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Minutes
of Meetings with God |
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The "Cube" And Christmas... |
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The "cube" mostly sits among books and papers on a shelf in my library. However, now and again, the thing calls to me and I just have to pick it up and handle it. The cube is at once toy and teaching device. There is something about the cube that makes a person want to handle it. Children, even those too young to read, love it. Their imaginations are "hooked" by the way the cube works and the pictures that it seems to magically hide until the parts of the cube are moved. In a unique way, the cube tells the Christmas story, the story of Jesus' birth. Mary, Joseph, the angels, the shepherds, the stable, and the baby Jesus are all there, at once both "on" as well as "in" the cube. The pictures the cube uses to tell the Christmas story tend to have a "cartoon-ish" look to them. Yes, they do portray the key elements of the Christmas story. Yet, the pictures, in and of themselves, are not the attractive element of the cube. They are not where the power of the cube lies. Separately, the pictures would make for just another Christmas book; and the cube would be just another Christmas toy. Together, they have captured something of the true spirit of Christmas for me. It's the simplicity and the ingenuity of the cube, the "how it works," combined with the power the account describing how Jesus came into the world, that concretely puts "what Christmas is about" into a person's hands. There have been times when moving the parts of the cube have been, for me, like using prayer beads. It has been a sort of "praying the Christmas story." It has brought a surprising calm and sense of reassurance. Calm and reassurance seems what I most need this Christmas. Rediscovering, anew, what Christmas is all about, especially, spiritually, is my challenge for the Advent Season. In stark contrast to all the complexity and mawk-ishness that we have heaped onto Christmas, what Christians are to celebrate has to do with recognizing an unbelievably simple, totally ingenious, and completely mundane moment when God became real among humanity. It is a miraculous, paradoxical moment that God planned to change every individual human heart as well as all of human history for good. Christmas, the whole idea of God's incarnation among us, has met with mixed success. Instead of "getting it," we argue about angels, miracles, and the Virgin Birth. Christianity, the religions of the world, and science are rife with doctrinal and theological debates about what is the truth, especially in regard to Christmas. Even when we believe the Christmas story and all its details, altogether too often we do not allow Christmas to do what God intended. We do not let the reality of God's presence among us change our individual hearts as well as our common history for good. The writer of what is called "The Epistle of James" spoke the undeniable truth when he penned, "Even so, faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone." The saddest state of affairs is when the Christmas season brings out the worst in us. When Jesus was born, the world was not a very good place. The fabric of every day life was torn by fear, hatred, greed, and all sorts of other human evils. In those days, thousands upon thousands of human beings died at the violent hands of other human beings. Those who did not die as victims of war or crime, often succumbed at a young age to malnutrition and disease. Back then, things were so bad, that a great many people expected that God would come, would take every thing in hand, and would finally bring justice and peace. People looked for God to come on the clouds with great armies to smash the rich, the powerful, and the evil. In such desperate times, most thought that a loving God could not be so callous, so totally heartless as to do nothing. Yes, God would come, there would be war between good and evil, and it would be a war of total destruction. Afterwards, God would start everything all over again, new; there would only be a few who would survive to see God's new creation. That first Christmas, God did arrive. But not like anyone expected. God did not come on the clouds. No heavenly army appeared, ready to do battle; only a choir showed up. No lightning bolts flashed to totally destroy evil; only a star shone in the sky. God turned up in the most unassuming place, amongst the plainest people, in the most vulnerable of forms, and with surprisingly little fanfare. God revealed how expansive, how inclusive, how relentless, how selfless Love can be. God revealed "the best of God" by radically investing in the human condition in order to reveal "the best of humanity." God cares about us so much, and prizes us so much, that God became one of us. God embraced humanity completely, from the very beginning of human life to the very end. God embraced the order of creation, from birth to death in order to begin a new creation. Among the extremely important meanings of Christmas is: God does not give up on us. There is no denying that even after 2000 years, we still horribly harm ourselves, each other, and God's creation. But, our celebration of Christmas tells us that God thinks that there remains something within each of us, within all of us, and within every bit of creation that is worth saving. The first time around with creation, God started with a man. This second time around, with the new creation, God started with a girl. Her name was Mary; she could have been as young as twelve when all this happened. She was frightened and confused, but her trust and faith won out over everything else. It was from Mary that God brought a son who would show anyone who cared to see "what God looks like." It was in a stable that this Son was born. At every step, of this new creation God took the mundane and made it miraculous. How simple and how ingenious it all was. It is the time of the year, it is the time of our life to go to the stable. It is time to see good. And, it is time for each and everyone of us to be changed for good, forever. Amen!
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