A Meditation for Christmas Eve
1.
So everybody’s scared.
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| "Annunciation" Raphael Soyer |
This sounds oddly familiar of course. This month of all months. Fear is like some kind of cultural, spiritual,
personal paralysis. You’re afraid that
if you take on that new calling, invest yourself in that new passion, you’ll
stumble along the way. And lose faith. So you don’t.
Or you’re afraid that if you step out in that new dance, cut loose of
the world’s oppressive expectations, you’ll look silly. And lose heart. So you don’t.
Or you’re afraid of sending your kids to school or setting foot in a
neighborhood on the other side of town or making new friends. So you don’t.
You just don’t. Everybody’s
scared. Everybody’s anxious.
So tonight, for God’s sake, let’s pay close attention to the heart
and soul, to the voice that sounds around us and within us this Christmas Eve. If ever we needed these words, this voice, we
surely need them now. If ever the world
ached for this good news, we ache together now.
So pay close attention. This is
what God wants you—wants us all—to hear.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Decades ago, the great American mystic Thomas Merton wrote: “We
have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will
make itself known to us.” Friends, I
think that this is really the transforming, renewing, delectable truth of
Christmas. “We have what we seek, it is
there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to
us.” You are already loved. You are already cherished. You are already God’s. Give it time.
And don’t be afraid.
Now do this for me. Go home
tonight and spend two minutes, before bed, at your bathroom mirror. Look upon yourself. Look upon the mystery of your life. The lines at your lips that are unlike any
other. The birthmark only you can
claim. The light in your eyes that
shines like stardust, like ancient stardust, and never dies. Go home tonight, spend two minutes at the
mirror; and remember these words. God’s
words. “Don’t be afraid.”
2.
And yet. And yet there are
other voices, aren’t there? Other voices
out there who’d be quite happy if you and I remained fearful, anxious and
worried beyond belief. It saddens
me. I know it saddens you too. There are those who insist we’re never safe,
that we can’t be safe—unless we are vigilant and cautious, wary of strangers
and dangerously armed. They would feed you and me a steady diet of
fear and suspicion. As if that’s what
makes us free.
The spirited Marian Wright Edelman—president of the Children’s
Defense Fund—asked on Friday: “Why are we [in America] so terrified of one another?” There’s a sad question,
right? “Why are we [in America] so
terrified of one another?” How can it be
that on Black Friday, the first day of the Christmas shopping season, we set a
record, our country set a record for gun sales? Did you know that that day, the FBI reported
155 thousand requests for background checks from holiday shoppers? And that was before the unimaginable violence
in Newtown and the indefensible ranting of the NRA this week. “Why are we [in America] so terrified of one
another?”
Friends, the gospel we celebrate tonight, the gospel that you’ll
see reflected in your bathroom mirror a little later—that gospel is so clear
and so generous and so revolutionary in its implications. “Don’t be afraid.” In the eyes of a Child we find the grace that
sets us free. In the love of Jesus we find
the truth that heals our hearts. In the
words of the gospel, we find the only love that will not let us go. “We have what we seek,” said Merton, “it is
there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to
us.”
So my question tonight is this: If we are a Christmas people, if
Christians fully embrace the confidence of the gospel, will we stand up and be
counted? Will we stand up to the forces
of fear and violence that, week after week, claim the minds and even the lives
of our young? Will we say, at last…NO! We are not afraid. We will not be afraid.
NO! We are not terrified of
one another. We will not arm ourselves
against those who look different or speak strangely or worship at other altars. NO! We
will not expect the worst from one another.
We will not accommodate ourselves, our schools, our country to a culture
of fear and violence. It will not be so
with us.
For unto us is born, now and forever, a child of peace, a teacher
of love, a way of compassion. And this
will be our security: not a machine gun, not a clip that shoots a hundred
bullets into a hundred bodies, not a drone that flies its cowardly course over
Afghan villages while we celebrate holidays at home. But THIS will be our security: the gospel of
love; the gospel that names us now and forever as beloved; that gospel that, in
the end, gathers everyone of us and all of us home in the heart of God.
3.
So tonight my friends, for God’s sake, and for the sake of your
grandchildren too, spend a couple of moments at the bathroom mirror. Look upon the mystery of your life: the lines
at your lips, the birthmark on your nose, the stardust in your eyes. The story of Christmas, you see, is written
there, in skin and sweat, the passage of time, the aching for more. It’s the story of Mary and the story of
Joseph. It’s the story of a hundred
sheepherders—wandering the darkness and discovering light. And, in the end, it’s the story of angels,
angels who come to us in more ways than we can ever know.
Saying this, always saying this: Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.
