A Pilgrimage to the Manger

It's the eve of the annual Christmas pilgrimage.  The bags are packed.   The car is ready.  The journey awaits.  It will be good to go away, and it will be good to come home again when it is time to return.  There is a rhythm--a holy rhythm--to the discipline of keeping Christmas.

Our journey is different than that of Mary and Joseph.  But it occurs to me that nativity is always a call to a journey--a journey of faith.  We never really know what our lives will become.  Others remember and rehearse our story before we ourselves become conscious of it.  Sometimes the dreams we dream for ourselves and those we love turn out as we imagine.  Often there are twists and turns in life's path that hide the horizon and take us to places and people we had not known. 

In my album of Christmas memories there is a little boy, no more than three years old.  This toddler named "Tom" saw how our little church kept the baby Jesus--high up in a dark and dusty closet in the Fellowship Hall--for fifty plus weeks of the year.  In mid-December, someone would get a ladder and retrieve the manger with baby Jesus down for program practice.  (We never used a real baby in our churches.  That might have caused a controversy, favoritism over who got to play the holiest part.  After all, Jesus was so different, so special, so holy that no contemporary child could possibly stand in for him in the pageant.  That is, of course, a topic for another time.)

Tom saw the sad condition of our plastic baby Jesus, and he insisted that he become Jesus' guardian until Christmas Eve, when Jesus would be at the center of the scene.  Tom took Jesus home and prevailed upon his mother to help him bathe the baby, gently washing one who had not had a bath for several decades.  He persisted in getting his grandma make some new swaddling clothes to replace the dirty, yellowed ones that Jesus had worn.  Fresh straw was added to the matted straw of the manger. 

I remember Tom, as we begin our pilgrimage to the manger this year.  Tom took the baby to heart--so much so that he took him home.  As a three-year-old, Tom's faith was not articulated in some systematic way--but it was sincere, and it was lived.  Jesus was at the center to be cared for, cradled, and loved. 

Tom now has a little child of his own.  I wonder how this father's faith teaches his own little one about loving Jesus--and how that child's faith, perhaps, inspires his father on the journey.  I hope both can see Jesus in the flesh-and-blood babies, who cry for love and hope and peace in this world.  May that same faith take root and grow in all of us that Jesus will be at home in our hearts and our homes.  May it be so!
O God, let your Christmas come. 
Let your Child be born. 
Prepare us to believe and to receive him now.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord, Emmanuel.

Alleluia!

One Word

It is hard to write today.  I have been numb since the news arrived of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday morning.  Many of my colleagues have weighed in and offered counsel to their congregations and pastors.  I have allowed the tragedy to steep in my soul for the past three days.  Now it is my time to write and speak . . .

I remember a recording that was made soon after 911 by Kitty Donohoe.   Her recording of There Are No Words brought solace to our souls and gave courage to survivors of that national tragedy.  Tragedy is linked with other tragedies--even though they are different.  Donohoe's music also speaks to the terrible trouble that has come to Newtown . . . and to our towns.

"There are no words" . . . .,  but we still do have a Word:  "In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God"  (Jn. 1:1, RSV).  It is the text that greets us at Christmas.  It is the Good News that floods into the darkness at our candlelight services on Christmas Eve:  "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it"  (Jn. 1:5, RSV).  There is a Word in this horrible, holy time, a Word that comes to reassure troubled hearts, to resurrect our hope, and to make the world right.

That Word gives us courage to speak of our own complicity in this trouble.  Violence breeds more violence.  The weapons of war have invaded our homes and our streets.  What's the point and the purpose of citing the Second Amendment?  Were these the "arms" that our forebears envisioned for our society?  It is time to adjust our thinking, to come together, so that automatic, rapid-fire weapons are not accessible in our society.  It is time, now. 

And, the Word, challenges us to care more deeply for those in distress--for families in unimaginable shock and sorrow, for people with illness untreated, for neighbors in their isolation and fear.  The Word pulls us toward others at the edges of madness, of insanity, of harm.  It is time.  This is more than a "private" issue.  Newtown reminds us of the public cost that often comes.  It is time to come together, to stand and speak up, to kneel down, and to pray as we lift one another.  It is time, now.

May Christmas come with new power and enduring peace.  May the Word have its way with our society, our world, with us each and all of us. 

Come, O Come, Emmanuel!

It's About Time

Yesterday, as I sat in worship, there were times when—amid a beautiful Advent worship experience—I heard the tock-tick, tock-tick, tock-tick of a clock.  The sound did not diminish, but actually augmented my sense of God's presence.  The sound took me back to Bethel Presbyterian Church at Bay, Missouri—the church of my father’s family—the Schultes’ home church.  The little church closed some years ago, but, in particular, I hold a blessed memory of Lenten services at Bethel.  And, I remember the tock-tick, tock-tick, tock-tick of the old Regulator clock on the north wall of the sanctuary.  During silent prayers, the clock was particularly audible, marking the time, like metronome, rhythmically reminding us all that time was passing.

Yesterday, as I sat worshiping on the First Sunday of Advent, the sound of a sanctuary clock again reminded me of the passing of time.  In the church we do not “make time” or “kill time,” but we “mark time.”  We are not preoccupied with the passage of time, not anxious that each tock and tick reminds us of our mortality. Rather, in blessed hope and anticipation, we are reminded that each second is a part of God’s eternity.  In God’s good time, our redemption comes.  In God’s good time, a new creation comes.  In God’s good time, there will be life—new and glorious, no more tears, no more sorrow and sighing, no more death—just life!

So, today as I journey through my schedule, I will listen—straining to hear the tock-tick, tock-tick, tock-tick.  At least, I will remember that sound in my spirit.  I don’t have all the time in the world, but that is not a source of despair or anxiety.  I don’t have all the time—but God does.  And that is good news.  It is a gift to live in God’s good time and to be embraced by Advent hope today.

Eternity’s God, help me to center down in this moment.  Let me use the gift of this time—while there is yet time--time to make a difference in your church and in your world.  Raise my head and my heart to see your redemption, your righteousness, and your peace as it draws near.  Thank you for Advent!  Thank you for hope.  Amen.