Celebrating the birth of the Messiah. God become man, God incarnate. Those who believed and followed Him , moved from this life of temporal existence, full of fear and suffering, to eternal life of joy and bliss.
The story of Jesus, being born humble in a manger, a barn, no room in the hotel, his father a Jewish carpenter, his mother suspected of being knocked up by a Roman soldier then claiming the bastard child was a child of God and herself a virgin, all so far fetched.
Indeed the sceptical minds of the day poo pahed it all. Their Messiah would come out of the sky on a golden chariot and be like them and the rulers of the day. He’s arrive in a Harrier Jet or A Mig or standing in an Abrams Tank, or on an aircraft carrier or a spaceship. A GodMan like the God Men of Egypt. The secular rulers of the day no different from the arrogant Aetheist secular leaders of today claim divine heritage.
Here by comparisonwas a God baby. Ridiculous. There was something messy about the whole idea despite the prophecies and dreams recorded in the Gospels or Good News. Wen were too much in the forefront. Mother and child. Joseph pushed to the side.
Astronomically, there was the star of Bethlehem. Maybe a comet. Back when people paid attention to their surroundings before the age of naval gazing, mental masturbations, screens and addictions. A great star shining and leading Wise Men to Bethlehem.
Bethlehem was a little hick town in back woods Israel which was as back woods as you could be in the great Roman Empire which centred in Rome, the greatest city of the age. A manger, ie a barn, Bethlehem , a nowhere village. All very disturbing to man’s order of things. The hierarchy. The survival of the fittest. Darwinian research and genetics funded to confirm the ruler. Then along comes this new kid. This bastard religion.
Even in the last generation, Nietzsche claimed the whole Christian Wal-Mart ‘myth’ was for ‘common’ man and compared it to his own idea of the Nordstrom or Harrods ‘super man’. Intellectually Neitze couldn’t abide with the intuitive truth of the story of Jesus. Jesus , the child grows to the man who loves children. Jesus, the man is a healer and teacher not a warrior. Not a cold stuffy intellectual or a silly sentimentalist.
Challenged by Pilate the Roman administrator Jesus, said his Kingdom was not of this world. Way before String theory and Multiverse, before Freud and Jung, Jesus spoke to the inner world. Brahman mystics of the east would be saying “I am the bubble make me the sea’. The great psychologist Dr. Carl Jung would say that there was this ‘collective unconscious’. Aboriginals of Australia would describe a ‘dream world’ more real that this shallow surface reality of materialism and determinism. A magical Celtic Druidic Harry Potter world. Sacred.
Miracles and synchronicity . Another dimension.
Science is a wonderful tool but it’s simply not love. Pseudoscience reducing the whole to its parts, tears down but can’t build up.
The cry of a baby. The breast of a mother. The love of a family. The comfort of community. The question of meaning and purpose.
Eventually Jesus would tell his disciples that their purpose was simply to Love. Do not be afraid, he commanded. He said the whole of the wisdom teachings, the scriptures, were summed up as Love God, and Love thy neighbour as thyself. Over and over and over again he would say ‘have not fear’.
Meanwhile the leaders of this world would say fear the enemy, fear this , fear that, the world’s ending. Fear, fear, fear. Fear the Planet. Fear the Climate. The Science of Fear
One day everyone not overtly psychotic would be at very least neurotic.
Anxiety , a measure of our distance from God and equally a measure of our humanity.
Jesus said ‘fear not for I am with you’. “ Where two or more are gathered in my name there too shall I be. “
Jesus threw the money lenders out of the temple, separated church and state, demanded we care for the lowliest, elevated women to places of equality, preached the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed are the Meek, taught the Lord’s Prayer, Our Father who aren’t in heaven. Heaven wasn’t out there but in here. His presence transformed the universe.
A Creator, like the mice in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had come back to experience his creation. God in Disguise, the manager visited the factor he’d built, in disguise. Jesus in disguise.
It wasn’t a good. It ends with the leaders and government of the day, his own people ,and the greatest warriors of the day, killing him. The greatest priests of the day preferred the deceit and betrayal of the man who they’d pay to betray Jesus for 20 pieces of silver to the man himself who said simply ‘Follow me’. He liked to go “walk about”. He talked about sheep and shepherds and good and evil. He encouraged people to be the best. He had values and merit and cast out demons. There was a dark side and a light side. Good was godly. Evil was it’s opposite. You had to choose.
The story at Christmas is the birth of Jesus. The cosmic Christ is the term used for the transformation of reality with his death and resurrection. The physical Big Bang was followed 2000 years ago by this Cosmic Big Bang.
God came into creation and opened a gate in the side of this dark scary place and said “I am the Way”. No sense in storing up toys in this life. Consumerism and militarism and human aspirations were limited. Better to love one another and love oneself and fear not. Live for today.
Emmanuel. All the words are mystical words. The present is where God resides. Be Still and Know that I am God.
This is the season the Sun has moved away from the earth and now returns, the days depressingly growing shorter with greater darkness then the process turning around till a new year is beginning. In the depths of the despair, in the utter darkness , light spontaneous arises like the beating of.aheart or the intake of breath ,so beyond the limits of the science of today. The mechanics are known. The reason maybe but not the why.
God created man as companion. You have a friend in Jesus. We are not alone.
All this is happening. This season is a time of reflection. It’s a time of family. What direction has my life gone this year. What direction will it go next year.
Am I being the best person I can be. Am I being creative or living in fear. Am I serving God or serving only myself.
Be not afraid wasn’t a suggestion of Jesus, it was a command.
I say the world isn’t ending. I say expell the demons. I say love is the answer. Without love there is no reason. The emptiness of TS Elliot’s Hollow Men is the Duddy Kravitz of the movie. David and Goliath. God speaks instead in a wee small voice. God comes as a baby not as a knight or emperor.
I have pushed so many people away, been so unkind so often, feel so utterly less than what I could be, am haunted by the insensitivity I’ve shown others, failed to live up to my own standards so often but ,like dealing with addiction, know that if I get up and try again I’m being human. The baby learns by trying countless times to stand. The man must imitate the child. So hurt in love, heart so scarred, money the true spiritual currency of fear, robbed and beat up, stabbed and shot at, my baby aborted, my body raped, lied to, reviled, cheated, persecuted, debased, curled up in a fetal position ,wracked with anger, revenge, self pity, I am the fallen man. The Holy Bible describes how Jesus dying said “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Herod the leader of the day killed every child under 2 years old when he heard the wise men had come from all over the world to celebrate the birth of Christ.
This year I sang caroles in a church. There’s no more uplifting music. The service at St. Mary’s was truly wondrous. The high spirits of the youthful minister so uplfiting. I sang beside Adell’s whose golden voice I heard as a youth when she sang solo in the church and birds gathered at the pained glass to listen. I so love the sweetness of soprano. The opera touches me. This opening of the professionally trained throat and the sound of such depth and harmony ushering forth into this world to pleasure my ears with the vibrations that St. John spoke of ,when he said “I am the word’. In the east they talk of the holy Om. The sound of the AMEN. The sound of the word, Home. We are knitted together by the vibrations, the ripples of the Big Bang.There in the church I felt one with God, the Good, the Holy of Holies. Hallelujah. Jesus Christ is Born. Jesus Christ Lives.
I like that Scientists like Newton and Einstein and my greatest clinical mentors believe in God. Other religions see Jesus as a saint but as a Christian I’m tied to the essence of the faith, Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Humility. The cocky Hollywood character an ethnic creation, missing the mark, so often, The oscillating current in life not top down but up as well. The Cistine Chapel showing God touching Adam who is reaching up to touch him.
I love that St. Patrick, the great saint of Ireland taught the Breast Plate Prayer, God above me, God below me, God Before me, God beside me. God within me.
I love Jesus Christ. I love the idea and the meaning and the season. Just as the sun is leaving a miracle occurs, the earth which has turned it’s back on the sun begins the journey back to pass near this warmth and light. The prodigal son story is re-enacted every year.
I’m here with my family and we sit at dinner sharing the turkey and cranberry and potatoes and pumpkin pie. It’s tradition. There’s a gathering. Adell and her children, my nephews and their loved ones and our cousin and I and the dogs are all invited to the table. At the last moment Graeme and I were tasked with going to town to get the buns. Then Adell forgot the buns which became an issue because we had butter and no one knew why., Then the buns came out. I thought of Martha and Mary of the Bible. How sad the Hollywood characters have caused so many to miss the opportunity to meet Martha and Mary. They were there at the table Christmas Eve. Melvine was a Martha and Mary machine along with Adell another Martha and Mary creating the meal of the century. And we all ate and we laughed and we came together as family and friends. I looked on Facebook and saw that so many of my friends had gathered together with family. And some had made room at their tables for the homeless and impoverished.
That’s Christmas. I’m just so thankful to be at the table. Breaking of bread.
This is the story of Jesus. This is the Birth of the King. This is the season the winter is ending and the tide turning. There is a new year. Outside the snow is thick,the trees are bare ,but just as we know Jesus we know the spring is near. Do not fear. It’s a mracle we take for granted. The coming of spring. The proximity of the sun to earth. The promise. The law. The birth and death and resurrection. The mystery. We know so little. The synapses of our brain as populous as the stars of the sky. If we were honest and knew no fear we’d be awestruck. Simply awestruck. The world we live in. The sacred. The dance of everything. The illusion of the static when scientifically biologically we know that everything ,every bit of star stuff is circling and dancing. Jesus is alive today. He is born this Christmas season. Over and over again he is born each day. Here and now, he is.
Thank you Jesus.
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