the feast of st. john: the old wine

i have been a bit disappointed to have read again this year so many "christian" complainers about how we mess up christmas. if the "we" is the same old empire, whether we call our emperor augustus or herod or george, of course we mess up christmas. it is our bounden duty so to do. if we are unwilling to let go of all the diversions that come to us wrapped in tinsel paper and lying beneath the tree, we will never open our hands and hearts to receive the gift that the holy one gives us again and again, eternally, world without end.

and yet christmas is upon us again, this miracle. i look around and see the mess, and once again i am amazed that our lord sees a world he loves so much that he strips off his eternal glory and is wrapped in scraps of cloth. it is of course popular for us evangelical sorts to want to jump to the cross, and i was tempted in the previous paragraph to make some illusion to the one who hangs on the tree we are beneath. but for a while it is enough to ponder in our hearts the wonder of the incarnation. of course we know this baby will die. all babies will die. jesus died because he was born. his eternal life he laid aside, putting on our death.

"in the midst of life, we are in death; from whom can we seek help?
from you alone, o lord, who by our sins are justly angered."

the familiar words of the burial office continue:

". . .
o worthy and eternal judge, do not let the pains of death turn us away from you at our last hour."

the amazing thing we celebrate at this time is that the pains of birth turned him not away from us at his first hour. who noticed? not the emperor, the pretender to the role of shepherd of israel. that one was herod, holed up in his palace in royal david's royal city, jerusalem.

no. the songs of the angels, which still fill the skies these christmas nights for those who have ears to hear, were first heard by the good shepherds, the ones "abiding with their flocks in the fields by night." the good news has heard by the ones out in the cold doing their job, doing the same thing the first david had been doing when samuel came around with the horn of oil to anoint him.

but this time the messiah was more than the shepherd of israel. he was that. the angels did say that "unto you is born this day a saviour, christ . . . ," that is a saviour, messiah. but also "a saviour, christ, the lord." to the title of the shepherd of israel is added the title of the true emperor of the whole earth, of all creation.

a friend of mine who was in london on christmas day was happy that she saw hugh grant, not five feet from her. but good friends of mine, i saw a far larger miracle christmas eve and christmas morning. i saw the very body of the saviour, christ, the lord, who was wrapped in swaddling clothes, handed to me as the bread of heaven in the hands of a woman from wyoming; i drank the very blood which made that babe's cheeks blush, poured out for me in a chalice held by a poet of some renown, but who will never do anything more important than to hold that cup.

but ah, it gets better. well, not better. it's just that there's even more: every morning the church prays, after reading the new testament: "blessed be the lord, the god of israel, for he has visited his people . . . ." this year the lord has gifted our little house with a visit from two of the people whom i am sure most of us would consider among the least. but somehow there was room for them, and they brought the presence of christ, the incarnation of light from light, god from god, the word eternally begotten of the father, with them.

it is good.