We’ve come to the questionable part of the Christian Year–Christmas has come and gone, we’re tired of tinsel, and the WiseMen are still on the horizon. Some of us will feel the urge to go back to bed to wait for the next holiday. Some of us will find that the Christmas Story opened a new door to where we’ve never walked before. And some of us will be glad for the Old Story to be told yet again, to sit quietly while the preacher and the Holy Book call us to serve our neighbor and the folks living under the bridge…
We’ll begin by reading the words of Wisdom as remembered in SIRACH 24:1-12. (Can’t find it? Look in the Apocryphal writings under Ecclesiastes.) Although this passage blatantly lifts up Israel as the only place for God, we still can read: “…my Creator chose the place for my tent”. As we contemplate the Christmas story, we here can see God’s intent to be with humankind. “The Creator god goes on making all things new. Lady Wisdom still receives visitors to her tent.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, in FEASTING on the WORD, A 1:175) Where has heaven touched Earth near you?
St. Paul reads better in Greek than the English translations. Still, we’re confronted by his Letter to the EPHESIANS, 1:3-14, which proclaims Jesus as the Christ (and makes an embarassing foray into predestin- ation). Not left alone to our own wisdom, we are a vital part of God’s enterprise of making us Real. So we’re exhorted to visit the sick, comfort the afflicted, and tell those who grieve that God is alive and well in the ChristChild–and so are we.
The Gospel reading is the prologue to that of JOHN, 1:1-18. Written perhaps 90 years past that First Christmas, John tells his readers that God was so involved with us that “the Word has become flesh and ‘pitched his tent’ among us, and we have seen his glory…” This confirms the Nativity story so well-told that we’ve heard on Christmas Eve. We shepherds have seen this glory face to face, and now we remember with joy the angleic chorus…and affirm this to the waiting populace through our gifts of reaching out and sharing with other shepherds.
Ah, yes; it’s a New Year on the calendar, and mine is still blank. What shall I write on these pages? How has the Christmas Event touched me?
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
Bring your friends and join the conversation every Tuesday as we’re confronted by readings to be heard on the weekend according to the Common Lectionary; at horacebrownking.com
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