Tag: Christmas

–December of 2001

The Optimism of Christmas

One Christmas Eve over a century ago, an American Episcopal minister was riding horseback across the Judean hills in Palestine.  He stopped his horse at a hillside clearing near the very place where shepherds “watched their flocks by night” so long ago.  Reverently he surveyed his surroundings.  Above him flickered the same stars that looked down upon the new-born Christ-child centuries earlier; below him, sleeping in the darkness, were the narrow streets of the village of Bethlehem.

Though the air that night was cold, the heart of the notable preacher was warmed as he worshiped in his outdoor sanctuary.  The scene so transfixed itself upon his mind that upon returning to America, Rev. Phillips Brooks captured the panoramic wonder of that evening in the words of a poem which he later gave to his church organist, Lewis Redner, who set the verses to music.  You will recognize the familiar carol:

 O little down of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

Then Brooks penned this astounding, but time-honored evaluation:

 Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light,

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight!

What an incredible expression of optimism!  The hopes and fears of all the years find their fulfillment and resolution in the Baby of Bethlehem!  Born in obscurity under inauspicious circumstances, this Child would be hailed as the Savior of the world; the Conqueror of death, hell, and the grave; the Prince of Peace and the King of Kings!  What an antidote for a restless and chaotic world!

As this article goes to press, our nation is in a war.  Bombs fall on foreign soil as we seek to root out the perpetrators of a great evil.  Here in the homeland, many men and women live under the threat of biological warfare, while others grieve the loss of loved ones.  But above the noise, confusion and political turmoil of our world, as hope and fear continue to battle within the hearts of men, it is fitting that we conclude this year by quietly reflecting upon the coming of One who fulfills every hope and calms every fear!  The confidence of the Christian must remain today where it has always been — in the birth, life, death, resurrection and soon return of the Baby of Bethlehem; for therein, and only therein, is every hope fulfilled and every fear resolved!

–December of 2000

Peace on Earth

This month thousands of pilgrims from around the world will descend upon the ancient town of Bethlehem and its surrounding shepherds fields to celebrate the birth of our Lord and sing the beautiful words of the “Gloria in excelsis!”

Most of us in America will celebrate Christmas watching our children timidly parade in front of church congregations re-enacting the Christmas story.  Our brave little ones will be transformed into Jewish shepherds, wearing oversized bathrobes and white towels draped about their heads, or angels, wearing white sheets with tinsel-lined wings.  We will all smile proudly, nod our affirmation vigorously, and listen carefully as they join the pilgrims of Bethlehem in saying, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.”  (Luke 2:10)

The words “peace on earth” will slip by most of us without notice.  Yet the cynic, as well as the serious saint, will recognize that the world has not found the formula for peace.  The god of war continues to stalk up and down the earth, threatening men and nations with bloodshed and destruction.  The Balkans are still trembling from the horrors of ethnic cleansing and falling bombs.  The Middle East is a boiling cauldron of tension, spilling over in outbreaks of violence.  Here in America broken-hearted families will stare at empty chairs this Christmas because of loved ones who lost their lives in the terrorist attack upon the USS Cole.

The god of this world also goes about seeking whom he may devour.  He has wrought havoc in a world now haunted by demons, disease and death.  Sin has ruined men by violence and squalor, misery and hatred.  The piercing words of the prophet, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” are painfully accurate.

Is there any hope for meaningful peace in our world?  Can men find calm in the midst of such chaos?  Oh yes!  The Prince of Peace has offered it, but it will be realized only in obedience to the divine formula for peace.  The divine formula is expressed in the form of a cross.  Paul said, “He has made peace through the blood of His cross.”  The cross of Christ has made inner peace possible now.  It can bring about an end to inner warfare and outward of misery in any man’s life.  The prospects of world peace look dim to those who gaze with a temporal eye.  But, the Savior who came as a babe in Bethlehem’s manger will one day return as a mighty King.  He will put all His enemies under His feet and usher in the time when it can truly be said that there is “peace on earth, good will toward men.”

–December of 1998

The Word Was Made Flesh

Christmas is the time of year that gives us an opportunity to reflect on the ageless mystery of the Incarnation.  Once again we walk into Bethlehem’s cold stable, stand alongside the shepherds, and peer down into the face of the Christ child.  As we look at this helpless little babe, we have to remind ourselves that this is the Eternal Son Who commanded the worlds to be born out of the womb of nothing.  These tiny arms laid the timbers of the universe and stretched forth the heavens like a curtain.  It is no wonder that we ask ourselves in amazement, “Why?  Why did He choose to put on the garment of our flesh and veil Himself with our humanity?  Why did the Eternal Word become flesh?”
It is not difficult for us to understand that sin had separated the Creator from His creatures.  The chasm caused by our transgression was so vast and deep that in order to bridge it there must be a mediator between God and man.  This redeemer must be human so as to identify fully with fallen man, yet divine so as to be able to satisfy fully the demands of a Holy Law.  It would take this “Lamb of God” to make full propitiation for sin and satisfy God’s holy justice.

But there is another side to the need for God to come in the flesh.  God, indeed, had created man, but He had never been a man.  He had watched men toil in the heat of the day, but He had never felt the blistering rays of the sun on His brow.  He had seen men struggle and stagger in the midst of temptation, but He had never felt the onslaughts of the evil one.  He had seen men bleed, but He had never bled.  He had seen men standing on the verge of the grave, finally sinking to its hopeless depths, but He had never felt the cold grip of death or spread His omnipotent shoulders on the bottom of a sepulcher.  How could this chasm be bridged?  It could only be bridged in the God-man, Jesus Christ.  In Christ, God could look at us with human eyes, speak to us with an earthly tongue and touch us with a brotherly hand.  In Christ, God could walk the dusty trail of time.  He could share our human existence.  He could sit by a well of water, thirsty, and hungry.  He could stand at the tomb of a friend or at the brow of a hill overlooking a city and weep for the condition of them both.  He could enter into our world, see it, and feel it through our flesh.

Steven Covey tells the story of boarding a New York subway one morning to find a pleasant group of passengers sitting quietly, reading or merely resting with their eyes closed.  Then suddenly a man and his children entered the subway car.  The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.

The man sat next to Covey and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the whole situation.  The children were running back and forth, screaming, throwing things and even grabbing people’s papers.  It was extremely disturbing and yet the man seemed to take no notice.

Covey relates, “It was very difficult not to be irritated.  How could anyone be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all?”

Finally, Covey turned to the man and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people.  I wonder if you could control them a little more.”

The man lifted his gaze, as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time, and said softly, “Oh, you’re right.  I guess I should do something about it.  We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago.  I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.”

Covey immediately saw things in a completely different perspective.  He thought differently and felt differently about the man and his children’s behavior.  Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely.  He sought to do whatever he could to console this poor man and his children.  He literally entered into this man’s sorrow.

Through the Incarnation, God has identified with us completely in Christ.  He has become our Elder Brother, our dearest Friend and our High Priest who is “touched by the feelings of our infirmities.”  The “Word was made flesh and dwelt among us…” and neither heaven nor earth has been the same since.

–December of 1997

The Shadow of the Inn

It was on Christmas in my first pastorate that I heard Johnny’s story.  Johnny was a grade school boy, big in body but sadly slow in mind and movement.  He was good-natured and kind, thoughtful in almost every way.  Though other children ridiculed Johnny, it was always Johnny who was ready to take up for a smaller child and to stand in his stead in front of the schoolyard bully.  It was Johnny who was always willing and ready to share his lunch with anyone who had forgotten his.  Johnny’s heart was always large enough to include anyone that wanted or needed his love, though he was often shut out by others.

It was nearing Christmas, and Johnny’s church was making plans for its annual program.  All the children were assigned an appropriate part.  Of course, Johnny was always given the shortest role possible.  His slowness of speech and learning difficulties really allowed him nothing else.  This year’s assignments came easy, and Johnny was to be the Innkeeper.  It was a role that only had ten words, and even Johnny could master that.

Finally the rehearsals were over, and the night of the pageant arrived.  The church was crowded with proud mothers and fathers, as well as many visiting guests.  The children stood, nervously fidgeting behind the make-shift curtain.  The cardboard inn was in its place, as well as the stable and manger scene.  Johnny was taken to his position by the prompter and told to stand very still until Mary and Joseph knocked on the door.

The curtain finally opened.  Mary and Joseph started down the center aisle and stood with sobriety and uncertainty in front of the inn door.  Finally Joseph knocked on the door.  The door opened, and with a gruff voice Johnny shouted, “What do you want?”

“We need lodging.”

“Seek it elsewhere.  The inn is filled.”

“But sir we’ve sought everywhere in vain, and we have traveled so far.”

“There is no room.  Go away.”

“But oh, kind innkeeper, my wife is expecting; and the moment of birth is upon her.  We need your help.”

Johnny relaxed.  He lost sight of the crowd and stood looking gently down at Mary.  Finally the prompter whispered from the wing, “Be gone!  Be gone!” shouted Johnny automatically.  Joseph took Mary by the arm and slowly moved away.  But Johnny did not go back inside his little cardboard inn.  He stood at the head of the center aisle and watched sadly as the couple moved away.  Tears began to run down his cheeks.  Suddenly he lifted his hand and stepped down the aisle after them and said, “Don’t go!  You can have my room.”

A wave of laughter ran through the congregation.  Then silence filled the sanctuary.  Then tears began to fall freely as every listener received the impact of Johnny’s message.  Johnny had made room.

There is no question in my mind that Luke penciled with inspired deliberateness the brief story of rejection at the crowded inn the night that our Saviour was born.  The shadows cast by that filled-to-capacity inn have prophetically fallen across the full length of man’s history.  The Son of God found no room that night; and, sadly, He finds little room today.  The Scripture tells us we have turned as it were our faces from Him.  He sought to fill our lives with His presence, but we rejected Him.  We spat in His face, we plowed His back with a scourge, we spiked Him naked to a cross and mocked His anguish until the sun hid its face in shame.  Yet despite all of our rejection, God made peace through the blood of that cross.  Even now, though He stands in the shadow of the inn that spells rejection, He patiently knocks at the door of our heart, seeking entrance.  Will you make room?

—December of 1996

Bethlehem’s Cradle—The World’s Hope!

One Christmas Eve over a century ago, an American Episcopal minister was riding horseback across the Judean hills in Palestine.  He stopped his horse at a hillside clearing near the very place where shepherds “watched their flocks by night” so long ago.  Reverently he surveyed his surroundings.  Above him flickered the same stars that looked down upon the new-born Christ-child centuries earlier; below him, sleeping in the darkness, were the narrow streets of the village of Bethlehem.

Though the air that night was cold, the heart of the notable preacher was warmed as he worshiped in his outdoor sanctuary.  The scene so transfixed itself upon his mind that upon returning to America, Rev. Phillips Brooks captured the panoramic wonder of that evening in the words of a poem which he later gave to his church organist, Lewis Redner, who set the verses to music.  You will recognize the familiar carol:

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!

            Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.

            Then Brooks penned this astounding, but time-honored evaluation:

            Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light,

            The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight!

What an incredible expression of optimism!  The hopes and fears of all the years find their fulfillment and resolution in the Baby of Bethlehem!  Born in obscurity under inauspicious circumstances, this Child would be hailed as the Saviour of the world; the Conqueror of death, hell, and the grave; the Prince of Peace and the King of Kings!  What an antidote for a restless and chaotic world!

As this article goes to press, our nation has just reelected a controversial President to another four-year term.  While his reelection may raise the prospect of hope in some circles, it incites great fear, even dread, in many among our ranks.  Some are counting on a Republican Congress to check the President’s administrative authority.  Others are skeptical about the resolve of Congress to do so.  Stir into the political casserole a few on-going foreign affairs, crises such as unrest in Israel and continued involvement in the Persian Gulf.  Flavor it with reports of increased drug use among teens and the murderous lyrics of gangster rap that pounds in the heads of America’s youth, and it’s enough to give a person emotional indigestion!

But above the noise, confusion and political turmoil of our world, as hope and fear continue to battle within the hearts of men, it is fitting that we conclude this year by quietly reflecting upon the coming of One who fulfills every hope and calms every fear!  While we are rightly concerned about political trends, and while we are responsible to do what we can to influence government, we simultaneously recognize that our hope is not ultimately in a political party.  Nor is our deepest trust in the latest peace treaty or some new bureaucratic social program.  The confidence of the Christian must remain today where it has always been—in the birth, life, death, resurrection and soon return of the Baby of Bethlehem; for therein, and only therein, is every hope fulfilled and every fear resolved!