He came as a witness to testify to the light, so
that all might believe through him. (John 1:7)
Isn’t that our job at Christmas? To testify to the light?
Can I tell you I freakin’ love Christmas lights? Some years ago,
my wife and I had some evergreen trees planted in the space behind our house.
One of them is a Norwegian spruce. It was about five or six feet tall when it
first went in the ground. I thought it looked like a Christmas tree, so I
strung about four or five hundred outdoor Christmas lights on it. It looked
awesome. Unfortunately, as evergreen trees are wont to do, the sucker has now
grown to a height of about ten feet and, with its proportionate circumference,
illuminating it requires a feat of engineering of which I find myself sadly
incapable.
So! This year I got the idea to have the trees by our back patio
professionally illuminated. The front of our houses faces a cul de sac, but the
backyard is visible to much of the neighborhood. For a mere $400 the Griffiths
house could boast two gigantic Christmas trees—each blazing with thousands of
colored lights—testifying to Jesus the Light of the World. But, prudence
winning out over enthusiasm, the Bride and I decided it was too frivolous an
expenditure. We settled on spending $12 at Walmart and lighting a row of
boxwoods beneath our front window.
Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere comes at the winter solstice—the
time when our half of the planet is tipped the furthest from the sun, the days
are the shortest, and the nights are longest. Since Jesus didn’t have a birth
certificate, we don’t really know when his actual birthday was. Subsequently,
our early Christian ancestors appropriated some pagan solstice festivals. One
of these was Sol Invictus, or the feast of the Unconquered Sun. This
involved a lot of bonfire and candle lighting on or around December 25th.
Our ancestors liked this festival because we considered Jesus to be the Sun of
Righteousness who was unconquered by death on the cross. Another Roman solstice
festival was Saturnalia. This shindig resonated with our ancestors in
that it called for masters to serve slaves (Jesus said the first will be last,
remember?), and promoted feasting, merry-making, and general silliness. These
customs carried on as Christmas customs well into the Middle Ages and are still
practiced—however unofficially—today. We Christians still light the candles on
the Advent wreath, put lights on our homes, and defy the darkness with joy.
In the gospel lesson appointed for Advent 3, Year B (John 1:6-8, 19-28)
we’re told that John the Baptist came to testify to the light. Jesus, the light of the world, shines on us to illuminate
our unworthiness, call us back to his love, and to light our way in the
darkness so we can go forward without fear. I really dig how John the Baptist,
in the Gospel of John, has such a sense of humility about his relationship to
Jesus. He is incredibly self-effacing in this reading, claiming he isn’t even
worthy enough to do the slave’s job of taking off the master’s sandals. By
shining a light on his unworthiness, he highlights the supreme worthiness of
Jesus. We’re all, in our own way, a bunch of unworthy screw-ups. Yet Jesus came
to be with us, to teach us, to heal us, to suffer with us, and to rise for us. Jesus
sees us as worthy, and that’s reason enough for a party.
Now the priests and the Levites in our reading could use a little
enlightening. They seem to have been dwelling in the darkness of closed minds.
They had their list of who should be preaching and baptizing, and they couldn’t
reconcile anyone outside their parameters as having a word of divine wisdom.
John even told them that the Messiah is standing among them, yet they do
not know him. I think their darkness came from an unwillingness to see
possibilities.
It's pretty easy to slip into that kind of darkness in our world. We see
so much violence and feel so much loss. It’s easy to despair, and despair is
the brother of apathy. When we feel there is nothing we can do, we simply stop
caring. When we stop caring, we stop being human. We need to believe in the
light.
A few weeks ago I was asked to participate in a service at one of our
local funeral homes. This was a Christmas tree lighting ceremony for families
who had lost loved ones during the past year and were facing the first
Christmas in which a chair would be vacant at their feast. I could certainly
understand their feelings. I lost my dad many years ago on the 12th
of December. I had planned to get my Christmas tree that week, but I had to
wonder if it was at all right to celebrate when the family patriarch—the guy
who was the epoxy that held our family together at Christmas—was so recently
deceased. My mom had lost her partner of thirty-five years and, suffering from
severe COPD, was left without her primary care-giver. My siblings had lost
their dad. Would celebrating be in bad taste?
The Christians of Bethlehem seem to think so. This year Christian
leaders in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank—Roman Catholic, Orthodox,
Syrian, Coptic, and Lutheran—have all agreed that Christmas cannot be
celebrated while so much violence and death is raging in Gaza. The Christmas
crèche at Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem has been
intentionally covered in rubble and debris as a sign that Jesus is in
solidarity with all the children of Gaza who have been buried beneath the wreckage
caused by Israeli bombardments.
BUT: for the grieving here in America, I say “Light the lights.” Yes, we
are witnessing war, inflation, declining church attendance, horrific weather
events, bickering politicians, street crime, and any number of discouraging and
dysfunctional things that would make this the wrong time for a party. But we
will celebrate the light of the World all the same. The secular world may use
Christmas as a time to anesthetize themselves from the surrounding darkness,
but Christians use this time to defy the darkness. For as long as Jesus Christ
is in this world, there will be hope.
(By the way, I decided to get the tree that year. My dad would’ve wanted
me to)
May God bless you with defiant joy this Advent Season!
PS - I encourage you to watch this video from our Lutheran brothers and sisters in Palestine. Click on Christmas Lutheran.
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