The Difference the Manger Makes

“Christmas is in the air,” my neighbor said. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the weather—which threatened to dump still more snow on our winter wonderland—or if he meant the way things feel different this time of year.

You know what I mean. The world seems brighter this time of year, lighter, with maybe just a shred more hope. People, too, seem different. Neighbors who ordinarily pass by one another in their cars, nod and wave; maybe they even stop and say hello. People who are feeling the pinch of these “tough economic times” reach just a little bit deeper into their pockets when they hear of someone in need. And just the other day, a woman at the mall stopped and let me cut in front of her in traffic which, if you’ve been to the mall lately, is huge.

In the movies, trulymiraculous things happen this time of year as well. Hardened workaholics find true love and the meaning of life. Estranged family members are reunited and mend fences. The old miser changes his ways after a visit from a host of Christmas ghosts and the young man realizes--through a little divine intervention--that his is a wonderful life after all.

Some, my neighbor included, would say that the difference is due to a natural inclination to reflect on one’s life as the year draws to a close and to perhaps make amends. Others, the more cynical among us, would say it is part of a plot cooked up by the marketing department to get us to do more and spend more.

I think, though, that while it could be both of these things, it’s something more. What makes this time of year different is the thought that occurs to each and every one of us that maybe the baby born in the manger over two-thousand years ago was different and that maybe, just maybe, he did something to change the world and to change all of us as well.

If only we could hold that thought throughout the coming year.

Light in the Darkness

The older I get, the fewer ornaments I put on my Christmas tree. This is in large part due to the fact that many of my ornaments don’t seem to make it intact from one Christmas to the next. Also, though, it has to do with my increasing frustration with clutter, especially Christmas clutter.

Still, my tree is not completely bare. As soon as it goes up, I wrap it in lights which I keep on almost all the time. I know this is dangerous, but I can’t help it. I especially like coming downstairs early in the morning when it is still dark and the whole house is sleeping and looking at the lights. More and more this is what Christmas means to me.

The Christmas story, as told in John, says that what came into being and into our dark world that first Christmas morning was Life; “and that Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”

Buechner points out that Jesus was born at night, in the dark, because it was easier to see him when the busyness and craziness of the day had ceased. And, he suggests, Jesus still visits most often in the dark times, because it is then when we are most likely to see him: when the ornaments we’ve hung on our lives are not quite so bright; when the clutter we use to make us feel better about this time of year and about ourselves is a mere shadow.

Sitting in the stillness and the dark of my living room what the lights on my tree remind me is this: that Jesus. the Life-Light, came into the darkness, and keeps coming into the darkness, no matter how cluttered and crazy and dangerous it gets.

Waiting

I hate to wait: in a store, on the phone, in traffic. I can get so grumpy waiting; so grumbly and mean. Just ask my kids.

The reason I hate to wait—the reason most of us I would assume hate to wait—is it feels like a colossal waste of time. We lead busy lives these days in which we are accustomed to moving and doing; to getting things done so we can get more things done! When we are waiting, we are doing nothing which, I know from experience, is hard to do.

What Advent has taught me though, in what has turned out to be a year of waiting—waiting for a job, for the economy to pick-up, for my bathroom renovations to be finished—is that there is a time for waiting; a season for standing still as well as for moving forward; for being as well as for doing. More importantly, it has taught me that when I am waiting I am not doing nothing, instead I am expecting, anticipating, preparing —or being prepared—for what is to come.

The tulip bulbs I planted in my garden several weeks ago are waiting; deep in the ground they are getting ready for spring which seems as far off this snowy December morning as anything could be. But while they are waiting they are growing. In the stillness of the earth, through a process that is a mystery to me, they are becoming the beautiful flowers that they were meant to be all along. And so too, I hope, am I.