It's looking a lot like Christmas
It’s Looking a Lot Like Christmas
Luke 1:46-55
Like you, I care deeply about Christmas. We want everything to go “just right.” How early should the tree go up? How about the lights outside? At what point do we cross the line and become just a little too “Clark Griswold?” When the tree goes up (my job), we have to get the lights just right (Tracy’s job) and get the ornaments exactly where they belong (Emma and Sarah’s domain). Lately, we haven’t even put up a tree at home because we have one in the courtyard and two at church (my jobs) to enjoy every day. Of course, now I worry and ask my family tentatively, “Is that okay?”
I want the Christmas meal to be perfect, too, shared with just the right people. I want to account for everyone’s needs (gluten free (Tracy), dairy free and ham free (Sarah —which kills me!). We set the table—just right. We use the family Christmas dishes. We want the meal to be half as nice as it is to just be together.
Of course, when we care really deeply about how something will go it almost never goes as planned. In all honesty, I don’t think the problem is that we care too much. Whether we care a lot or not, life simply almost never goes as planned. A lot of the time, we just don’t care enough to let it bother us. Sometimes, we’re not even paying enough attention to notice.
When it comes to Christmas, though, we notice. We care. We hold our breath as the presents we’ve given are opened, hoping that we made a good choice. We hold our breath as we open our presents, hoping that our reactions won’t disappoint anyone. When all the presents are opened, we think to ourselves, “Oh man… Now I need to make brunch. Did I remember to get bacon?”
When I was a kid, we always went to a Christmas tree farm to pick out the family tree. Everyone cared about that! We would pull up in our Ford Pinto (the exploding model) and everyone would pile out of the car. Then, it was every family member for themselves as we scattered in all directions. Eventually, each of us would find a tree and begin yelling, “I’ve found it. It’s right here. This is the one!” Then, everyone would have to inspect each other’s choices and point out all the flaws: crooked trunk, no clear top for the angel, too big, too small, and on and on. This would go on until everyone got so cold that we finally made our anguished choice.
One year, despite all that careful inspection, we got home, put up the tree and discovered that there was a massive, unavoidable hole in the branches. It was like someone had committed a chain saw crime while we weren’t looking. The greatest fears of Christmas—“What if we mess this up? What if this doesn’t go well?”— filled the room. No-one said it but everyone thought it: “This is our worst tree ever!” As I recall, though, it was my Mom who left the room, came back and placed a stuffed bear into that gaping hole in the tree. In an instant, the tree became the best Christmas tree we’d ever had! Ask me what tree I remember! That’s the one—the one that was the worst until the moment it became the best.
That’s the thing about Christmas. The best Christmas memories, stories, poems, and movies are always about how the worst became the best in the wink of an eye, in a flash, in the sudden realization that things (and people) don’t have to be perfect to be perfectly lovable. Who better than a “come as you are” kind of church like us to remember that we worship a God who keeps whispering to us, “Come on! Save the day! Redeem this moment!”
So, here’s the deal: if you think things are messed up for you this Christmas, you should really take another look at the original Christmas story. In that story, nothing—not one thing—is going according to anyone’s plan. Let me remind you again…
Elizabeth and Zechariah had been nothing but faithful people their whole lives. They had done the right thing and worshiped in the right way. Still, the one thing that they wanted the whole time was a child of their own. It just didn’t happen. People whispered that they must have done something terrible to deserve this. People used words like “barren” behind their backs. This was the kind of thing that could have killed someone’s faith but it didn’t. This was the kind of thing that could have torn a couple apart. It didn’t do that either. Elizabeth and Zechariah just learned to accept their fate and hold their chins high in public.
All of which made it painful, as can often happen in this life, when their dream actually came true. A messenger from God told them that they were going to have a child. You can imagine the “field day” that the crowds had with that! “Have you ever seen a woman that old with child?” It was enough to make Elizabeth go away for most of her pregnancy. An angel told Zechariah about the baby. Zechariah told the angel that there was no way! Then, the angel put him in a silent “time out” until the baby was born. There’s nothing like having your dream come true and having your life get even harder, right? Haven’t we all been there, one way or another?
I’m pretty sure that having a child hadn’t even crossed Mary and Joseph’s minds. They were engaged. They were making plans. However, God had other plans. An angel announces to Mary that she’s going to have a baby and, at first, all she can do is ask, “What are you talking about?” However, this young girl, in the very next moment, finds her voice. She practically sings her response at the very top of her lungs: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name; indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”
Let’s review…Zechariah, who was a priest and a devout man, the kind of guy who we might expect would have plenty to say becomes silent. Elizabeth, who we might expect, would have made things right for Zechariah and sung God’s praises as a woman of faith, instead goes off by herself. Now, Mary, who would have been taught as a young woman to keep quiet and stay out of sight, accepts the news that she’s pregnant and raises her voice:
“He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”
By all rights, Mary should have been terrified because Joseph, in that ancient, patriarchal world, had every right to be enraged. “What’s that, Mary, you’re pregnant and somehow I’m supposed to believe “God” made you that way?” To be engaged and discover that your wife-to-be was pregnant would have been a terrible loss of “face.” Your reputation would be sullied because, although you know that you followed the rules, who’s going to believe that? The only way to defend your honor would have been to attack her’s. The law happened to set up a precise way to do this and, at the end of the legal proceedings, Mary would have been executed. Only, here’s the crazy thing, even though everyone expects that this is what Joseph will do—to defend himself, to defend marriage, to defend society and God—this is not what Joseph does. Instead, he quietly keeps on loving his fiancé’, Mary.
People have expectations. Societies have rules. There are laws. There just a way that things should work. Christmas is about none of those things. Let me repeat that, Christmas is about none of those things. Christmas is about what you do when nothing is going right, when things aren’t working out, when it looks for all the world like the whole world might be coming apart at the seams. When you’ve been worn down, when your life has been stripped of all the superficial, surface fluff, when push comes to shove, what do you do? If you’ve got Christmas in your heart, you realize that the only hope we have is to let go of our plans and embrace the chance that’s right in front of us to do the next loving thing.
Zechariah got a little remedial help from the angel. He was invited to learn that sometimes the loving thing to do is to keep your mouths shut and your ears and your eyes wide open. When he stopped talking, he saw Elizabeth handling her pregnancy with grace and somehow getting along just fine without any unsolicited advice from him. I imagine he learned the incredibly important lesson all of us eventually learn that it’s best not to argue with life’s mysteries, that sometimes we just need to show up and shut up and care. Sometimes the loving thing to do is to listen and watch carefully and just be present.
Elizabeth took advantage of her time to herself to just be with the child she was carrying: to learn what a kick felt like; to feel his hiccups when they came; to wonder who in the world this child would one day become. Maybe it was this time to herself that prepared her for Mary’s visit—Mary who fit the profile of a “young mother” far more than Elizabeth but who clearly might enjoy Elizabeth’s presence as a surrogate mother. Maybe because of this time with her baby, Elizabeth was prepared to notice that her child jumped inside her the moment that Mary appeared.
For Joseph— by all accounts, an “upstanding” guy— maybe the invitation was to learn what it meant to stand up for Mary. Sometimes, the rules and everyone’s opinions are wrong. Sometimes, you have to let other people’s judgments just roll right off you. Sometimes, the most loving thing to do is to love the person you are with, one step, one day at a time. Joseph discovers what it means to be self-sacrificing rather than self-righteous which may just have given him a leg up on understanding the child who was about to be born.
For Mary, with her life on the line, speaking up with courage was the loving thing to do. For all I’ve heard of Mary, I’ve never heard much about her being fierce. Yet, she is. Maybe our notion of what it means to love would be deepened if we could just take that in. Sometimes, even if we’ve been told to be quiet, we need to raise our fists and our voices on behalf of those in need. That’s this fierce young woman’s way.
When life goes as planned, isn’t that kind of boring? When things go as we hoped, maybe we should have hoped for more. When nothing is going as planned that’s when we should pay really careful attention. When we are asked do what doesn’t come naturally, maybe we are being asked by God to grow. When we are struggling through what is new, maybe God is at work, making us and everything around us new.
When things go wrong, it’s tempting to ask, “Who’s fault is this?” Here’s a different approach. Ask yourself, “What am I being invited to learn?” “How can I save this lost cause and redeem this moment?” “For the love of God, where is the loving God in this mess and what is the next loving thing to do?” Consider such things long enough and the mess you thought you were looking at might suddenly look an awful lot like Christmas, after all.