lord’s birth. For over the past two-and-a-half months, the violence of warfare has led to unimaginable suffering for literally millions in our beloved Holy Land. Its ongoing horrors have brought misery and inconsolable sorrow to countless families throughout our region…”
“Yet it was into such a world that our Lord himself was born in order to give us hope. Here, we must remember that during the first Christmas, the situation was not far removed from that of today. Thus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph had difficulty finding a place for their son’s birth. There was the killing of children. There was military occupation. And there was the Holy Family becoming displaced as refugees. Outwardly, there was no reason for celebration other than the birth of the Lord Jesus.”
I guess what I am taking from all of that is this: there’s just no peeking under the wrapping paper this year. I cannot say the gift of Christmas is this ONE certain thing that we all expect and get during this season, but this year I am pretty damn hopeful that it could be anything. Because maybe what we really need the yet-to-be-fully-unwrapped gift of Jesus’s birth to bring is possibility.
Because as the Christian leaders in the Holy Land have reminded us, under the circumstances of the first NOEL, outwardly there was no reason for celebration other than the birth of the Lord Jesus. So if this year you do not feel there is much reason for good cheer, just know that there also wasn’t much reason for it a couple thousand years ago when out of nowhere God shocked the hell out of some poor shepherds.
So I cannot sit here and claim that I know what gift the birth of the Christ Child will bring this year, only that whatever God delivers, it will be needed, and it will be unexpected. Like the first time.
Thank God. Because I need this birth to be something I do not expect. I need it to be something I could not imagine. I need to be shocked by the glory of God shining on my mud-caked soul, and I will search like hell for even the tiniest sign of it. The tiniest sign of God’s glory will do for me this year.
A blessed and gentle Christmas to you all.
Love, Nadia
p.s. If you have seen the tiniest sign of God’s glory in the last week or so, do tell us about it!
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I just finished a course of high dose radiation for a benign brain tumor on Wednesday. It was terrifying and the side effects are brutal. I went to my acupuncturist on Thursday, and she burst into the room holding up a tangerine like it was Simba in The Lion King. She told me that the fruit was a from a tree that originated in Japan, and that the tree and its owner survived Hiroshima. Then when they moved to the US, they brought seedlings with them. It fruits twice a year and *just so happened* to fruit this last week. She handed it to me saying, "If this tangerine can survive and thrive after radiation, so can you." Every bit of this experience was a sign of God for me.
There must be something in the air. I've been meditating about the shepherds all Advent, and realized that the watching-sheep equivalent in my life is doing dishes and laundry and walking the dog--the ordinary, common, necessary jobs we all have to do. And that is what the angels break into, right? Maybe not while I'm praying or meditating or journaling or doing some other kind of holy or self-help business, but while I'm just going about my tedious daily life. Maybe we try too hard. The gift was and maybe still is, unexpected.