By Sarah Chivington-Buck
First Presbyterian Church 

We need a little Christmas

 

December 8, 2017



The song “We Need a Little Christmas” has been stuck in my head ever since I heard it playing in a store the other day. In the song, the singer asks Santa to hurry up and climb down the chimney and for a little angel to sit on her shoulder. This song mixes imagery from sacred and secular ways of celebrating Christmas. It seems that even the most secular celebration of Christmas can’t totally remove the sacred, because the songs many people love refer to the birth of Jesus. Advent is a time when the holy seems to sneak into the most unlikely places. And people who wouldn’t darken the door of a church any other time of year flock to churches on Christmas Eve. Why is that? Why do we need Christmas?

I think we are hungry for deeper meaning, for a holy moment that transcends the ordinariness of our everyday lives. Tears always fill my eyes when we sing “Silent Night” and light each other's candles. There is something so hopeful about it all. And we desperately need hope with all that is happening in the world this Advent season.

I have been pondering why the Christmas season is so hopeful. Is it because we celebrate God with us, God drawing near to us in the approachable, vulnerable form of a baby? The imagery of Christ's birth is beautiful: Mary lifting the infant to her cheek, worshiping him with a tender kiss. The concept of divinity is so vast that it is hard to wrap our minds around. But most of us have wrapped our arms around a baby, felt the warm, soft weight in our laps, and for some reason that opens our hearts.

I was there the night my oldest nephew was born. When I first held his tiny body in my arms, I was overcome by how fragile and precious his life was. I fell in love instantly! The birth of a baby tends to bring joy, even in hard circumstances, because it is the beginning of something new. A baby has so much potential; with his whole life ahead of him he will experience so many things.

The idea that God would come to us vulnerable, small and huggable is entrancing. I think there’s good reason children don’t come into the world as teenagers. That would be overwhelming to most parents. No, children come as babies— cute, small and staying where we place them (for the first few months anyway).

It's so manageable to start to know God as a baby. Children love Christmas Eve, partly because of the anticipation of presents. But I would guess that the children who attend church also feel affirmed that they are valuable because this story depicts that God was also small like them. Children can relate to a fellow child differently than they would to an adult, and certainly differently than some nebulous concept of God way up there in the sky somewhere.

And so we also get to grow up into our understanding and ability to relate to God, beginning with a little baby. Each year we are reminded that God enters this human experience, thus echoing Genesis and proclaiming once again that creation is good! We get to begin again and open ourselves to bear God into the world, as Mary did. And so we are filled with hope – hope that something new is breaking into our hurting world, hope for all the potential of new life, hope that God is approachable, hope that light always overcomes darkness, hope that good things show up in the most unlikely places – right in the midst of the messiness of our human existence.

So yes, we need a little Christmas – in fact, I think we need a lot of Christmas, right this very minute! May this Christmas season touch your hunger for something meaningful and real, and may you find a moment of holy stillness and allow yourself to be filled to overflowing with hope.

 

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