Christmas 2003

 

We celebrate the feast of Incarnation. We prepare for this night – we revel in the fact – And while we know somewhere in our hearts that our main feast is Easter we do feel the warmth of this feast in a different way. Christ has become human. This Christ who is the Messiah – the Son of God – the Redeemer is also Jesus of Nazareth – a person in time and history. This is an amazing thing – God-Human. No wonder we celebrate it so well.

 

We know now better than before that there has been sometimes in history an attempt to down-play this fact. Of course we know it because of a piece of fiction – The DaVinci Code! This best-seller has as its plot the plot to deny the humanity of Jesus.  But in fact Church Councils and Church Theologians since the very early centuries have wondered and argued about this wonderful problem – how do we deal with a God with a human face – and all the other attributes that go along with being human.

 

But the essential fact – and the fact that the Churches and the theologians have always come back to is the real fact of a baby born in a manger who grows into a man and who dies on the Cross – the God-Human Jesus. 

 

I’ve told this story before – a story by Nancy Dahlberg – but its worth telling again.

 

It was Sunday, Christmas Day. Our family had spent the holiday in San Francisco with my husband’s parents, but in order for us to be back at work on Monday, we found ourselves driving the 400 miles back home to Los Angeles on Christmas Day.  We stopped for lunch in King City.  The restaurant was nearly empty.  We were the only family and ours were the only children.

 

I heard Erik, my one-year-old, squeal with glee.  “Hithere,” the two words he always thought were one.  “Hithere,” and he pounded his fat baby hands- whack, whack, whack – on the metal high chair.  His face was alive with excitement, his eyes were wide, bums bared in a toothless grin.  He wriggled and giggled, and then I saw the source of his merriment.  And my eyes could not take it in all at once.

 

A tattered rag of a coat, obviously bought by someone else eons ago, dirty, greasy, and worn; baggy pants; spindly body; toes that poked out of would-be shoes; a shirt that had ring-around-the-collar all over; and a face like no other, with gums as bare as Erik’s. “Hi there, baby. Hi there, big boy, I see ya, Buster.”  My husband and I exchanged a look that was a cross between “What do we do?” and “Poor devil.”

 

Our meal came, and the banging and the noise continued.  Now the old bum was shouting across the room, “Do you know patty cake?  Atta boy.  Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey look!  He knows peek-a-boo!”

 

Erik continued to laugh and answer, “Hithere.”  Every call was echoed.  Nobody thought it was cute.  The guy was a drunk and a disturbance.  I was embarrassed.  MY husband, Dennis, was humiliated.  Even our six-year-old said, “Why is that old man talking so loud?”

 

Dennis went to pay the check, imploring me to get Erik and meet him in the parking lot.  “Lord, just let me get out of here before he speaks to me or Erik,” and I bolted for the door.  It soon was obvious that both the Lord and Erik had other plans.

 

As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back, walking to side-step him and any air that he might be breathing.  As I did so, Erik, all the while with his eyes riveted on his best friend, leaned over my arm, reaching up with both arms in a baby’s pick-me-up position.  In the split-second of balancing my baby and turning to counter his weight, I came eye-to-eye with the old man.

 

Erik was lunging for him, arms spread wide.  The bum’s eyes both asked and implored, “Would you let me hold your baby?”

There was no need for me to answer since Erik propelled himself from my arms to the man. Suddenly a very old man and a very young baby consummated their love relationship.

 

Erik laid his tiny head upon the man’s ragged shoulder.  The man’s eyes closed and I saw tears hover beneath the lashes.  His aged hands, full of grim and pain and hard labor, gently, so gently cradled my baby’s bottom and stroked his back.  I stood awestruck.

 

The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms for a moment.  Then he opened his eyes, locked them squarely on mine, and said in a firm, commanding voice:  “You take care of this baby.”  And somehow I managed “I will” from a throat that contained a stone.

 

He pried Erik from his chest, unwillingly, longingly, as though he was in pain.  I held my arms open to receive my baby, and again the gentleman addressed me:  “God bless you, Ma’am. You’ve given me my Christmas gift.”  I said nothing more than a muttered ‘thanks.”

 

With Erik in my arms, I ran for the car.  Dennis wondered why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly.  And why I was saying, “My God, forgive me.  Forgive me.”

 

 

We know that the reality of Christmas is not the glitter of the tree – or the carols – or even the holiday gathering we revel in. The Reality of Christmas is the fact that we find the Jesus Child in the people we gather with – in the people we break bread with – in the family and friends we cherish.

 

And we know that the reality of Christmas is that we find the Jesus child in poor child who goes without – no wonder that charities are overwhelmed with gifts for children who are poor – for the handicapped child – the child without family.

 

And we know that the reality of Christmas is that we find the Jesus child in the sick – Mother Theresa taught us that so well. She would point to the dying in the streets of Calcutta and she would let us know full and clear that that was the Christ child.

 

And we were blessed this past week to have Ophra Winfrey open our hearts to see the Jesus child in the poor children with AIDS in Africa. No one could watch that story with dry eyes. This was an image of the child in the manage – the suffering child whose birth we celebrate this day.

 

But no wonder over the centuries there are those who would want to limit this Incarnation story. While we might well understand that the Jesus Child is found in the innocent who suffer we are challenged by this feast to go so much further.

 

The Incarnation – this feast of Christmas – is a celebration of the fact that our God had sanctified humanity – all humanity.

If only we could be like baby Erik and recognize the Jesus more readily.

 

Everyday in Asbury Park we witness those adult men and women who challenge our belief in this feast. Homeless – sometimes addicts – usually quite rough around the edges –but their humanity – their human-ness has been sanctified by this feast we celebrate – and we had better recognize the Jesus child in them.

 

We read about the immigrants who wait to work in Freehold – as well as so many other communities. And we are challenged to realize that they have been sanctified by this feast. We should celebrate that one clergyman Rev Ricky Pierce who has opened the Second Baptist Church for them when others have been silent. Evidently his congregation believes in Christmas.

 

But we have to go further. If we believe in this feast – in the fact that God has sanctified humanity by the birth of Jesus – then we have even to look at the humanness of Lee Malvo in Maryland this week. There are so many who can only believe that he should die.  But don’t they believe – even though his life is so warped – that this Jesus child came to sanctify him also.

 

And if we believe in this feast – in Christmas – in the God-Human – can we watch our leaders and our media parade a man even like Saddam Hussein and use words that would deny any dignity – we talk about de-lousing him and naming him a monster. Is this a denial of what we celebrate at Christmas?

 

I guess its not easy to understand Incarnation. Its not easy to follow the child from the manger all the way through to the Cross.

 

But we know for a fact that he has come to sanctify us – to make our human path sacred – to help us to celebrate one another.

 

This Christmas we give thanks for the ways in which we realize how we have been saved.

Let us continue to believe in this feast of the Jesus-child.