Christmas time is here. At last! We’ve been waiting, impatiently, for weeks – ever since we first started hearing Christmas music right after Halloween. Actually, I think we’ve been impatiently waiting for this Christmas even longer than that – probably ever since things started getting “weird” in 2020.
And when, exactly, did 2020 start getting “weird”? Was it when the first Corona virus case was discovered on the West Coast? Was it when the first lock-down was initiated? Was it when the “murder hornets” arrived? Was it when the young couple burned down most of east L.A. during their “gender-reveal” party? Was it when worship went on-line? Was it when masks left the realm of Mardi Gras and Halloween, and became everyday wear? Was it when peaceful calls for equality morphed into looting and arson and death? I can’t seem to remember. All I know is that we really “need a little Christmas now”!
And what is it about Christmas that makes us think that it has all the answers? What is it about twinkling lights, and trees, and flying reindeer, and jingle bells, and gifts that can solve the problems of a world in which nothing seems to make sense anymore?
Well, maybe that’s asking too much of any Holiday. A few days off work, a few gifts, a little family time [appropriately socially-distanced and masked, of course], a little more turkey and ham, a couple of Hallmark movies – all that is nice and kind of peaceful and relaxing. But none of that is really going to change anything. Not in a big way; not in a real way; not in a way that we’ll remember in January; not in the ways that we have been so desperately wishing for in the depths of our souls for most of 2020.
I wonder if the real problem is the assumption that the problems of this world are subject to being fixed? We now have a vaccine for Covid-19. Great! But what about the next pandemic? What about all the other diseases that are still ravaging the world? What about the violence? What about the poverty? What about the lack of education? What about the hate? What about the loneliness? What about the empty places? What about the silence?
Can Christmas trees and mistletoe and credit cards fix all of that?
The problems and pain of this world can’t be fixed by anything from this world. No matter what we try – elections, marches, protests, presents, trees, fruitcake - it has all already been infected with the stuff that has made this world so sick. Can’t you see that? None of it has any real power for real change.
But, what if something - or better – what if Someone – Someone who is not infected with the stuff that ruined this world, a perfect Someone, from a different and perfect place, actually came here? What if He took all that is wrong here on Himself and tossed it away forever? And, what if He left a part of Himself inside some people here, and changed them into a brand new kind of people – a special kind of people, who live like they’re already in Heaven? And what if these brand new people would pass this gift along to regular people and change them into “Heaven-people” too! Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t that change everything?
But, nothing like that could ever really happen, could it?
It did.
To quote the words that Charles Shulz said through his cartoon character, Linus van Pelt, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” Maybe that’s why we all so desperately long for Christmas every year, especially this year. And maybe, this will be the year that all of us “Heaven-people” will finally understand.
~Shepherd Ambrose Ramsey
