2021 Christmas Reflection

“Is Christmas going to be cancelled?”

I have seen some variation on that question over and over again since about mid November. As Covid numbers go up and down, then up again. As provinces unroll various levels of restrictions on gatherings across the country. As we fret about ICU numbers and “how easily will this new variant spread?” and who is eligible for a booster shot. What this Christmas season would look like has been uncertain at best. Even as I was starting to write this reflection on Monday my colleagues in Ontario were posting information about which churches were going online only for another Christmas and which ones were staying in-person and which ones were struggling to know what to do.

This Christmas is, again this year as it was in 2020, not exactly what we had hoped it would be. It is closer to what we might call ‘normal’ than last year – at least this year there is a chance for some gatherings – but we still feel the limits. But the Good News is that Christmas can never be cancelled. We change how it gets celebrated and commemorated, but the birth of Christ, the Word becoming Flesh, the wonder of the Incarnation can never be cancelled.

What do we mean by that phrase “Christmas is cancelled”?

Over the course of this pandemic we have talked a lot about things being cancelled, or possibly being cancelled, or limited in such a way that they almost felt like they had been cancelled. We have lost a lot over the last 2 years. Life has been changed in so many ways. So many things have been lost. And for something like Christmas, something which carries so many traditions and habits and memories the losses feel so much stronger. If Christmas can not be what we want it to be, what is was once upon a time, what we wish it could be does that make it feel, even a little bit, like something has been lost, like maybe the celebration has been cancelled?

I think it just might.

On the other hand, maybe being forced to change how we do things opens a window. Maybe it gives us a chance to ask ourselves what makes Christmas, well, Christmas. This is not to say we don’t grieve for what we miss. It means we do that, we name what is missing even as we look around and ask how Christmas is being made real in our world this year. It gives us a chance to put aside our image of the perfect Christmas gathering (an image which, if we are honest, only exists in our mind anyway – not one that has ever fully happened) and immerse ourselves in the Christmas we have in front of us.

In his song Anthem Leonard Cohen writes:

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be...

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Those words just sort of jumped off of the radio at me this week. They say something to me about how we best celebrate Christmas when times are good, even more so when times are difficult. We don’t try to recreate Christmas as it once was. We don’t try to have the perfect gathering (that may be hard for the perfectionists among us). We try to have an honest gathering, an honest celebration, which may well be a little bit cracked. But, as Cohen reminds us, that is where the light can come in.

In ministry you get the opportunity to help people plan their weddings. Some people really want the perfect wedding. I tend to tell couples to not worry about the perfect day, to be ready for something to not go not quite as planned or expected. After all, the story of a perfect day is relatively dull compared to the stories of how something went a little bit off. That is the crack that lets the light in. Perfect is over rated. Cracks are real. Let your Christmas, let your life, be imperfect and cracked. We will all be better off for it.

We started this evening’s service in relative darkness. Lights were low. We heard a song about dreaming. We were reminded that our faith story starts in darkness and begins with light. Then we lit candles and the light started to grow. The cracks of our world are filled with light when we pause to look. At the same time we only truly appreciate the light shining through the cracks when we take time to acknowledge the darkness.

So let us acknowledge the darkness. Let us pause and recognize the darknesses (real and metaphorical) that mark our lives. Some people are marking the first Christmas with an empty spot at the table. Some had plans that have had to change multiple times to keep up with the realities of this Covid-tide we have been in for 2 years. Some are wishing family was here, or that they had gone to visit family. Some are just anxious about life. Darkness and shadow come in many forms.

And if we are honest, sometimes we need those times of darkness. The dark, the quiet, the place where busy-ness has disappeared can be a place of growth and new birth. New ideas, new ways of being, new understandings of life, the universe and everything gestate and grow and form in the darkness. It gives us a place to pause and reflect and grow. Sometimes it is uncomfortable. Sometimes we would rather not. But sometimes we need to sit in the shadows and let growth occur so something new can be born.

But the words of the prophet echo through the centuries. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.” There are always cracks in the shadows, crack that let the light seep in. Maybe there are days when the light is really dim, the crack letting it in is pretty small. But it is still there, glowing, waiting.

In the hymn Before the Wonder of this Night Jarpslav Vajda writes:

Before the marvel of this night, adoring, fold your wings and bow,
Then tear the sky apart with light, and with your news the world endow.
Proclaim the birth of Christ and peace, that fear and death and sorrow cease:
Sing peace, sing peace, sing gift of peace, sing peace, sing gift of peace!

This evening we join shepherds on a hillside as they are frightened by angelic visitors who bring Good News for all the world. With the coming of the Christ Child the world is not only cracked open, it is torn open. Light fills the sight, the same light that was there in the beginning is focused into a baby in a manger. We are invited to come and see the light that shines from the manger. We are invited to be transformed by the baby who has been born.

Later in that hymn Vajda writes:

The love that we have always known, our constant joy and endless light,
Now to the loveless world be shown, now break upon its deathly night.
Into one song compress the love that rules our universe above:
Sing love, sing love, sing God is love, sing love, sing God is love!

Love lies in a manger. Love has taken human form. Over the years I have had a variety of thoughts about what the word that God speaks in the beginning of Genesis, the word that speaks creation into being, might have been. You could say it is LIGHT. Hymn writer Linnea Good once suggested it was a great laugh. I think a strong argument can be made that the creating word is LOVE. Jesus, the Word-Made-Flesh is Love Incarnate. Love brings light into the world. Love shines out into the darkness to remind us that the shadows will not win.

And what difference does it all make? Having been invited to join those smelly shepherds running down to Bethlehem and see the light and love shining in a feed trough what difference does it make? How do we respond?

The shepherds responded by telling everyone they met about this child, about the angels who announced his birth. How do we respond to meeting the light of the beginning shining into our cracked imperfect lives?

To answer that question I am going to borrow from another tradition. Earlier this month our Jewish neighbours celebrated Chanukkah. Each night of the Festival of Lights candles are lit. There is one special candle on the chanukkiah. It is called the servant candle or the shamash.The shamash is the candle that is used to light all the other candles. This year during Chanukkah I saw a number of memes which encouraged us to be the shamash, the light which passes on the light to others. That I think is how we respond to the light of the world breaking into the cracks in our lives. We share the light with others, we serve others by passing the light among them.

As Linnea Good writes in the hymn A Light is Gleaming:

So let us live in the brightness God has giv’n,
and let us rise to see the dawn.
We trust that God is here a-sparkle and a-bla-ze,
warming all our days!
A light is gleaming, spreading its arms throughout the night,
living in the light.
Come share its gladness, God’s radiant love is burning bright,
living in the light.

WE are all at times the people who walk in darkness. We are all aware of the shadows the flit in and out of our lives. Sometimes those periods of darkness give us space to grow and develop. Sometimes they simply give us space to rest. Sometimes they make us feel trapped. But we have the promise that all who walk in a time of deep darkness will see light, light will shine upon them. At Christmas, with the birth of a baby who will change the world – even though at birth he is laid in a feed trough because there was no room at the inn – we are reminded that the light of God is always there, waiting to break into our lives. Our Christmas may not be perfect this year, our lives will certainly not be perfect but that is good new. When things are not perfect God has room to break into our lives and fill them with light. Remember what Cohen says:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

So ring your bells this Christmas. Celebrate the cracks in your imperfect lives. And rejoice in the light that shines from the manger.

For unto us is born this night a Saviour whose name is Jesus, the Christ of God. Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth – Peace.