Christmas 2010

Friday December 24, 2010

Bread, Blessed and Broken for Humanity

Merry Christmas and welcome! There’s a place for everyone at Bethlehem today.

Despite barbed wire borders and concrete boundaries, pilgrims will make their way to Bethlehem – House of Bread—again this year to be close to the place where angels brought the news to shepherds as they kept watch by night. And those who can’t travel that far will stop at a ‘neighborhood’ crèche – of whatever denomination to pay respect to the king born among shepherds.

Carolers of every race and language try to capture the moment in song and sustain in rhythm and rhyme the movement of the Spirit that hovered over all the ages, spoke to Mary through the Angel Gabriel and entered humanity in that one decisive moment that changed the course of history.

Each of the four evangelists, three of whom write from common sources, present unique but consonant portraits of Jesus. Were they deluded or did they capture the uniqueness of this man in whom the divine and the human met?

Each gospel writer has put a different twist on the facts but all of them tell the same story of the miraculous entry into humanity of a man named “Jesus” in the lineage and household of David. But everyone loves the infancy narrative of Luke who introduces us to Jesus as the babe in a manger.

Who were the shepherds and what was on their minds and in their hearts that night?

Shepherds were among the most uneducated of people. They were at the bottom of the social ladder—a smelly sort—and probably would not be among us this morning. If they were, we might distance ourselves from them. Why do you think Luke gave them such prominence?

Matthew introduces Jesus first to the Magi – astrologers from the East, wise men, seeking divine wisdom, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, in recognition of the fact that this his dominion had no borders or boundaries.

Pilate said to Jesus at the Praetorium, “Are you a king?” Indeed, a king born among the lowly. A ‘shepherd king,’ a “servant king’ among worldly princes whose kingdom was not of this earth, who was in the world but not of the world.

Mark avoids a description of origins and infancy and moves right into the public life of Jesus, portraying him as a man for all seasons; a man for every heart and heritage. He reached out to the Syro-Phoenician woman, healing her daughter; he cured the servant of the Roman centurion and Mark concluded his crucifixion narrative with a gentile soldier standing before the cross, becoming the first one to give public testimony to the meaning of Jesus’ death. “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

But John’s gospel is the most insightful of all. It is the Gospel that is proclaimed at the conclusion of the series of texts chosen for the feast. John introduces Jesus as ” the light that shone in the darkness.”

Priest and spiritual writer, Ronald Rolheiser, in his commentary on John’s gospel makes note of the fact that the light shone ’”in the darkness,” not “into the darkness” – a rather significant distinction.

Jesus came into a world filled with darkness. It was not the best of times and his birth went unnoticed by most except the shepherds, their sheep, a few sheep dogs and perhaps a few cows. The wise men were foreigners. But these shepherds and foreigners saw in the darkness and in the light of the star what kings and princes could not see in broad daylight.

This is one of those feasts on which we need to ponder the mystery. People of faith need to look beyond the words through the lens of myth and metaphor to the mystery that only artists can paint and poets put to verse.

The gospel writers were truly inspired but surely unaware of the full impact their words on sacred history. Only in the light of our own experience of Christ can we look back at his birth and see the hand of God in the ancient story of Israel, in the words of prophets and in the numerous interventions of God throughout human history.

God’s interest in humanity is timely and timeless; timely, because God acts in particular circumstances; timeless, because God lives in the eternal now.

We are celebrating a moment in history that was for Christians, decisive but not final. The greatest challenge of Bethlehem – House of Bread – is not to be found in the manger but on the cross. Jesus was destined to become the bread of life ‘broken’ for all humanity. No, God did not send him to die but to live in faithfulness to God’s undying love for all humanity – Bread of life, not of death.

Destined for death not by God’s will but by humanity that could not understand, who would not understand but those who believe and those who eat this bread of life become this bread and together become ‘house’ of God for all humanity.

But there’s more. Just as Jesus’ love was inclusive, so must our love be inclusive. Just as Jesus crossed the borders and boundaries of hatred, so must we cross borders and boundaries of hatred for Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Christmas is a feast for children because children are often better prepared than we to see the light in the darkness. Only in time do they learn to fear the dark and note the difference in the color of a man or woman’s skin. Santa Claus is not a pagan myth or a childish figure but a lens through which the spirit of divine giving and receiving is made more concrete and therefore more human.

And so on this feast on which we celebrate the mystery of God incarnate, we are invited to reestablish our identity in Christ focusing not only on the past but also on the present and future.

For the Christian, there can no longer be Jew or Greek; Arab or African; Catholic or Hindu. No longer can might make right, or can profit alone be the driving force for the economy, or can vengeance be the motivation for criminal justice, or can racial targeting be the modus operandi of highway patrol, or the hurling of epithets against others because of their sexual orientation be acceptable on any standard, or can the exploitation or harassment of any kind be tolerated in public or in private.

This is what the Christmas Event was about then and what it is about now.

On this Christmas morning in the year 2010, we come to this “House of Bread” to be close to the event of Bethlehem – This is Bethlehem and in a few moments we will eat the bread blessed and broken for all humanity. We will become the bread that we share, blessed and broken for all humanity seeing in the darkness things we never saw before.

And there’s room for everyone in this House of Breath today and a place for everyone at this table.

… and for those among us who prefer to use the right side of the brain to comprehend the mystery of the feast, here is a little poetic reflection:

Blue sparkling diamonds
splashed across fields of dark muted skies
winking at ages long past.
Tall naked trees
each with a unique story
not yet penned on hidden clouds.
Silhouetted branches black on black
searching for the stars,
reaching for the star
their hands joined in prayer.
Soft satin breezes
teasing wooden celebrants in the chilled night air
prodding their dark boned aged fingers to play their ancient song
as if to welcome the mystic dawn.

Ah, the true meaning of the feast is found not in the light of day
but in the dark spaces between the notes of the symphony
measure by measure Interrupted now and then
by the sudden blast of nothingness.

Are you listening? It’s your song and mine
played in the mystic night, soul food ___
food for the soul waiting for liberation
for incarnation, Icon of the eternal God
singing God’s song in the eternal night
moving toward eternal light
low tech in a sea of tweet and twitter.

Christmas is for contemplatives__ artists and poets_
who speak the language of the stars splashed on stained windows
in green backyard cathedrals and street churches
in the shadow of lofty canyons of glass and steel.

Do not be silent__ sing your song_
amidst those who yearn to dance with the stars
rich and poor, lost and found,
in the alleys of ravaged war-torn planets
across generations of the exploited past
and scorching present
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again!

Kenneth E Lasch

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