PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS

By Sathianathan “Sathi” Clarke, Interim Dean and Professor of Theology, Culture, and Mission

In the United States, the signs that Christmas is approaching emerge the day after Thanksgiving. The gods of the Market work overtime during the week between Thanksgiving and Advent Their goal is twofold They labor to help us forget all the toil that was involved in making sure the turkey feast was sumptuous and successful. But they also motivate to quickly take on the role of Santa Claus to keep family and friends gratified by buying and wrapping and mailing gifts in time for December 25th

Sidebar: some or many of these gifts will be returned after waiting in long lines well before the New Year!

Through this busy month, the Church calendar has its own objectives that runs counter to the business world It invites us to mindfully respond to the good news of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, Advent bids us to look far into the future in trusting anticipation. We reflect upon Christ’s coming again to establish God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven, which in most Churches is liturgically marked by lighting the four candles of hope, peace, joy, and love On the other hand, Advent also calls us to gaze backward in grateful thanksgiving. It remembers the momentous historical event of God becoming flesh in the birth of Jesus. So, the season of Advent stretches our expectation into the future to celebrate God’s promise of hope, peace, joy, and love for all creation even while it gratefully looks backward to rejoice in the fact that this conviction arises from the inimitable event in which the Word became flesh (Jesus Christ) around 4 BCE.

In all our expectant watching for Christ, who will come to emancipate all flesh, and our grateful celebrating of Christ, who came as Jesus to reconcile the world to God and restore relationships between human beings, we must not ignore the many guises by which Christ comes to us every day in the here and now. The work of Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It always has to do with what was revealed in the God-Human. In Christ Jesus, God and human beings were reconciled to an intimate relationship of communion, and human beings were reunited with each other in neighborly love.

What is unique about Christmas is that all the re-telling of the story of Jesus’ birth as the Christ-child reminds us that the God who comes to us now might still take on the features of the flesh that appeared then in the lowly and messy stable in Bethlehem. Kings (wise ones) and wandering laborers (shepherds); unwed mothers (Mary) and business owners (the inn manager) are brought to their knees before the Christ-child Perhaps even as one knee was bent in adoration of God-in-Christ the other was bent toward each other open to a new relationship promised to all flesh through Jesus-asChrist. This leads me to a specific thought as we prepare for Christmas. Let us not ignore the lowly and humble Christ who does come to us in the here and now as we are busy gratefully looking back and expectantly looking forward in celebration of the gift of God that has and will come to dwell among us. After all, Jesus the Christ as he appeared in lowliness, helplessness, and strangeness a couple of millennia ago still shows up daily as the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, and imprisoned among us. (Matthew 25) So, in all the hustle (sometimes hassle) and bustle (often mad rush) of the season of Christmas let us not pass our lowly Jesus by!