Christmas Morning

It's been said that it took the wise men, the kings, whatever they were, two years to get to Jesus, but all the shepherds had to do was cross the field! I guess the shepherds didn't have anything to lose; if they go and it's a bust, oh well, they had a diversion from the monotony and cold of watching flocks by night. If it's true, well, then nothing will ever be the same again.

The magi, on the other hand, have a lot to lose. But I'm not sure they knew that going in. Some of the early church Fathers say that the star in the sky marked the end of astrology. They didn't mean horoscopes, they meant something much more. Astrology was big stuff in the ancient world. It was about the only certainty pagans had about their gods-- the stars moved in predictable patterns, and if you were learned, possessed mysterious knowledge, you could predict eclipses or the flooding of the Nile. It was all-important knowledge. Something new in the sky-- a comet, or some strange alignment of planets meant something. Maybe good, maybe bad; better check it out. So the magi followed a sign they knew something about.

But they did not know that with the birth of the Christ Child certainty had come into the world. No more need to look at goat livers or chicken bones to determine the future, or the nature of the gods. The one and only god had come into the world, took on flesh, shown great love and mystery.

They knew they had to worship Him. But were they happy about it? What did they do with it? Your life changes when you accept the babe born in Bethlehem. The things the magi had-- wealth, status, power, knowledge-- mean very little in the wake of Christ's birth. That is, they mean very little if you depend on them for happiness or peace. The end of astrology means not only certainty about God and who He is; what He is like is availible in the person of Jesus; the end of astrology means that all the things we hold on to must go. They are increasingly revealed for the hollow and empty things they are. There's never enough money. The love runs out. You can't drink it away.

We have a lot to lose, don't we? I think of the drunk who came by the church. To exchange to the certainty of the love of Jesus for his bottle, he thinks it's too much. I once thought in broader strokes-- the intrusion into my life and rights of a God who can say what is holy and unholy was too much to take. So much of who I was and what I liked to do had to die.

We are blessed when we wake up before it is too late, when we realize that all our ways are leading to death, and that the birth of Christ is an invasion, a beginning of the end. All the forces of darkness, death, and corruption are going to be swept away. They couldn't, can't, see it coming. But we do, even though (as the Apostle Peter says), "we suffer grief for a little while."

I think there is a new birth today. I hold the Christ Child and pray that He will grow in me. I want my home to be a "Little Nazareth," where He can grow and speak to us.

p/g