Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

“For Unto Us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            For the one whose Christian life is at least somewhat guided by the tradition of the church calendar; advent has morphed into Christmas.  We have waited in memory of the believers from the Old Testament, and with those like Anna and Simeon, and some certain poor shepherds, and Magi from the East for this news “Unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given.”

Of course, no season of the church calendar is meant only to express a truth to be loved or contemplated on one day or in one season of the year.  On this Christmas Day we might write our most conscious words concerning our Savior’s birth, but throughout the year we remember and think upon how he became one of us for us.  The season of advent comes to an end but we still wait, hope, anticipate, and set our focus on the one for whom we wait in life.  This is as St. John wrote. “Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (I John 3:2-3 RSV).  Advent is over yet we continue to wait because he is building a house for us.  That is in accord with an ancient Jewish tradition.  A man was to leave his father and mother, and take a wife.  In the ancient Jewish custom, a betrothal process began before the marriage was consummated.  The vows made in preparation for marriage, the groom went away to build a house for his bride and when everything was ready then they were married and entered their new home.  A son was given unto us, for us and he entered the world in the womb of Mary and was born on Christmas Day, whether in December when we celebrate it or on some other day in the year.  The ancients waited earnestly for that day.  It has come.  We wait for another time when we shall see him, shall be like him, and will celebrate our unity with him eternally in a world without tears, without sin, without foibles; with individual characteristics sanctified in perfection so no one will doubt if our oddities are eccentricities or faults, for our unique traits will solely be the markers of individuality within a unity of righteous, holy, and perfected diversity.  Advent is over, but we still wait.

I love the sureness of the prophetic voice in Isaiah’s declaration.  It was hundreds of years before the fact, but still it is spoken of as already having taken place.  “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” (Isaiah 9:6 KJV)  The prophetic voice is one that sees into the future an event determined in the mind of God.  Sometimes the prophetic voice speaks like Dickens’ spirit of Christmas future about the sort of things that may be, the judgments of men and women whose lives have forged their chains.  Thus Jonah was upset when given the prophetic message that Nineveh would be destroyed for its sins.  Jonah did not like his feeling that God intended to use the message to spare Nineveh for a space, the very Nineveh which would after that time of repentance carry ten of Israel’s twelve tribes into judgment.  Yet let us learn something from this.  God is inclined to mercy, judgment is his strange work, but mercy is his desire.  For the truth is, God may publish a prophecy regarding someone’s coming judgment, and if that person or people turn from their sins he will have mercy.  But he did not alter his plans for revealing mercy towards a sinful and fallen human race.  In the midst of our sins and rebellions against God’s good ways, so that we who had corrupted a beautiful creation, our heavenly Father intervened by sending us a son, gifting us with a child born unto us.  He does not retreat from his plans of mercy, only from his warnings of judgment.

This child was born unto us.  Mary bore him into the world, blessed be she above all women.  Blessed be she among and beyond all born of mankind.  But this child was not born only to Mary but also to us, and for us.  She was the Theotokos, the one who brought the Redeemer into the world, but this Redeemer was as much for you and me, as for Mary and Joseph.  This was the wonderful message Isaiah declared.  This was the certain prophecy of God’s intention to have mercy upon a people who had fallen, had deserted God, and had been separated from the ways of God.  It was his intention to start over not by eliminating the fallen human race but by giving that fallen human race the possibility and the reality of a second birth.  It was a second line of the mystery of the prophetic voice.  The line of warning was probationary that if we continued such things would fall upon us.  The line of promise was different speaking to us “Look, see, behold, live, love, overcome, and be set free."  The second promise was the greater promise capable of overcoming the lesser warning.

I have this day looked over two blogs rejoicing in Christmas Day.  One was sweet, pleasant, and beautiful.  It was written by Christie Purifoy, who has been a source of much blessing to me, in her blogs this Advent season.  There are times when someone seems to exist to speak to you, although we know God’s plan for another is much greater than merely their usefulness to us.  But this Advent season, no one has spoken more to what I needed than she has.  She writes with the words of beauty of one who has made a lifetime study of the finest of literature.  You can read her pleasant words regarding Christmas here.

A second blog to catch my attention was written by Grace Biskie.  Grace Biskie has a tough background and knows some people with tough backgrounds.  She also knows a Savior who was born to us on Christmas Day.  You can read Grace’s sometimes brutal words here.  I believe her words are as important to remember on Christmas Day as Christie Purifoy’s.

How do we respond to the child given to us?  There are varieties of ways isn’t there?  We may be moved to express our joy in the sweetest of poetry, or to remember the brutality our Savior entered into on our behalf and how went the distance to allow himself to feel the betrayal of trust, mocking and sadistic torture; all for us that by his death our stripes might be healed and our sins forgiven.  He entered the world which was falling apart because one cannot separate themselves from God without separating themselves gradually from the goodness, beauty, and life of God.  However much God is actively involved in the judgment of sin, sin has in its own way the power of separating us from God, and turning human life into a gradual return to the emptiness and meaninglessness of the chaos and void of separation from God.  That existence is a brutal existence.  It is that existence into which a child was born and given unto us.  He entered that brutal world that we might be given the mercy of our merciful God.  So this Christmas I am rejoicing that it is not either Christie’s beautiful words or Grace’s brutal words that express Christmas, but both of their words beside millions and perhaps billions who will today rejoice that unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given.  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!