The
particular danger which faces us as Christmas approaches is unlikely to be contempt
for the sacred season, but nevertheless our familiarity with it may easily
produce in us a kind of indifference. The true wonder and mystery may leave us
unmoved; familiarity may easily blind us to the shining fact that lies at the
heart of Christmastide. We are all aware of the commercialization of Christmas;
we can hardly help being involved in the frantic business of buying and sending
gifts and cards. We shall without doubt enjoy the carols, the decorations, the
feasting and jollification, the presents, the parties, the dancing and
the general atmosphere of goodwill that almost magically permeates the days of
Christmas. But we may not always see clearly that so much decoration and
celebration has been heaped upon the festival that the historic fact upon which
all the rejoicing is founded has been almost smothered out of existence.
What
we are in fact celebrating is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no amount
of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to its
quiet but explosive significance. For Christians believe that so great is God’s
love and concern for humanity that he himself became a man. Amid the sparkle
and the color and music of the day’s celebration we do well to remember that God’s
insertion of himself into human history was achieved with an almost frightening
quietness and humility. There was no advertisement, no publicity, no special
privilege; in fact the entry of God into his own world was almost
heartbreakingly humble. In sober fact there is little romance or beauty
in the thought of a young woman looking desperately for a place where she could
give birth to her first baby. I do not think for a moment that Mary complained,
but it is a bitter commentary upon the world that no one would give up a bed
for the pregnant woman—and that the Son of God must be born in a stable.
This
almost beggarly beginning has been romanticized by artists and poets throughout
the centuries. Yet I believe that at least once a year we should look steadily
at the historic fact, and not at any pretty picture. At the time of this
astonishing event only a handful of people knew what had happened. And as far
as we know, no one spoke openly about it for thirty years. Even when the baby was
grown to be a man, only a few recognized him for who he really was. Two or
three years of teaching and preaching and healing people, and his work was
finished. He was betrayed and judicially murdered, deserted at the end by all
his friends. By normal human standards this is a tragic little tale of failure,
the rather squalid story of a promising young man from a humble home, put to
death by the envy and malice of the professional men of religion.
All
this happened in an obscure, occupied province of the vast Roman Empire. It is
fifteen hundred years ago that this apparently invincible Empire utterly
collapsed, and all that is left of it is ruins. Yet the little baby, born in
such pitiful humility and cut down as a young man in his prime, commands the
allegiance of millions of people all over the world. Although they have never seen
him, he has become friend and companion to innumerable people. This undeniable
fact is, by any measurement, the most astonishing phenomenon in human history.
It is a solid rock of evidence that no agnostic can ever explain away.
That
is why, behind all our fun and games at Christmastime, we should not try to
escape a sense of awe, almost a sense of fright, at what God has done. We must
never allow anything to blind us to the true significance of what happened at
Bethlehem so long ago. Nothing can alter the fact that we live on a visited
planet.
We
shall be celebrating no beautiful myth, no lovely piece of traditional
folklore, but a solemn fact. God has been here once historically, but, as
millions will testify, he will come again with the same silence and the same
devastating humility into any human heart ready to receive him.
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