It isn’t easy, but I can’t bring myself
to join in the annual lament against the commercialism of the Christmas season.
Of course it is too much, and too loud, and too repetitious, and too expensive.
But in all the hoopla something may be going on that is exactly what Christians
hope will be happening. Jesus can still touch the human spirit through a flawed
and garish vehicle. What if the mystery of God’s infinite love can be delivered
without the pristine forms and careful cadences of good taste? What if the
vastness of God’s power and glory can be connected to the human heart in
pedestrian ways that do not threaten the frail wires of human consciousness?
What if that which is beyond comprehension can still be compressed and squeezed
into a simple and understandable holiday experience? Isn’t that exactly what
the Christian experience in human history is all about? God is with us. Christ
in me, plain as I am. I am an incarnation of the glory of God, an earthen
vessel, to be sure, flawed and sometimes garish. But what is in me because of
Jesus is nothing less than the glory of the gift of the Son of God.
Christmas brings to the world in
which we live an annual glimpse into the merriment and festivity of the
presence of a cosmic love that transforms life for keeps. Even if the holiday lasts
only for a few days, or weeks or hours, it is something that can evoke “the
better angels of our nature.” However, little the world may know of Jesus,
though there is no escaping the noises of this holiday, the world looks forward
to it and frequently has occasion to ask the question of how this season came
to be. The warmth that the world is so stingy with, the loved ones that were so
hard to reach, the soft words spoken with forgiving voices that are so seldom
heard, are now bold and near. It can be as if celebrating the presence of the
birth of Jesus has the power to pry open the human soul, at least for a while.
And so it becomes for Christians
to convert this season into a celebration of God’s love for us, his willingness
to allow us to be ourselves before him, to be found in our midst totally
dependent on the care of two young Jewish travelers, into a situation of great anxiety,
violence, and need. Let the straw of the manger, the raw, unsophisticated
circumstances of Bethlehem, the rough and cruel times, all speak to us of a savior
who risked it all for us. Let us see in that humble and unpromising beginning,
the great cosmic gift of eternal life so easily seen only briefly and
incompletely at Christmas, but authentic. It is not the manger, but the promise
of the manger that we celebrate, when the glory of Christ can shine through the
festival, the soul of humankind passes from enjoying the season to the resurrecting
excitement of sharing the age of the majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Pastor Jansen
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