Christmas: Hopes Fulfilled

³⁹In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵And blessed is she who believed that there would be^£ a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

A recent Associated Press article reported that based on results recently published for the month of November, sales number for many national retail chains were down this year, leading to speculation that the Christmas season would not be so successful as hoped for.[1]

I have one question, has anybody told all the people from Massachusetts, and all Southern New Hampshire who have decided to turn Cluff’s Crossing Road and route 28 and most of the other roads cutting through town into extensions of parking lots of all the malls and stores around town?!

A few lines from this article acquits the author and the statisticians he or she relies on, “Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported a modest gain...Target Corp recorded big increases that pleased Wall Street …and Gap Inc. continued its upward sales momentum

If I’m not mistaken, each of these chains has outlets in this area. I’m sure there are a few other stores that are doing OK this year as well, including all the toy stores.

Speaking of toy stores, can you imagine what’s happening on the other end of all that buying? Can you imagine all the kids this Christmas? Sometime within the next 96 hours, kids all over this country will be tearing at papers, squealing in delight, jumping up and down with anticipation for opening those packages and playing with those countless thousands of toys.

We who have kids, will witness these things first hand. Those whose families still have little ones in them will doubtless hear the stories. Even those of us who do not can rest assured that we had an opportunity to join in on the fun as we helped the Salvation Army provide gifts to children who otherwise would not have had them.

I can just see the breathlessness, the shining eyes, the happy glee that that ensues when just the hoped for item emerges from under the colored paper that hid it all throughout the Advent season.

This is the feeling, the emotion most affiliated with Christmas. I myself still remember the years when my brother and I would sit and gaze at the wrapped gifts under the tree, each with an ornamented little tag on it saying, “Do not open til Christmas,” wondering, and speculating what that gift with our name on it could possibly be.

And now I watch Alex as he goes to his medzmama’s house and gazes at the packages under the tree and asks her with eyes open wide, “Is one of those for me?” And my mom answers, “I don’t know, Santa just came and left them there, I don’t know who they’re for.”

Now and even before I had children, that enchanted anticipation that I once felt for opening the perfect gift was eventually replaced with perhaps only a little less wonderful hopefulness in the possibility that the gift I had chosen to give someone else, just might provide the joy and the satisfaction I so blissfully expected for so many years of my childhood.

Can you imagine all the glad parents out there by the end of this week, happily joining in on the delight of their children, despite all the piles of wrapping paper to be discarded and the parties to be cleaned up after?

It doesn’t end there. There’s also all the emotion and hopefulness of reunion and re-gathering of families and friends that happens only at this time of year. Close behind the joy of children and young parents and joyful givers is the joy of slightly more seasoned parents eagerly anticipating and preparing for the return of their adult or maturing children from college or from out of town, sometimes with their own families, sometimes with their own children. The joyful anticipation some feel for the cooking, the baking, the tradition building and for welcoming home returning family members to sleep comfortably in the comfort of familial affection once again.

And yet, even this is not the end. The young people themselves, sometimes have opportunities at reunion with their old friends, their peers their old companions from whom life and its vicissitudes have forced separation and attenuated relationships. Looking forward to renewing old friendships, delight and hopeful anticipation come alive.

And still yet the emotion and of the season is not exhausted. Then there is the rejoicing at the office holiday party, the gladness of charity outreach and Christmas caroling with others and remembering the glad times of old and participating in the traditions that made the holiday such a joy in the past.

Many people too anticipate and look joyfully forward to the experiences of reverence and worship and awe. From the widened eyes of a child looking at the their first Christmas tree of the season to the humility of facing the Sacrament of Communion at a Christmas Eve worship service to the awe of encountering Handel’s Messiah for the 100^th time and yet feeling as though it were the first time.

Yet the season is full of contrasts and opposite emotions exist as well. There are the frustrations too of not quite reaching the heights of expectation and perfection anticipated. From not getting the perfect spot at the mall parking lot and overcooking the Christmas turkey, to missing the mark at getting the right mix of people around the Christmas dinner table at just the right time, and facing the realization that key and beloved people are missing. Frustration and sadness run high as well around Christmas. We know too that depression runs high at this time of year. One of our neighbor churches here in Salem recognizes this fact and prepares for it. Each year St. David’s Episcopal church on Main Street conducts what they call a Blue Christmas service whose purpose is to provide a setting where people can come together, acknowledge their sadness or pain, and be reassured that they are both not alone in their feelings and that there is nothing wrong with feelings of sadness they may be having during the Christmas and Advent Season.

For what do you anticipate and remain hopeful in this season? Is it one of the aspects of the holiday and festival that I’ve mentioned already? Or is there something else? Or maybe you’ve lost that sense of anticipation and hopefulness around the festivities and the season itself and instead only look with eagerness toward the ending of it all? An ending to all the shopping and buying and traveling and cooking and visiting and commotion and fuss.

I hope not, because yes, many lives are turned a bit inside out on an annual basis for the sake of all this celebration and festivity, but I believe that somehow all this turmoil actually serves a purpose in God’s hopes for humanity.

Ordinary life is just that - ordinary. It has its occasional highs and its inevitable lows. It has its sometimes victories over sin and regular crushing losses to evil. The turmoil and sometimes craziness of the Christmas season overturns the status quo, the regular, ho hum stalemate of the highs and lows of life. It creates a hubbub, a topsy-turvy, chaotic, free for all festival of hope and anticipation.

And that’s what Christmas is. The coming of Christmas is a dry run for the coming of Christ. As chaotic as this is, can you imagine what it will be like when Christ returns? When the kingdoms of the earth are so radically and so profoundly altered that they will be incapable of waging war? When life as we know it will be so altered as to no longer have to face death and pain and suffering? As chaotic as life is now, what will it be like when humanity no longer will harbor falsehood or pain or death? Can change of that magnitude occur without turmoil and chaos and pandemonium? As we anticipate the coming of Christmas and its joys and delights, we can anticipate the coming of the change that Christ promises and know that that will bring turmoil and uneasiness as well.

That’s also what Christmas is. That’s what the shepherds experienced when the angels interrupted their quiet nighttime routine. That’s what Herod experienced when he and his corrupt political regime was threatened by the promise of overthrow by a new child King. That’s what Joseph and Mary experience when they learn that Mary is pregnant and will bear a child out of wedlock. That’s what they experience when they realize they are going to deliver this miracle baby and they don’t even have an adequate place for there burgeoning family to sleep much less birth a child.

When Mary first learned that she was pregnant, at a time when she had yet to marry, can you imagine what she was looking forward to? What would her fiancé Joseph do when he found out? What would her family think of her? What would her community do to her?

But she begins to look forward with hope in the words of the angel that speaks to her. She begins to anticipate the possibilities and to encounter the unpredictable and chaotic nature of Christmas. She begins to hope and she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Did she know that Elizabeth would encourage her and support her? Or did she just hope for such a miracle, in the real spirit of Christmas chaos and desperate anticipation?

Read verse 39 of Luke chapter once again. Mary has just been visited by the angel and her response to the angel has been one of hope and faith despite the inevitable fear and worry she must have felt.

³⁹In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country.

“Went with hast to a Judean town in the hill country!?!?” She ran for the hills!!…with a desperate idea that maybe, just maybe, her cousin Elizabeth wouldn’t chastise her too for her predicament.

And what does Elizabeth do? She loves her, she honors Mary and pours out this beautiful blessing, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth had only to hear Mary’s voice to know something spectacular was happening. Had news of Mary’s pregnancy preceded her arrival? How did Elizabeth come to believe that Mary carried the Messiah in her womb? Had Mary sent word? Had an angel come to her as well? Or was it her own baby in her own womb, the one who would become John the Baptist having something to do with it? We can’t know.

All we know is that haven and acceptance and affirmation in the midst of the chaos for a poor young pregnant girl running for the hills is as miraculous for Mary in that moment as the child that she carried.

And then Elizabeth says this, ^“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

This is why we looked so forward to opening the gifts on Christmas day. This is why we try so hard to find the perfect gifts for our loved ones. This is why we work so hard on the preparations for Christmas. This is why we look so forward to the renewed relationships, put so much energy in the singing of Christmas carols, look so forward to the great food to be prepared for the holiday, for the joy we feel in our hearts is in store for us.

Because we believe in the fulfillment of the great promise of Christmas. We hope for perfection – the perfect gift, the perfectly shaped and decorated Christmas tree, the perfectly stuffed and cooked Turkey, the perfect party.

And it is all a dry run, a rehearsal for what will happen when Christ comes again. As much as we anticipate the promise of the joys and goodies of Christmas, we will be rewarded so much more as we anticipate and look forward to the fulfillment of God’s promises. Even as Christmas is looking forward with anticipation and hopefulness for perfection in the traditions of our celebrations, Christmas is also looking forward to the perfection of living with God.

“No abomination or falsehood. Nothing unclean. No night, no crying, no pain, no death,” says John after witnessing his revelation.[2]

These are the promises of God and when they are fulfilled we will endure chaos and turmoil and profound change. But we will experience joy and gladness and wonder and awe as well.

[1]“Sales results dampen holiday spirits.” The Associated Press 12/5/2003 via The Desert Sun, Palm Springs, Ca http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2003/business/20031205023940.shtml#

[2] Revelation 21:1-4,22-27

[3] Isaiah 11:6

[4] Isaiah 2:4

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