revtlmack

From the time that I was a very small child, I could differentiate between the “world’s Christmas” and the “real Christmas.”

Sure, I believed in Santa Claus…did I just use the past tense there?  I loved Christmas carols.  I have mentioned before that one of my favorite things to do during Christmas was to hang out in “our Christmas Tree room” and listen for hours to “Sing along with Mitch.”

Pretty much, no one wanted to hear me sing…so, it was just me and Mitch.

But, my true understanding of the season came through the many events that I, as a child, participated in at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Harahan, Louisiana.

The truth is “if the doors to that church were open, I was likely inside.”  We lived almost exactly a mile from the church.  Whether I walked, rode my bike or got a ride from a church friend or my dad, I was connected to that church.   I was the first teenager, at the age of 14, who served on the (then) Council on Ministries of the church.

And, for all of the gifts that the church gave me as a child, an understanding of the true meaning of Christmas may be the most important.  Sure, I loved the “annual” Children’s Christmas play; the outside live Nativity (when I was a teenager- I still chuckle that one year I was an angel-I know, right?), Christmas Caroling to the shut-ins; the too many to name Choir Cantatas (under the direction of the late Jane Ellis); Mrs. Marie Fine’s fabulous organ playing, especially her rendition of “Ring the Bells.” I still get goose bumps; the Chrismon Tree, lit with a hundred lights.  How do I know this?  Because every year, we were told that each light represented each family in the church and that there were 100 families.  Yes, I loved, loved, loved all of that.

While some of that defined the “real meaning of Christmas” is was the scriptures, the hymnody and the images that cultivated in my heart what Christmas really is.

If you listen carefully to the “texts” of Christmas, you will hear that Christmas, at its heart, is a penitential season.

“Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in Thee.”

“O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.”

Israel is in dark, difficult times.  It has been four hundred years since they have “had a word from the Lord.”  It has been six hundred years since the Jews were exiled from their home in Palestine to Babylon.  When the Jews returned to Jerusalem, the city and the Temple had been destroyed.  Enter King Herod.  Herod began to rebuild the city, extravagantly.  This increased the taxes, twice-fold: A 10% Temple tax and an additional 10% of income to be spent within the city gates of Jerusalem.  The poor became poorer and the wealthy became wealthier. And, Herod had become a part of Rome and Rome had become a part of Jerusalem.

These were dark, difficult times.  The Prophets had foretold of the consequences of disobedience to God’s Holy Law. Still, the people sinned.  Micah, Jeremiah and Isaiah all prophesied of the coming of the new King, the Messiah.

But, that had been almost 800 years before.  And, instead of receiving the Messiah, there was exile and hardship.  Had God actually forgotten God’s people?

These were dark, difficult times.  It is time for repentance, for turning one’s life around, for recognizing God’s great love delivered in the tiny, package of a sweet, little baby Jesus boy.

I was a child sitting in that church, at the age of eight or nine years old, and, I was in dark, difficult times.  I can’t tell you how I know that but, I know that. I can tell you that I wept openly and thankfully that God loved me so much that God sent God’s Son into my life…even to death on the cross for me…I knew that my only hope that the darkness and sinfulness of my life could be overcome was through the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and through the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

This is what the church gave to me in Christmas…well, I am still that broken little 9 year old girl whose living in a dark, difficult world whose only hope is in that tiny little sweet baby Jesus born in Bethlehem on a not so silent night more than 2000 years ago.

My prayer is that you, too, find Christ in Christmas