Contents
"Where’s Christmas?" by C. David McKirachan
"A Christmas Miracle" by John Fitzgerald
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Where’s Christmas?
by C. David McKirachan
Isaiah 40:1-11
Here we are a whole week into Advent and we’re already up to our ears, eyes, nose in just about everything except the gift that is coming. Christmas is a celebration of something so far beyond our logic, beyond our sentiments, beyond our cookies and tinsel that it is ridiculous to even consider the limits of our frenzy as we approach the experiences described in the Gospels. And the ordeal of our celebration leaves us with anything but hope, peace, joy, or love.
Yet we yearn for Christmas. And as we reach toward something more than tinsel, perhaps the yearning itself, reaching toward something more, something beyond all the dead ends that we’ve lived with, invested in, been disappointed by, perhaps that yearning is what the holy day is about.
Perhaps the words of the prophet of ‘Comfort ye my people...’ reach toward more than treaties and disarmament. Perhaps they point toward the hurt we carry away from hard words from a friend, from Christian leaders forgetting vows of reconciliation, from people using love and punishment in the same sentence, from all the moments we’ve neglected the least of these.
Prophetic visions see far beyond this or that moment. They reveal a landscape that is founded in a reality beyond time, bound in mystery. They speak truth that cannot be pinned down with calendars or three dimensional measurements. If we are to hear the prophet speak, really hear him, we need to look beyond our small specificities into the cloudy places of the heart. Out there where we yearn and dare to believe that the angels sing to us.
And ye beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way, with painful steps and slow
Look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing
Oh rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
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A Christmas Miracle
by John Fitzgerald
Mark 1:1-8
One hundred years ago a miracle took place upon the landscape of battle ravaged Europe. World War I engulfed European nations in 1914 with death being delivered in severe proportions on the Western Front. Soldiers, entrenched in narrow, four-foot wide trenches stretching for hundreds of miles, were separated from their opposition only by barb-wire and machine gun nests.
Against this backdrop, Christmas came, and with it, the gift of peace. Enemy combatants crawled out of their fox holes, met in the middle, and impulsively halted a war. A century later, this singular moment is recognized as “the most extraordinary event in military history.”
Soldiers unwrapped parcels received from loved ones back home and shared the contents with their adversaries. They swapped cakes, liquors, plum puddings and sausages as they celebrated a “holy night” together. Gunfire ceased and voices were raised in song. Eye-witness accounts survive in diaries, memoirs, archival newspapers, letters, and official war journals.
Never before had such an event been witnessed in the depths of war. For one evening, fighting stopped, and men witnessed to what the angels proclaimed on the first Christmas, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." (Luke 2:14)
This event only could have happened by the grace of God. We can only hope that miracles of this nature would occur in places today where conflict rules and reigns. The Middle East and Ukraine come to mind as areas where Christ's Peace is needed this day.
Isaiah proclaimed the coming Messiah as "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). Divine peace is intended for nations, communities, schools, families, churches, and individuals. Surely, the Peace of Christ is a gift for all of human kind.
Yet, we must make an effort to receive God's peace. The Lord will not dwell in unrepentant hearts. Violence and destructive behavior remains for those who fail to confess their sinfulness and repent from a stubborn heart.
Advent is the season to change our ways and become a new person shaped by Christ's peace. This second Sunday in Advent affords us an opportunity to have an awareness of our guilt and ask the Lord to bring pardon and reconciliation.
Our scripture lesson for this morning from Mark's Gospel introduces us to a theme of repentance through John the Baptist. John comes across to us from the Bible as being a rather strange dude who had a Godly message. We remember this wild and crazy biblical guy who lived by himself out in the wilderness with a diet of locusts and wild honey while clothed in garments made from camel's hair. Whatever our thoughts about John's lifestyle, his being sent from the Lord can not be denied.
The preaching of John consisted of calling folks to repent before God. Repentance is not the comfortable and cozy Gospel message we are accustomed to hear in the church of 21st Century America. John preached fire and brimstone. People were going to hell in a hurry unless they had a changed heart in John's view of human nature.
According to John, displaying a repentant heart involved taking on specific actions. No longer could a changed follower of Jesus overcharge their customers in business transactions, they were to share goods with the poor, and be content with their paychecks (Luke 3:12-14). If we were to follow these directions in our nation it would have huge effects upon inequality between rich and poor. America would recover it's middle class if we took seriously the teachings of John.
John's words are a direct challenge to the happy talk that pervades so much of church life in our country today. It is a reminder that God does not tolerate sin. A Holy Lord will not be kind to those who persist in lawlessness and rebellion. The wrath of God awaits and when it comes there will be disastrous consequences.
This Advent season is a time to “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, making our pathways straight” for the Christ Child. Miracles can happen and the Peace of Christ may be experienced, but it all begins with a changed heart and mind.
John Fitzgerald lives in Leesburg, Ohio, with his wife Carolyn and has served as pastor at the Leesburg Friends Meeting for the past 27 years. Cornfield Cathedral (Fairway Press, 2013) is the second book authored by Pastor Fitzgerald. John has earned a Master's of Ministry Degree from the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana.
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StoryShare, December 7, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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