A child was terrified of the dark. Her father tried to calm her by saying God was in the bedroom with her. She still was upset. She told her dad, “I want a God with skin on Him.”
The Christmas season for most of us is speeding in the fast lane miles above the speed level. It is bearing down on us like a truck out of control.
Theoretically these last few weeks should be spiritual quality time between the approaching Christ and ourselves. But preachers are spitting into the wind. Many Catholics will first touch Jesus when, exhausted, they put the chipped plaster Infant back into the shoe box after the Epiphany. Then they put it in the dusty attic for the next year.
The malls that ring our towns decree that gift-hunting season opens the day after Thanksgiving’s turkey find its way into the soup pot. Malls can’t wait to get their hands on our wallets.
This is one of the worst times of the year for many. Depression before the holiday arrives as faithfully as credit card bills arrive after it. The University of Utah School of Medicine has reported that ninety percent of us suffer from emotional reactions brought on by Christmas stress.
In Chicago, three hundred counselors operated a hot line one year from December 21 through 27. They clocked two thousand calls from depressed people. Suicide rates rise significantly. Death from heart attack and natural causes peak on Dec 25 and 26 and Jan 1. (A sacramental confession this week is a good investment.) Alcoholics, who have been dry for years, will find their way back to friendly, neighborhood liquor stores. “Spare me Christmas wrapping,” they will snarl.
Children suffer anxieties about Santa’s existence. They become greedy because of too many gifts or envious because of too few. “I want,” said a boy, “any kind of gift as long as it’s expensive.” Non-Christians feel shut out since they are told Jesus is the reason for the season and wise men still search for Him.
Even Norman Rockwell’s blue-haired grandmother is hiding in a Florida condo where kids are as welcome as hurricanes.
This we are advised is the season to be merry, but the above suggests many of us would be wiser to be wary.
Jules Feiffer puts it this way: “Every Christmas the family gathers together and fights about presents and why we don’t get together more often. And it occurs to me the Bible must have the dates wrong. Christ was born on Good Friday and crucified on Christmas. Isn’t everybody?”
But Jesus the Christ whose birthday we celebrate can hardly be enthralled by the style of many of us who claim to be authentic Christians. If you want to better understand what it cost God to become one of us, think how you would feel becoming a cockroach. (CS Lewis)
One is more inclined to look more kindly on Ebenezer Scrooge. There is an awful lot of humbug in Christmas.
Yet, Jesus is not humbug. The birth of Christ brings the infinite God within reach of finite man. (Unknown) The girl who began this homily is going to get God with skin on Him.
When you look into the stable, you witness the Absolute in swaddling clothes and Omnipotence in bonds. (John Newman) The Incarnation is superb poetry, exquisite painting, and sublime music wrapped into one gayly wrapped package.
One never tires of Jesus as a subject. The cover stories of both Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report regularly mark His nativity. One reason for featuring Him so often is that their circulation invariably increases. Born twenty centuries ago, Jesus still sells. Mel Gibson broke all records with his DVD version of The Passion of the Christ. He sold nine million copies in three weeks at $22 a clip. The first book published by Pope Benedict XVI is called “Jesus of Nazareth.” It quickly found a home on the Best Seller list of The New York Times.
As you read these lines, dozens of writers, unknown to one another, work at their computers around this cosmos to produce still one more volume on Him. This despite the fact that the Library of Congress already has twice as many books on Jesus as any other subject.
Artists at their easels struggle to paint His portrait again.
Have you seen Andy Warhol’s Nativity? Composers struggle to salute Him with a fresh musical score. Will it ever be otherwise? I believe not.
Tell others of Jesus. But firstly allow Him to be born in you. He can’t be born again, but we can. (James Tahaney)
If you want to be considered subversive this week, answer “Merry Christmas” when people wish you “Happy Holidays.”