Merry Christmas

I don’t know at which point I began to lose my romanticized notions about the first Christmas, but now, standing in the freezing cold, midnight on Christmas morning, those visions of a long distant December 25th, complete with a neat stable, tidy shepherds, and gift-shop angels, give way to a scene much more foreign. It is not December, but early spring. The shepherds are in the fields to guard the new born lambs that will, in the fullness of time, be slaughtered as atonement for their caretakers. The angels send these agrarian nobodies to a dirty cave to see a baby that cries and has to be changed. The creeping realization of these things doesn’t change the way I perceive Christmas, but it does affect how I feel about it. This is a Christmas devoid of sentiment.
Sentiment is not bad per se. There are certain places and things whose value is their sentiment, this grants them the power to restore absent friends and lost loved ones. Faces may fade in my memory, but the feeling produced when I see these objects, that mix of pain and joy which is sharp enough to go undistorted brings back, for a moment, the real person in a way no other experience can. Sentiment, however, when not born of things seen, touched, and loved, becomes a means of having an experience without letting that experience change you. A Christmas dressed up in sentimental trappings never becomes the real vision it is meant to be.

Those words are a year old. They began a meditation on the feast of the Nativity that was never finished and will not be (at least this year). Looking back, I still feel as I did, but also appreciate more that some sentimentality may not be all bad. My favorite carols are the lullabye carols, celebrating the pristine white child of the Creche. My favorite holiday foods are the fruit, the sausage-balls, and other pedestrian dainties whose power alone lies in association with this holiday. Let sentiment thrive as long as it draws us to the true Christ child.
My Christmas gift to you is a poem written by a friend of mine 25 years ago today. I hope you enjoy it.

Christmas Past, Present, and Future

Once again the Christmas lights glow softly in the windows,
Shedding a strange, ethereal beam upon the night,
Like the soft radiance from the manger of Bethlehem,
A deep, distant glitter which for two-thousand years has been eclipsed but never extinguished.
Above in the winter sky, the same stars pierce the dark blanket of the night
With rays which have been traveling Earthward since before the first Christmas.And with a surge of painful joy, memories of long-past Christmases crowd into our minds;
Voices now stilled whisper out of eternity, bringing nostalgia,
Faded regrets,Twinges of dead anger, and vague, tantalizing longings for accomplishments which might have been;And with the odor of long-dead pine trees, an unworldly peace overpowers the soul.
What reaches us with each returning Christmas? How important is this experience which stirs the depths of our beingWith thoughts, hopes, desires and longings which cannot be uttered? The values and standards of the world overpower us with their insistent cry
That money and influence are all-important - the old, tired, jaded refrainThat these “all-powerful” yet unsatisfying forces alone make the world function.Yet what are we? Robots manipulated by those who control us through the “Almighty Dollar”? Or is there something more, some One who speaks to us through the confusion and strife,Whose voice is nearly drowned out by the babble of the world around us? Yet we cannot ignore completely the far-distant summons, Which somehow preserves our broken hopes and our lost dreams. Something which penetrates the hard shell of our compromised ideals,Which alone are practical, and enable us to live and work after a fashion in this world.The quiet shrill voice which goads us to move a little closer to the “impossible dream”.That there may be, sometime, somewhere, that peace among men who are made in God’s image
Which is now so horribly marred.

Meanwhile, the Generals go on shedding the blood of confused, bewildered youth For their own impossible dream, which would only be a monstrous nightmare if it ever could be fulfilled:To make the world over into their own terribly distorted image,To establish a “free” society in which the rich and powerful are free To oppress and exploit the poor and powerless,Who in turn would be free to be oppressed and exploited.Is this the gift which a Christian nation and people render back to the Babe of Bethlehem?Have two-thousand Christmases then been meaningless?A divine voice within silently, yet terrifyingly shouts “NO!”Yet how can God redeem the world so distorted and disfigured
By human hate, greed, envy, jealousy, and hypocrisy?Are those who worship one economic or political system, Which safeguards their special interests at the expense of the majority’Really capable of redemption?How can such a tremendous and shattering change be made?Yet, is anything to hard for God? Thanks be to God, that deep down inside the human soul there is a response
Which reaches outward and upward from the depths of despair and futility,That there is a truth that will not stay crushed under the wreckage of time, the debris of the ages,That there is something within us each which will not be satisfied, Will not accept the temporary, false solutions offered by a man, a party, a nation, or a system,
Something which cannot find true peace here and now, yet it cannot ever die. This is the real self, the soul, spirit, or mind, that comes from God Who has made us for Himself, and will give us no real peace until we find our rest in him.It may take ages, yet truth eternal cannot finally be defeated - can never be destroyed.So this is why the angels sang above Bethlehem so long ago:To proclaim the truth that must still be grasped, recognized, accepted;Which dawns, Fades, and dawns again, ever so slowly With the weariness of the ages, and with excruciating pain,Yet at the same time, it contains the freshness, new life, and hope Of an ever approaching, eternal tomorrow. Then let the Christmas lights shine on, Casting their multi-colored, unearthly, angelic glow upon the worlds night.The star of Bethlehem radiates forever,As the true Wise Men of every age Seek the meaning of all things Again at the Manger.Life, light, hope, faith, joy, and love eternal Speak to the world, shout to the universe,“Behold your God!”

Arthur W. MatthewsChristmas 1970

God's peace.