This little Christmas baby came to BE the light of this world.
That means he came to change the world, and that is dangerous work.
His life would lead him not only among the hungry and the heavyhearted,
not only among the prostitutes and the prisoners,
not only among the sick and the suffering,
but also among the powerful and the proud,
among the victimizers and the crucifiers. -Ann Weems
The road he would walk leads from Bethlehem to Jerusalem,
from the cradle to the cross.
For if there is no cross in the manger,
there is no Christmas.
If the Babe doesn’t become the Adult,
there is no Bethlehem star.
...
If we cannot go now even unto Golgotha,
there is no Christmas in us.
If Christmas is not now,
if Christ is not born into the everyday present,
then what is all the noise about?
Many people wonder indeed: what is all the noise about?
In our Advent darkness, waiting for another coming,
we wonder how much difference the first coming made:
For the truth is that
children are murdered
young girls are raped
disease and starvation and deadly political conflicts and terrorism sweep the globe
peoples are devastated by floods and earthquakes
parents divorce
close friends die of cancer.
Where is the Joy to the world? -Jim Long
Joy can’t be layered over the top of moral corruption.
It can’t ignore justice, greed, hate.
Nor can joy forget famine, floods, fire, opioids.
Joy is not emotional raingear, like a vinyl parka.
You can’t slip joy over the shoulders
of a starving child and watch
as his hunger miraculously subsides.
Joy does not gloss political wrongs.
It doesn’t stand by bubbling bliss
as one country oppresses another
or terrorists plot mass destruction.
Joy just will not pass over the
twisted moral condition of our bizarre world.
So what about joy?
Did joy come to the world long ago,
even when the Christmas cradle gave way to Calvary’s cross?
Yes, because after that Black Friday, the quiet change began:
Life erupted out of death.
Lives were changed.
And out of the life and love of Jesus,
hope was born.
Christmas comes every time we see God in other persons.
The human and the holy meet in Bethlehem
or in Times Square…
Even now it comes
in the face of hatred and warring—
no atrocity too terrible to stop it,
no Herod strong enough,
no curse shocking enough,
no disaster shattering enough.
Into the impenetrable darkness of our night, the Child is born.
The Morning Star appears.
The people who walked in darkness
see a great light.
For, as we read in Isaiah:
he was sent to preach good news to the poor,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives,
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
… to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve…
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair. .- Isaiah 61
The Christ who came among us, said
“Follow me.”
“Follow me” where hunger is real
and misery
and hate-filled faces.
And confrontation.
And injustice.
To his followers, the essence of Christmas is hope.
In this Advent season, and on this Advent Sunday,
we seek for that hope to be born in us anew.
Hope which tenaciously clings to the hearts of the faithful
and announces in the face
of any Herod the world can produce
and all the inn doors slammed in our faces
and all the dark nights of our souls
that with God all things are possible,
that even now, in 2018
“unto us a Child is born!” -Weems
A Christmas Prayer
Lord, 2000 years ago you came from far beyond anything we know:
a place of dazzling glory, eternal joy, and perfect peace.
You came to all the things we know too well:
in human flesh that can hurt and bleed and die,
a land of subjugation, strife, and dirty politics,
Bethlehem where there was no room for you,
to rustic shepherds and to learned folk,
to two exhausted and bewildered people in a cattle shed,
a place not fit for human habitation, least of all Immanuel’s birth.
You came to all of us, battered and stained by sin, longing for shalom.
When you came, angels sang and a special star lit up the sky.
When you left, a few believers saw you rise beyond the clouds,
beyond anything we know, where God welcomed his beloved Son.
And those who saw and who believed went into all the world
to tell the story of your birth, your life, your death, and this:
the power of your resurrection, for our eternal bliss.
But that story has not changed the world you came to save.
The city of your birth is now the bloody center of the clash
between the ancient foes of Palestinians and Jews.
Above the children’s voices singing “Joy to the World”
we hear the gunshots and the anguished cry
of those who hold the dying in their arms.
To such a world you came, and come,
as the Good Shepherd, looking for sheep that stray and lose their way;
the Prince of Peace, who would have wars to cease
and men of every race embrace, not kill each other;
the Lamb of God to take our sin away and pay
for us the penalty of death.
Oh Lord, come to Bethlehem Ephrata,
and let us go with you to all the places in this fallen world
where there’s injustice, hunger, and abject poverty,
where hope’s been lost and innocence is dead--
there through us may your light of love and mercy shine.
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