The shepherds
returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had
been told them. (Luke 2:20)
God has a way of showing
up in unusual ways.
I heard this story
recently on NPR on a segment all about holiday disasters. It was told by a lady
named Faye Lane, who is an airline flight attendant. Faye recounted a flight to
New York’s JFK airport during the holiday season. As you can imagine, the plane
was stuffed full to darn-near bursting with folks intent on visiting their
loved ones or heading back to hearth and home for a cozy Yuletide.
Alas, as happens during
this time of year, there was snow. Lots and lots of snow.
JFK’s runways were consumed
by the fluffy white stuff, and, although, I’m sure they looked lovey in a
frosty holiday sort of way, they couldn’t be cleared in nearly enough time to
accommodate all the aircraft scheduled to land on or take off from them.
Flights were canceled. People got angry.
Faye’s plane was forced
to divert to Washington’s Dulles International. This, in and of itself,
would’ve been rather discouraging for the hundred or so on board, but, making
matters worse, the snowstorm had closed the terminal at Dulles. The aircraft and
all passengers would have to sit on the runway until such a time when it would
be safe to take off again for New York.
Being stuck might’ve been
bad enough, but the plane was also out of food. And the toilets were filling
up. You can bet this was taking the Ho-Ho-Ho out of Christmas for the weary
travelers.
Faye recounted a
predicable response when the passengers were informed of their condition. They
were angry. Really angry. I can imagine them looking for someone to blame.
“Didn’t the pilot know this?” “Why didn’t they tell us?” “What’s wrong with
those people at JFK? Is there a strike or something?” “I’m going to demand a
refund!” “I’ll never fly this airline again!”
Indignant rage lasted for
about an hour before subsiding into pure exhaustion. But, by the fourth hour of
the flight’s captivity on the frozen tarmac, Faye noticed a very different
change of mood. The passengers began talking to each other. Strangers were
having conversations. “Little families were forming,” Faye said. By the time
the plane finally took off and made the short trip to New York City, the mood
was practically festive. Passengers who, hours before had expressed murderous
anger, hugged Faye when they disembarked and wished her “Merry Christmas.[i]” I’ll bet the people stuck
on that plane will remember that particular Christmas long after more “perfect”
holidays have been forgotten.
So often, it’s in the
moments of our frustration, or anxiety, or hurt that we learn to appreciate the
serendipitous goodness of God.
The whole Christmas story
is about God doing the unexpected, violating the value systems of this world,
and showing up where least anticipated. God came to a pregnant, unmarried
teenage girl. God came to a family experiencing homelessness who would soon
become refugees. God came to peasant workers on the third shift—many of whom
might never live long enough to experience that baby in the animal’s trough
preaching his revolutionary message. God came to foreigners who saw a sign in
the heavens.
Christmas is an
irrational holiday. We might even call it defiant. It comes for us in the
Northern Hemisphere in the bleak midwinter when we experience more hours of
darkness than of light. Our Christan ancestors appropriated this holiday and
many of its traditions from pagan Romans who were celebrating a feast called
Sol Invictus or the Unconquered Sun. Christians remembered the promising words
of the prophet Malachi:
But for you who
revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.
You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. (Malachi
4:2)
They knew the real
unconquered sun was the Son of God who was crucified and raised. So, they took
this pagan festival—the festival of an empire that wanted nothing less than to slaughter
them and obliterate their religion—and they blew a big raspberry at the earthly
powers and turned their astronomical party into Christ’s Mass.
For two thousand years
Christians have celebrated this season of irrational joy. We light lights, we
sing songs, we give gifts, we decorate our homes with evergreens—symbols of the
imperishable. We throw big parties and cook big meals to share with family and
friends and we eat too many sweet things and sometimes party a little too hard.
We exhaust ourselves with celebrating—even when we know there may be precious
little to celebrate in this fractious and all-too-often violent world.
I guess if we were to identify
with any characters in this crazy story, it would have to be the shepherds. Average
guys, doing hard work, just trying to get by when un unbelievable messenger
tells them an unbelievable story. But they go to Bethlehem and see a baby. They
find a homeless family with a baby who is resting in an animal’s food trough,
and they are filled with great joy and begin to praise God. Their lives
circumstances won’t change, but still they praise God. Their work will still be
hard. There will still be sickness and death and taxes to be paid and family to
fret over—but still they glorify and praise God.
Nothing may have changed,
but everything has changed.
We celebrate the birth of
Christ to remind ourselves that God is still with us. We are not forgotten or
abandoned. We celebrate the truth that God can use ordinary people like us for
the healing of the world. We celebrate knowing when our lives seem stuck on a
frozen runway God can use that time to bring new people into our lives, create
community, change our perspective, and lead us to an understanding of gratitude,
hope, and joy.
Whatever your
circumstances are right now, know that Jesus came for you. The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. Party on. God is
with us.
[i]
You can hear Faye tell this story herself by clicking https://whyy.org/episodes/thanksgiving-disasters-and-how-to-avoid-them/. I may have taken a few liberties with it, but I don’t think she’d mind.
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