How did it get to be Christmas Eve? One minute it was Thanksgiving and the next it was Christmas Eve. Wait, I’m not ready for Christmas yet. Alas, there’s nothing for it but to surrender, hold out my hands and give up. Tonight I am feeling a little about Christmas like I do sometimes about Thanksgiving: once it’s over, life goes back to “normal” in a hurry. I’m not sure if there really is “peace on Earth, good will toward men,” at Christmas time–I certainly didn’t see a lot of that at the mall earlier this week, or in the ways some drivers treated one another on the beltway or city streets. We spend time with family, with folks sometimes suspending squabbles between themselves and others, sometimes not. By and large we gather in groups, exchange gifts, eat a lot, watch sports on television, play games, and cram amazing amount of activity into a single 24 to 36 hour period. Then it’s back to business as usual.
The other night I was out late walking the dog. It was a clear, cold night. The stars and moon were bright in the heavens and I found myself thinking about Christmas night and the story of the first Christmas the way it’s been told for 2,000 plus years. It was cold and clear and late that night. The stars and planets were shining, and back then before there was all the light pollution from city and street lights the heavens must have been ablaze with stars and all kinds of heavenly bodies. What must it have been like to have been one of the shepherds minding their flocks (and no doubt their own business) when suddenly there’s all this uproar about a king being born and angels appearing–though I hardly think they knew what to make of the “heavenly host” that showed up to let them know what was happening.
I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be minding one’s “flock,” tending to whatever matters you’re responsible for and suddenly an angel or spirit appears to you announcing an event of great significance (like an angel would show up with a heavenly host to do something mundane, right?) If it were a simple message, “Run, come see this newborn king,” I could probably pull myself together enough to come take a look, perhaps participate in the event. How cool that would be.
And what would it be like to be like the young woman who was minding her own business when the angel appeared to her announcing that some amazing things would happen to her and from that she would bear and raise one of the most famous, wondrous, controversial, remarkable people in the history of the planet? How does one respond to that news? What is the equivalent in today’s world? How often do angels show up and tell us anything anymore? Do we listen? It’s been said that angels walk among us without our awareness. How do they deliver messages these days when they could easily be drowned out by all the technology and “noise” in the very air around us?
My guess is that the Word comes to us in many sweet and unexpected ways. When I walk the dog at night, cold and clear, and look up into the heavens and watch Jupiter and Orion and the moon and stars and planets dance their way across the heavens, I swear I hear God speaking to me. When the wind whispers through the trees and grasses, I can close my eyes and sense the presence of God. I’m not sure that angels pop up to tell me things, though I would not be surprised if they did. I’m not sure if I’d be scared and fall on my face as some were said to have done, though I guess it would depend on how they showed up and what they had to tell me. I’d like to think I’d keep my cool.
I am grateful for the messengers of God in whatever forms they take. I am grateful for this Christmas Eve, though I am not “ready” for Christmas in the commercial sense of the word. But I am ready for what Christmas represents: the coming of “god with us,” the divine spark. Would that it would transform the world beyond the mundane routines of life, even as it did those millennia ago while the shepherds and other folk were out minding their own business. May it truly be so.
