Wrapped in Serenity

I gave you the countdown last Sunday, so just to be helpful I will update you, it is 20 days until Christmas, which means you have only 19 days left to get ready, to do “all the things:”

to put up the lights and get them just right,
to choose the best gifts and wrap them up tight,
to prep and to bake, and to gather with glee,
to decide whether you’ll put up a tree (or three).

And, only 20 more days of sickening sweet, forced rhymes that really don’t say what your Christmas is like anyway. It is nice this year that things are beginning to move toward a “new normal.” We are moving out of the wilderness of the pandemic. So much has been disrupted, that we have an opportunity to set a new normal.

I like that my shopping trips have taken place as I waited for appointments or for the water to boil or the pan to heat up. I like that I won’t be fighting traffic near the stores or wandering through the mall hoping to see something that seems right for the people on my list. I like that gatherings are smaller, with more time to really talk and less small talk with people I only see once a year at this person’s party – you know those conversations with people to whom you were introduced years ago, and really have nothing in common except we know the host and no one else at the party. At the same time, I notice that the calendar is filling up. It feels good to be social again, but I am wary of what normal was like before and aware that our trip to the wilderness was much shorter than 40 years, so we need to handle the lessons with care lest they shatter before we ever receive the gift they were to us.

We must handle with care that the days are long, but the years are short. How will we use the gift of time?

We must handle with care that the earth is large, but it is such a small world. How will we use the gift of connection?

We must handle with care that the health of our planet is impacted by our actions. How will we tend our home?

We must handle with care that it is not good for humans to be alone. How will we live in community? Will we love our neighbor as ourselves? Will we seek justice and love mercy?

It would be pretty easy if getting ready for Christmas was all about making sure the gifts are wrapped and the cookies are baked. It would be pretty easy if establishing peace was all about making sure everyone knows not to ask Uncle Bob about his job (he lost it when the business closed back at the beginning of the pandemic, and he hasn’t found anything else), or about deciding for a few days not to address the elephants in the family room, or about agreeing not to discuss politics or religion or childrearing or …well, you know what you are hoping doesn’t come up at your Christmas dinner table.

But Christmas isn’t about the wrapping and the baking. And peace isn’t about avoiding and hushing.

A man named John, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, made the preparations for the first Christmas. He came in the midst of a good bit of political turmoil. Tiberius Augustus was Emperor of Rome, had been for about 15 years. In that time, he had strengthened the navy, built up the treasury and thus the power of Rome, and he had made sure that the Jewish people knew their place, he exiled all of them from Rome, claiming that 4 Jews had robbed a woman. Locally, Pontius Pilate was procurator. We often have described him as governor, but his authority really was financial and judicial. He had oversight of the governmental finances of the region and he was the judge in cases up to and including capital cases. The region’s rule since Herod the Great’s death had been divided up 4 ways, so there was no local strength against the Roman Empire to defend the Jewish people. And the position of Chief Priest was supposed to be appointed by the government for life. But, lifetime appointments can become powerful, so Rome would depose a Chief Priest and replace him if they thought it would help “keep the peace.” Annas was one who was replaced, by his son-in-law Caiaphas. So, Caiaphas technically held the office, but all the people saw Annas as the rightful chief priest.

There was a lot of confusion. There was distrust of the governmental authorities. Peace was being kept by those in power by wielding power. The Jewish people were irritating to those powers because they claimed a different authority. “We are God’s chosen.”

Resistance had been organized, and put down, sometimes with brutal force.

Then, God spoke to John, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, “A new ruler is coming.” That is what this massive infrastructure project is about, straightening roads and filling in valleys and cutting passes through the mountains is all because when a ruler came to a city, the people were required to decorate and repair the road that the ruler would come into town on.
John travelled throughout the region, preaching baptism as the way to prepare the way for the new ruler. Baptism was a ritual of repentance. It was a moment of recalculating the direction of your life, and it marked the transition and changes that you were committed to making.

We like sweet Christmas poems. We like to picture the little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay, waking at the gentle mooing of the cattle, no crying he makes. We like to think of Bethlehem as a little town, lying still on a starlit night. But the truth is that hay is itchy and prickly and not very comfortable to sleep on, and when you have a cave filled with animals and people, the space is tight and the cattle are more likely to grunt and fuss than to moo a lullaby, and Jesus cried. It’s possible that Mary cried. And I can’t think that Joseph was feeling great about coming to pay taxes to the oppressive Roman government in the middle of dealing with his family’s reaction to Mary and this baby. Bethlehem was anything but still, it was crowded full of people. There were no extra spaces in anyone’s homes. Everyone had come to their family home to be counted, and pay the accompanying tax. Every inch of the city was crowded.

It was not a silent night, the peace of quiet was not to be found. The peace that wrapped the world was the peace of serenity, as Mary and Joseph didn’t know what the next day would bring, but they knew that God was with them. The peace that wrapped the world was the peace of knowing, the peace of faith that is sure that the powers of this world do not have the last word. The peace of faith that is confident that God is at work in this world and that justice will be done. The peace of faith that believes God uses us to change the world. Christmas is in 20 days, but Christ is coming even now. Let us prepare the way. Amen.