Christmas! At last. Just in time, too, ’cause I really need an attitude adjustment. The Dark Side seems to have won the universe–and the election. Despite the bushels of motivational rants that appear in my email, I mostly just want to quit. “I will fight no more forever.” Are there others just as discouraged in the pews with me? We all need to hear the lessons for Christmas Day, which audaciously speak about a Holy Presence amid the swirling chaos.
Isaiah of Babylon must have caught a spark of heavenly audacity when he wrote, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'” (52:7) The messenger indicates that the battle has been decided, that the Force triumphs! “Break forth together into singing, you ruins” of all we hold sacred, our hopes, our visions for our children. Sing, you trash-heaps where once alabaster cities rose, undimmed by human tears! Sing, you putrid slums of sub-human scrabblings, you wrecked metropoli of days gone by! Sing, you aging, bald fat-man whose once- clarion voice has grown hoarse, whose virility has been replaced with pipe-stem legs! Into the Winter of Our Discontent breaks a Living Light which comforts and redeems.
Angel-gazing is one of our favorite seasonal occupations: there are yet a few feathers in the air after last evening’s extravaganza when all Heaven broke loose. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews makes sure to position these angels as subordinates of the ChristChild; again, the messengers. Messiah is described as “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” (1:3) The day after the incarnation calls believers to look beyond the angels to the unfolding sustenance of all things.
The Prologue to John’s Gospel (1:1-14) uses the image of Light to announce the function of the ChristChild. “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (vv.3-5) I need to hear this message about the Light’s tenacity. Living as I do in the winter’s solstice of life, I cling to every glimmer. I’d like to again have the outlook of R L Stevenson: “Then pealed the bells, both loud and deep, God is not dead, nor does he sleep! The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men!”
“So we need a little Christmas, right this very minute: candles in the windows, carols on the spinnet…” May you be blessed with Tidings of Comfort and Joy! And may you have some personal moments to bask in The Light…
God Bless Us, Every One! Horace Brown King
My thoughts about assigned Scripture for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com
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