What God Wants for Christmas

Every year at Christmas, I receive lovely, thoughtful gifts from friends. However, if you asked me what gifts I received, say, three years ago, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. However, I could tell you in detail who I talked to at Mary and Dave’s annual Christmas party, which neighborhoods Martha and I drove through because of their superior Christmas lights, and what we had for supper the night I taught Ruth and Rocky how to play the game Sequences.

Similarly, if we were to ask God what God wants for Christmas, it surely wouldn’t be another burnt sacrifice or any other physical offering, for that matter. Like us, what God values most is spending time together, enjoying each other’s company and making memories.

As in the tale of the Little Drummer Boy, we are often tempted to say to God, “I have no gift to bring,” but that’s not true. We can offer God the most precious gift of all—our time—which is precious precisely because it is limited. Taking time to be with God during the busy holiday season is a challenge, but you don’t want to leave God off your gift list, do you? 

God of Day and God of Darkness

As we enter into the winter season, when nights are long and yet we begin to gain a bit more light each day, I find it helpful to reflect on this bit of wisdom by Wendell Berry:

At night make me one with the darkness

In the morning make me one with the light

Both darkness and light are necessary for life to thrive. For example, melatonin, a hormone that helps us to sleep, is released in response to darkness, and vitamin D is created in our bodies in response to light. Just so, in our spiritual lives, we experience periods of grief and dying to self that lead us to a greater reliance on God and periods of joy and insight that help us stay faithful to the path.

Winter is a reminder to take both darkness and light as they come. Both offer fruits of the Spirit and can be our guides to greater wisdom and the good life.

Turning to Gladness Again

At a recent Advent Music retreat lead by Sr. Susan Barber, we listened to a recording of the song “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” I’ve sung this song every year since I was a child, but this time something new caught my ear: the echo of the word “rejoice.”

It is enlightening to look at the origins of the word “rejoice.” The word-forming element “re-” means “back to the original place; again, anew, once more.” The Latin “re” is thought to come from the Indo-European “wret,” a variant of “wert,” meaning “to turn.” “Joir” is French for “be glad.” Thus at Christmas we are called to turn to gladness again, to let it echo in our lives not just once a year but for all eternity, for Emmanuel has come to dwell with us forevermore. The seasons of Advent and Christmas remind us that we cannot let the worries of the present age obscure our everlasting joy at the once and always coming of God, Light of Lights, Wonder-Counselor, Prince of Peace.

Faithful to the Story

Last Friday I was able to spend part of the day at the Mount’s new hermitage, a small building near the North entrance to the campus that has served different purposes over the years. I noticed that the words to the Benedictine College fight song had been painted by some students on the sidewalk leading to the front door of the building. Most of the words are faded; however, the phrase “faithful to the story” is still quite legible.

It felt in a way like an Advent message. By recounting the story of Jesus’ birth each Advent and Christmas, we are being faithful to the remarkable story about how God took on human flesh. As Psalm 78 relays,

Listen, my people, mark each word.

I begin with a story, I speak of mysteries

welling up from ancient depths,

heard and known from our elders.

We must not hide this story from our children

but tell the mighty works and all the wonders of God.

Being faithful to the story entails more than recounting it, however. Being faithful to the story means letting it change our lives. How do we live in relationship with a God who came to live among us? Does it increase our joy, our trust, our faithfulness?

My dad’s brother, my Uncle Robert, died today at the age of 97 years. He was a man who was utterly faithful to the story, as shown by a life of devotion to God, his family, and the land he farmed. The fruits of his life were a remarkable kindness, gentleness, and patience. It is a worthy goal of all of us to be remembered as one who, like him, was faithful to the story of all the wonders of God.

Unforgettable Jesus

Recently a friend sent me a poem by Brian Doyle with the intriguing and unwieldy title, “To the United Airlines Signalman Silently Reading the New Testament in an Alcove Under the Extendable Jetway at Gate C-9 in Chicago on a Morning in April.” 

The poem ends with the following lines:

                        But how astonishing it is, how truly unbelievable, that a book can be

Alive after all these years, can have in its fragile pages that one man,

Dusty and complicated, tart and testy, tired and afraid, unforgettable.

Although we celebrate the incarnation at Christmas, we still tend to emphasize Jesus’ divinity—the miracles he performed, his transfiguration, the uncanny wisdom in his teachings. That Emmanuel grew to be a man who was “dusty and complicated, tart and testy, tired and afraid” isn’t what made Jesus unforgettable…or was it?

Jesus wasn’t playacting when he took on human flesh. He felt physical and emotional pain, experienced the joys and disappointments of being in relationship with others, and had to figure out what he was supposed to do with his life. What made him unique was that in the midst of living this ordinary life, he came to an intimate understanding of God’s love and compassion for him and for all beings and responded by faithfully relaying that good news to others, even though it led to a painful and shameful death. If, while Jesus was human, he was able to know and relate to the God of infinite love and mercy, that means we are capable of it, too. No wonder that the book of his life is still alive after all these years; who could forget the man who opened that gate for us?

Advent Tree of Life

One of the images Isaiah presents us with during Advent is a shoot arising from the stump of Jesse (Is 11:1). I thought of this image when I noticed a vibrant painting by Betty LaDuke, “Eritrea: Tree of Life,” at Sophia Center. From the seemingly lifeless stump Christ has arisen, but he is not alone—God the Creator and Spirit hover over him, and he has invited us to join our human flesh to the eternal tree of life.

In our own incarnation in the tree of life, we may find ourselves to be roots, which provide sustenance and a network of communication; trunk, which offers steadfast support; branches, which provide balance and flexibility; leaves, which feed on the light and offer shade; or seeds, which are imprinted with the life force that ensures the tree will survive. As with the body of Christ, all of us in the tree of lie have distinct roles and characteristics and all of us are needed in the grand design of the wholeness to which we are called.

As Isaiah points out, Advent is not a time to be stumped but to join Christ in the flowering of a new creation.

God's Ancient Dream

At evening prayer on Saturday night, a line from Psalm 81 caught my attention: “Because of your cold hearts, you left me out of your plans.” Leaving God out of our plans doesn’t seem like a very good idea, because then we shut ourselves off from the possibility that God’s plans can improve on our own. Indeed, in the psalm, God goes on to say, “My people, if you would only listen! Israel, walk in my ways!”

I have always liked the following prayer from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Edward Hays: “May we unfold according to your ancient dream.” We tend to become so wrapped up in our own dreams and desires that we forget that God has a dream for us beyond our own imaginings—a dream of participation in God’s life of love, wholeness, and creativity.

Indeed, in Psalm 81, God goes on to say that when we listen and walk in God’s ways, “Then I will strike at your enemy, and put them all to flight…. But you, O Israel, will feast on finest wheat, will savor pure wild honey.” This Advent, we are reminded to fire up our cold hearts and be alert to the unfolding of God’s ancient dream, whether it be an infant lying in a manger or a new, unimagined incarnation in our own lives.

Jesus the Stranger

It is intriguing that in Matthew 25: 35, Jesus compares himself to a stranger: “For I was a stranger, and you welcomed me….”

Jesus certainly acted strangely, according to our human standards: Eating with prostitutes and tax collectors instead of the wealthy, who could fund his new church? Driving the money changers out of the temple instead of cutting a deal with them for a portion of their proceeds? Washing the feet of his disciples instead of reclining at table until he was served? And yet, when we embrace Jesus’ strange customs, we find that they bring us fresh perspectives and new life.

People cease to be strangers when we spend time with them and get to know them. Just so, when we spend time with Jesus, we learn his way of being and begin to recognize him in those who forgive, who serve, who see that the seed of God is in everyone. Eventually, it dawns on us that it is not Jesus’ ways but the ways of the world that are strange. Furthermore, the old aphorism is true: We will be known by the company we keep. I’d like to be known for keeping company with Jesus, who is no longer stranger but friend.

We Are Wonderfully Made

At the Advent retreat I attended this past weekend, “Reclaiming a Sense of Wonder,” one of the questions Judy Valente invited us to consider was “What are the simple acts of ordinary life that fill me with wonder?”

This question brought to mind the many physical limitations being experienced by people around me: an elderly friend who has lost the use of her legs as death approaches, a community member who temporarily experienced difficulty swallowing after a stroke, a friend who has lost the sense of smell, and a woman at the assisted living center where my uncle resides who is so deaf I have to shout my answers to her questions. And yet, every day I walk and swallow and smell and hear without giving these wondrous acts a second thought.

How can we learn to appreciate the simple acts our bodies perform each day before we lose these abilities? Slowing down so we are fully present to what we are doing each moment is a helpful practice. Writing your own psalm of praise and then praying it regularly is another option. Here is one I wrote; what would yours look like?

We Are Wonderfully Made

All you who draw breath—

     parents and their progeny,

     teachers and students,

     farmers and city dwellers,

     the robust and infirm—

Praise God, for we are wonderfully made!

For eyelids that open and fingers that bend,

     Praise God O my eyes and my fingers!

With blood that flows and skin that shields,

     We are wonderfully made!

For muscles that contract and saliva that moistens,

     Praise God, O my limbs and my mouth!

With a heart that pumps and lungs that expand,

     We are wonderfully made!

Never cease to give praise,

     from waking to sleeping;

     whether breathing or talking or eating,

     give praise to the end of your days.

     Halleluiah!