A Season of Ghosts: Christmas, Nostalgia, & “The Weight of Glory”

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the first spirit to visit Ebenezer Scrooge is the ghost of Christmas past. Scrooge notes the spirit’s small stature and asks, “Long Past?” “No. Your past,” the ghost replies.

Dickens is on to something here because this spirit often visits us at this time of year. The season of Advent, by its nature, implies a forward trajectory. It celebrates humanity’s long wait for the arrival of the promised seed of Abraham. In reality, we seem to spend most of it looking back. Ostensibly, we are looking back to the first Advent by recalling the details of the Christmas story. But more often, as Scrooge’s ghost observes, it is our own past that is the real focus of attention.

If you doubt this, look at the ornaments on your Christmas tree. If yours is like most people’s, it is a little like an archeologist’s dig. Your family history hangs in layers before your eyes, with ornaments that commemorate special events or have particular meaning for you. There are the ones with pictures of your children in elementary school and the threadbare elves who no longer have their arms but used to hang on your mother’s tree. Our ornaments trace the fads and passing tastes that have gripped us down through the years. Places we have visited, hobbies we attempted, tastes we acquired and then abandoned. For many of us, Christmas isn’t just a celebration of the past. It is, at least as far as the tree is concerned, a celebration of our past.

But there is more to it than this. When Scrooge asked what business brought the spirit to his bedside, the ghost answered that it was his welfare. “Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end,” Dickens writes. “The Spirit must have heard him thinking for it said immediately: ‘Your reclamation, then. Take heed!”[1]

Here, too, I think that Dickens is on to something. But the trajectory of our own stories moves in the opposite direction. The aim of the spirits in Dickens’ tale is to save Scrooge from his past. Our goal is to reproduce it. There is nothing inherently wrong with this other than its futility. The world that nostalgia longs to generate is one that is self-constructed. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to describe it as reconstructed.

In his essay “The Weight of Glory,” C. S. Lewis characterizes nostalgia as “the inconsolable secret” in each one of us.[2] He describes it as a longing “for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.”[3] If he is correct, then the nostalgia of Christmas is not the desire to reproduce the Christmases of the past so much as it is a longing to experience Christmas as it should have been.

Not only does this explain why the actual holiday so often disappoints us, despite our furious preparation and our genuine anticipation. But it also clarifies why we return to it each year with an optimism that a more objective observer would probably call naive. The conviction that drove old Marley, though “dead as a door-nail,” to haunt Scrooge was the hope that his appeal would procure his former partner a better future. But we expect the ghost of Christmases past to heal the present.

Whatever dysfunction has dogged our heels in the past, somehow, each time we reenact the passion play that is Christmas, we expect things to go differently. We think that people who have been at odds all year long and often for decades will endure one another’s presence with grace and even pleasure. That sibling who never calls and never visits will show up on our doorstep smiling, and with arms full of packages. The seat at the table that has long been empty will no longer prick our hearts. The drunk will miraculously arrive sober. The prodigal will come home and not in rags. We will be a “normal” family, if only for a brief time.

It matters very little that the Christmas Spirits’ many brothers were unable to fulfill this expectation for us. Our hope in Christmas’s power to recast the past and somehow heal our present seems to be born each year anew. There is a kind of sad beauty in this fact. But there is a danger also. It is that we will fall into a kind of idolatry. Lewis captures its essence in his critique of nostalgia–or rather his critique of the longing the word so often represents. “The books or music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing,” he writes. “These things–the beauty, the memory of our own past–are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers.”

And yet we are not wrong to expect Christmas to reclaim our past and redeem the present. We are only mistaken about the timing. This annual cycle of longing leading to expectations that are never quite met is very much in the spirit of Advent. It is a kind of living plainsong that forcibly reminds us that we are still waiting for Emmanuel, who having come once to redeem, “will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Heb. 9:28).

When that day comes, salvation will reach back and reclaim our history in its entirety. All our longings, all our disappointments, all our successes, and yes, even all our failures will be drawn into the redemption that Christ accomplished at His first coming. I do not know what form they will take as they are drawn into the new creation. Perhaps they will be absorbed and replaced as all things are made new. Or maybe, like ornaments hung on the Christmas tree, they will bear joyful witness to God’s faithfulness to us in the past. On that day, as the prophet Isaiah predicts, the Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces and remove His people’s disgrace from all the earth. We will have the celebration we have longed for all our lives and say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation” (Isa. 25:9).

After his wife, Joy Davidman, died of cancer, C. S. Lewis kept a journal of observations about the grief he felt. It concludes with her final moments. Lewis writes, “She said not to me but to the chaplain, ‘I am at peace with God.’ She smiled, but not at me.”

“She smiled, but not at me. “
C. S. Lewis

I remember being disturbed the first time I read these words. They seemed to speak of despair rather than hope. But the description is so like a sentence Lewis wrote in “The Weight of Glory,” that I have come to believe I was entirely mistaken about this. The sentence comes in a section of the essay where Lewis discusses the nature of glory. Lewis seems to be saying that the essence of this glory is a kind of recognition. The glory we hope for as Christians is to be known and recognized by God. More than this, according to Lewis, it is to be appreciated. This, Lewis explains, is what we long for–“to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son.”

It is this recognition or sense of belonging that we hunger for when we are caught up in longing, and it is the feeling that we are trying to create by the attempted reconstitution of our past through nostalgia. It is the sense of finally coming home. It is what compels us every year to go to such measures to create circumstances that will produce the feeling and whose subsequent failure so breaks our hearts that we aim for it again and again. “For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing,” Lewis explains. “Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance.”

“She smiled,” Lewis observed at his wife’s passing, “but not at me.”

It seems right to speak of death in the same breath as Advent because Advent is the season of ghosts. It is that rolling time of year when the spirit of Christmases past rises up to remind us that the world is still broken and that the home for which we long has not yet arrived. It has not come. But it is on its way.

[1] Charles Dickens, The Christmas Books, Vol. 1, (New York: Penguin, 1971), 69.

[2] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, (New York: HarperOne, 1976), 29.

[3] Ibid., 30.

Holy Days, Holidays, & Christmas

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Christmas was important to me even before I called myself a Christian, though admittedly, this was mainly for non-religious reasons. I’ve long suspected that I have always loved Christmas more than any other holiday, not because of its spirituality but because it purchased my affections. It’s true that I loved the music and the pageantry. The glow of the lights and the smell of evergreen seemed to transport me to another world. But it was the presents that clinched the deal. When it came to gifts, Christmas was the motherload. Far better than birthdays or any other holiday.

When I became a follower of Jesus, I expected the change to transform Christmas the same way it transformed the rest of my life. I assumed the season, which seemed magical to me already, would become transcendent. It did not. If anything, the change somehow managed to dim the glow.

Perhaps this was because of the church culture to which I had become attached. The church tradition I joined was what is commonly described as a “low” church. Apart from Christmas and Easter, we didn’t follow the church calendar. Even the attention paid to those two days seemed grudging at times. We were proud of this bare-faced approach that disassociated us from Roman Catholicism, with its robes, smoke, and long lists of feasts that never seemed to involve actual food.

Of course, we had our own list of special days and celebrations. So I suppose you could say they were feasts of a sort. There were potlucks and suppers, the annual Valentine’s day banquet, and a church meal after every funeral. There were also a vast variety of informal meals, usually related to specific events or the passing of the seasons. But, in retrospect, it occurs to me that most of these occasions were more social than religious.

Christmas, on the other hand, was overtly religious. By it, we aimed to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. We did this with a measure of reserve. There were a few decorations, but they were not elaborate. A handful of evergreen sprigs and the occasional wreath decked out with red and green ribbons were usually enough. Some churches, which would normally have eschewed putting up a Christmas tree in the sanctuary because of its pagan roots, even constructed a large tree-shaped scaffold for the choir and covered it with pine branches.

We hunger for the presence of God
but tend to confuse transendence with ambiance.

Christmas Eve was the only time we allowed candles in the sanctuary. Instead of lighting them for the dead like Catholics, we held them in our hands. We dimmed the lights and sang Silent Night as the wax dripped on the upholstery of the pew in front of us. I liked the flickering shadows but hated the song, not because of its content but for its familiarity. It bored me. As a rule, my tastes in Christmas music tended toward the medieval. I would rather sing Prudentius or some repurposed Gregorian chant.

The low church tradition in which I still worship appears to have overcome its reticence about candles and greenery. Advent candles, midnight services on Christmas eve, and strung lights are so common these days that we hardly notice the difference anymore. The church I currently attend piles so many Christmas trees into the place of worship that it feels like we are at a campground instead of in the sanctuary. I have even visited a church that broadcasts Chuck Berry singing “Run, run, Rudolph!” through loudspeakers outside its front door. On the stage in the auditorium where the congregation meets, a smoke machine generates a thin shekinah of mechanical fog.

As for me, my tastes in worship, like my tastes in Christmas music, tend toward the minor key. I have always felt a little envious of my high church friends who, when they lift their eyes in worship, see arches and stained glass instead of ductwork. I have wondered what it would be like to preach a sermon wearing vestments. It would be refreshing to attend a church that feels like a church instead of feeling like I am visiting a shopping mall, an office complex, or a repurposed grocery store. But God, I suspect, does not really care. Even the tabernacle, raised by divine command and meticulously constructed according to the pattern revealed to Moses on the holy Mountain, turned out to be only “a copy and shadow of what is in heaven” (Heb. 8:5).

We hunger for a sense of the presence of God. But tend to confuse transcendence with ambiance. In its worship practices, the church seems to struggle to find the happy medium between Puritan austerity and baroque gaudiness. This struggle is further complicated by differences in culture, style, and taste. Not every church celebrates Christmas the same. Indeed, as far as Scripture is concerned, we do not need to observe Christmas as a holy day at all. There is certainly no evidence in the New Testament that the first Christians did. In his book Ancient Christian Worship, Andrew McGowan contrasts “the colorful calendars of feasts, fasts, and saints that churches of the fourth and fifth centuries celebrated” with “the relative silence” of the New Testament on such matters.[1] The apostle Paul criticized the Galatians for “observing special days and months and seasons and years” (Gal. 4:10). In Colossians 2:16, he warned the Colossians not to let anyone judge them “with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.” Christmas, it would seem, is not the queen of days. We are free to observe it or not observe it as we wish.

God’s presence is more likely to show itself
on the periphery of our daily experience
than in the church sanctuary.

Meanwhile, when God’s presence does show itself, it is more likely to be on the periphery of our daily experience than in the church sanctuary. God seems to inhabit the corners and shadows, preferring the unnamed days of ordinary time to the high holy days from which we expect so much. He does not come with fanfare. But as the carol says, silently, and in the places where all our hopes and fears meet. “No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

This is the message of Christmas. It is the old, old promise whispered in the Garden, shouted by the prophets, and trumpeted to shepherds on a hillside near Bethlehem. It is the good news that God has drawn near by taking on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. He came with a real body to the real world. He came to die, rise, and will one day return. Only then will we know what it is like to experience God’s presence in its fullness.

[1] Andrew B. McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014), 259.

What Mary Knew

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When I was a boy I thought I heard angels sing. I was in my bedroom at the time and the sound seemed to come from a distance. I was perplexed by what I heard. When I opened the bedroom window the music grew louder. I thought I could see a heavenly glow beyond the rooftop of the house next door. The fact that Christmas was approaching was the clincher for me. It had to be a heavenly choir of angels jubilating over the birth of the Christ child. There could be no other explanation.

Actually, it turns out that there was a more mundane explanation for the phenomenon. Someone was selling Christmas trees over on the next block. They had strung the lot with colored lights. The music I heard was only a phonograph connected to a loudspeaker. So much for my heavenly visitation. But I have often thought back on that brief moment of transcendence when I was certain I heard the angels sing on high.

When Gabriel appeared to Mary, there was no burst of song but a herald’s announcement. “Greetings, you who are highly favored!” the angel said. “The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Artists have pictured this as a transcendent moment for Mary but Luke paints it differently. Mary is not moved to bliss by the angel’s words but to perplexity. She was troubled by what she heard. Perhaps she heard in them an echo of the angel’s greeting to Gideon as he threshed grain in a cistern and brooded about Israel’s defeat. In the Bible, this sort of promise always seems to be the precursor to an especially difficult assignment.

Or perhaps it was the ascription of God’s special favor that surprised Mary. It is true that Mary was from a royal line. But beyond that, there does not seem to have been much else about her life that made it singularly blessed. She was just a young girl betrothed to the local carpenter. Neither of them was rich. They do not seem to have had any grandiose plans for themselves. Until now there was no reason to believe that their life together would be any different from any other couple in their village.

The details the angel provides reveal the singular favor that will be bestowed upon Mary. “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus,” the angel commanded. “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:30-33).

Yet instead of reassurance, the angel’s promise only served to trouble Mary further. “How will this be,” Mary replied, “since I am a virgin?” She was of childbearing age. She was already engaged. How did she think it would happen? Mary’s question makes sense only if we understand the angel to be saying that this conception will be unusual. No man will father this child. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” the angel promised. “So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

Still, among all the remarkable words exchanged in this encounter, the most astonishing were those of Mary herself.“I am the Lord’s servant,” she replied after she had heard all these things. “May it be to me as you have said.” Did Mary know what she was agreeing to do? She knew at least this much: she would become pregnant before she was married and the only explanation she could give for this was that God was the baby’s father. She could not have concocted a more unlikely explanation if she had tried. If Mary was anxious about Joseph’s reaction, she gave no indication of it. After all, why should she be anxious? She knew what kind of man Joseph was. Scripture reveals that he was a man of faith, quick to do what he knew to be God’s will.

One dimension of the favor spoken of by the angel when he appeared to Mary was her distinctive role in the drama of redemption. Long before she was born, the judgment declared to Satan in the Garden of Eden foreshadowed Mary’s entrance into the story: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15). Mary is the virgin spoken of in Isaiah 7:14 (cf. Matt. 1:23). Her place in the Nativity story is so crucial that it has led some to claim that there would be no Jesus without Mary. Although well-meaning, such rhetoric is, at best, unfortunate. Mary was not necessary to Jesus’ existence. Long before Mary was born or the world created, Jesus already was. According to John 1:1, He was “with God” and He “was God.”

Mary’s distinctive role lay in the fact that she was the vessel through whom our Lord took to Himself a human nature.

Mary’s distinctive role lay in the fact that she was the vessel through whom our Lord took to Himself a human nature. As the second-century church leader Ignatius of Antioch put it in his letter to the church of Smyrna, Jesus is “truly of the family of David with respect to his human descent” and also “Son of God with respect to the divine will and power” (Smyr. 1:1).7 Or, as he wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, there is a sense in which it can be said that Jesus is both “from Mary” and “from God” (Eph. 7:2).8

Yet as important as Mary is to the Christmas story, her presence on the biblical stage is strangely brief. After the nativity account, she reappears only a few times. On one occasion, when Jesus was twelve years old, she chastened Jesus for disappearing during a family visit to Jerusalem. After a three-day search, Mary and Joseph found Him in the temple courts listening to the teachers and asking them questions. Luke 2:48 describes the reaction: “When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, ‘Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.’” Eighteen years later, we find Mary at the wedding in Cana, urging Jesus to do something when the host runs out of wine ( John 2:3). Then again, after Jesus begins his public ministry, she shows up outside the house, where a crowd has gathered to hear Him teach. Mary is seemingly rebuffed both times (John 2:4; Mark 3:34–35; cf. Matt. 12:46–50).

The next time we see her, Mary is standing at the foot of the cross near the beloved disciple John. According to John 19:26–27: “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.”

After this, Mary more or less disappears from view. She has a brief cameo at the beginning of the book of Acts, which merely says that she was present on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:4). She does not seem to be mentioned in the New Testament epistles at all unless she was “the chosen lady” to whom John addressed his second epistle (2 John 1:1).

What, then, are we to think of Mary? As far as Nativity is concerned, she has a starring role. But when it comes to the overall drama that plays out in the four Gospels, she seems more like a bit player and foil. Yet, despite the brevity of her appearances in these accounts, we are left with a definite impression. First, we see that Mary was, first and foremost, a mother. When Mary shows up, she behaves toward Jesus like any mother would toward her son. Mary was a woman of deep faith. Her song of praise in Luke 1:46–55, known as the Magnificat, is biblically literate, theologically sophisticated, and poetically rich. What is more, this faith was combined with great courage. She had to understand the social implications of conceiving a child without a human father. Despite this, she raises no objections about the cost to her reputation, how it will affect her impending marriage to Joseph, or about the implications it will have on their life together. Mary asks only how it will happen (Luke 1:34).

These days Christmas music seems to like to portray Mary as fragile and uncertain. In one song she asks God to “hold her together” and wants to know if He wonders whether “a wiser one” should have taken her place. Another song runs through a list of theological affirmations about the incarnation and asks, “Mary, did you know?” The answer to the first question is no, and the answer to the second is yes. Mary was probably young, but I do not think she was fragile. Her actions reveal that she was brave, persistent, and obedient. Certainly, there is much that Mary could not have known about what it would mean to give birth to God’s son. The one thing Mary did know was that she was the Lord’s servant.

Christmas Traveler-free ebook by John Koessler

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For some years now, one of the ways I have observed the Christmas season is by writing. I began with poems, the occasional story, then turned to essays. Over the last few years, I have been publishing these on my blog. This year I decided to collect the material into a small book and send it to my friends as a Christmas greeting. The idea occurred to me as I listened to Christmas music composed by Jazz musician Alfred Burt who, observing a tradition begun by his father, sent an original Christmas carol each year to family and friends. As someone who reads my blog, perhaps you will enjoy it too. You can download it from the link on my homepage below.

Christmas-Essays-6by9 Download

Christmas Traveler: Why the Nativity is About the Cross

December 20, 2020June 15, 2023 ~ John Koessler ~ Leave a comment

In this year of COVID-19, the governor of my state has asked everyone to stay home for Christmas. To be honest, it feels strange. For many, Christmas is a time for traveling. The same was true of the first Christmas. The Gospel narratives of Christ’s birth are crowded with travelers. Zechariah, the priest, travels to Jerusalem to burn incense before the Lord and is struck with dumb surprise when the angel announces that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son in their old age. Mary travels too, heading for the hills to visit her relative, Elizabeth. Then to Bethlehem with Joseph to give birth to the miracle child conceived by the Holy Spirit. Shepherds hurry into the night, leaving their flock behind to find the babe wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Magi travel from the east by caravan to lay their gifts before the newborn king of the Jews, while Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt to escape King Herod’s wrath. Everybody in the Christmas story, it seems, is on the road.

Yet of all the travelers in the Christmas narrative, none comes as far as Jesus. His is a journey that is measured not in miles but position. “Out of the ivory palaces, into a world of woe,” an old hymn says. The opening of John’s Gospel clarifies that the change was even more profound than the hymn-writer imagines. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” John declares (John 1:14). The theologians describe this in literal terms as the incarnation, the enfleshing of the Word of God. At the incarnation, Jesus Christ took a human nature to Himself without ceasing to be divine.

If the theologians express the literal sense of John’s theology with this language, the 17th-century poet Richard Crashaw captures John’s lyrical warmth when he writes,

Welcome, all Wonders in one sight!

Eternity shut in a span.

Summer to winter, day in night,

Heaven in earth, and God in man.

The poet’s phrase “eternity shut in a span” measures the distance between heaven’s throne and Bethlehem’s manger. There was both an addition and a subtraction in the incarnation. Jesus took to Himself a human nature that He previously did not possess. The babe of Bethlehem was a real infant, as helpless and dependent as any other. At that moment, the creator of all things became both actor and the one acted upon. The eternal Word was conceived by God, born of a virgin, and laid in a manger. The Son of God became the child of Mary. By this act, Jesus laid aside something as well. In Philippians 2:7 the apostle Paul says that Jesus, who was God by nature, “made Himself nothing” at the incarnation. The Greek text says that Christ “emptied” Himself.

We should not see this as an abdication. Jesus did not cease to be divine when He took on flesh and blood. Instead, this was more of a refusal. He refused to cling to the rights and prerogatives that belonged to Him because of His divinity. As one translation of Philippians 2:6 puts it, Jesus did not consider equality with God “something to be used to his own advantage.” When He was made in human likeness, Jesus took up the nature of a servant. Paul’s language in these verses is deliberate. Confinement to human form was more than a symbolic statement for Jesus. True humanity was essential for the specific task that Jesus came to perform. When Jesus was “found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:8). Jesus took on flesh so that He could die.

That death is the linchpin of the theology of the incarnation. Remove it, and the story of Christ’s nativity becomes immeasurably reduced, as does the rest of His life and ministry. Without His death on the cross, Jesus is only another wagging finger urging us to attempt what we cannot attain. Such a Christ may be a moral example, but He is no savior. Likewise, the resurrection of Jesus is a necessary complement to His obedience to the point of death. Without the resurrection, Jesus is merely another martyr in a long line of martyrs, and the gospel is no longer the gospel. The apostle does indeed set Jesus before us as an example when he tells us to “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). But this is only because he presents Jesus as our savior first, the one who died for our sins and rose again for our justification. Those who do not recognize Christ as their savior cannot take Him as their example. Jesus is always a gift before He is a model.

Jesus had to be born to die. Without that death, there would be no remedy for our sin. Jesus had to be raised from the dead to make us alive to God. It is only by that resurrection that we can follow Christ’s example. This means that the manger, the cross, and the empty tomb are inseparable. Remove one, and the rest must fall away as well. It also means that the trajectory of our spiritual journey mirrors that of Jesus Christ. We move from physical birth to the cross to the empty tomb and then to glory. Only those who have been united with Christ in His death and resurrection can follow His descent into humility. All of this rests on the fulcrum of the incarnation. Without it, none of the rest would be possible. By submitting to incarnation, Jesus Christ not only placed Himself at the Father’s disposal, but He also made Himself dependent upon the Father to complete His task.

These days it is common to hear people talk about the “magic” of Christmas. Those who speak this way are usually just talking about ambiance. Christmas movies and television commercials imply that celebrating Christmas will produce a transcendent experience. Broken relationships will suddenly mend. Prodigals will come home. The broken-hearted find love at last, and all the ills of the world will be mended, at least for one day. We are foolish enough to believe this false vision, failing to recognize that what they are really selling is an atmosphere, along with the products that create it. We have mistaken the rhetoric of marketing for mystery.

What is truly missing from our Christmas is not magic but memory. We do not need more atmosphere but an understanding of the incarnation. We have forgotten what the original story was all about. In many cases, we have removed the original story altogether. We have tried to improve it by garnishing it with tinsel and lights or have reduced the original narrative to such a degree that all we have left is a string of sentimental images.

If we wish to know the wonder of Christmas, we will need to recapture a vision of “eternity shut in a span.” To do that, we must go beyond the manger. We need to travel the rest of the way with Jesus. From the manger to the cross to the tomb, and beyond. We will need to remember that Jesus did not enter the fairy tale world of soft snow and gossamer-winged angels that we sing about in carols and see on Christmas cards. He came to a world of hard roads and even harsher realities. The path our Lord traveled was not one that went from glory to glory. It was primarily, as Paul reminds us, a path of downward mobility.

Jesus began His life as a fugitive and ended it as a political prisoner. Kings and priests sought His death. His followers frequently misunderstood Him and, in His last hours, finally abandoned Him. In other words, Jesus came into our world, a broken world filled with disappointments. He came like us, in flesh and blood, yet without sin. Jesus took on flesh, knowing full well all that it would entail. Confinement to the limits of human nature. Restraint in the exercise of His divine power. And ultimately, in the Garden of Gethsemane, a refusal from His Heavenly Father to let Him escape the cup of suffering. Jesus did not do these things out of necessity but voluntarily. Nor did He do them to create a magical holiday season. Jesus did them, as the old Creed declares, for us, and for our salvation. Thanks be to God.

While Shepherds Watched their Flocks

December 24, 2018December 24, 2018 ~ John Koessler ~ 2 Comments

Two shepherds were seated before a small fire. They alternated between making small talk and sitting in silence, like those who are long acquainted. There beyond the glowing rim of the firelight, the flock was huddled in congregation. The men too were huddled against the chill of night, wearing wool and leaning into the flames.

High above, the wheeling stars winked in and out, flickering like candles as they calculated the number of Abraham’s offspring. In the black distance beyond the flock, a night bird cried out in indignation, surprised by a wolf who had come near. He eyed the sheep hungrily. He had been watching them for two nights now. But when another figure appeared unexpectedly at the edge of the shepherd’s camp, the wolf turned and fled.

There had been no shuffle of approaching footsteps, only a sudden flare of light as if one of them had stirred the fire. The stranger stepped across the threshold, and the shepherds shrank back in alarm. One of them scrabbled for his staff and raised it in defense as the other cowered. But the stranger only laughed good-naturedly.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I come bearing good news. It is news of a great joy for all the people. This very day in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

The shepherds looked at one another and then back at the figure, who by now was lit so brightly that they had to shade their eyes to see him. The light radiated from him the way heat does when it shimmers off the rocks in the desert sun. ”This will be a sign to you,” he continued. “You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

By now the whole field was lit so that the tiny camp looked like a city in flames. In its glow, the shepherds realized that the angel was not alone. There was a whole troop with him, standing in ranks. “Glory to God in the highest” they shouted. They sounded like an army cheering their captain after some victory. “And on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests!” The cry made the shepherds want to cheer too.

Then as if in response to some command, the angel leaped into the air and the rest of the host followed suit. In the space of a breath, they were gone. The winking stars appeared again. There was a pop as sparks flew up from their fire. And the shepherds were left staring into the night sky.

“Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about,” one of them said. The other grunted his assent. The flock had scattered because of the commotion. Their plaintive bleating could be heard in the distance. But the two men paid them no mind. They hurried off into the night, leaving their staffs behind.

Angels We Have Heard

December 9, 2018December 9, 2018 ~ John Koessler ~ Leave a comment

When Gabriel appeared to Mary, there was no burst of song but a herald’s announcement. “Greetings, you who are highly favored!” the angel said. “The Lord is with you.” Artists have pictured this as a transcendent moment for Mary but Luke paints it differently. Mary is not moved to bliss by the angel’s words
but to perplexity. She was troubled by what she heard. Perhaps she heard in them an echo of the angel’s greeting to Gideon as he threshed grain in a cistern and brooded about Israel’s defeat. In the Bible this sort of promise always seems to be the precursor to an especially difficult assignment.

Or perhaps it was the ascription of God’s special favor that surprised Mary. It is true that Mary was from a royal line. But beyond that, there does not seem to have been much else about her life that made it singularly blessed. She was just a young girl betrothed to the village carpenter. Neither of them was rich. They do not seem to have had any grandiose plans. Until now there had been nothing to suggest that their life together would be anything but ordinary.

The details the angel provides reveal the singular favor that will be bestowed upon Mary. “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus” the angel commanded. “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Did Mary know what she was agreeing to do? She knew at least this much: she would become pregnant before she was married and the only explanation she could give for this was that God was the baby’s father. She could not have concocted a more unlikely explanation if she had tried. If Mary was anxious about Joseph’s reaction, she gave no indication of it. After all, why should she be anxious? She knew what kind of man Joseph was. Scripture reveals that he was a man of faith, quick to do what he knew to be God’s will.

Yet no braver words have been spoken by an ordinary person since time began. This is no ecstatic utterance made by someone caught in a moment of metaphysical rapture. It is a statement of strong conviction and hard resolve. It is also a workaday response, the sort of reply a soldier or slave might give. Mary, like the angel who greets her, knows her place. Despite the words of the Cherry Tree Carol, she is not the queen of Galilee but only a servant. If she is full of grace at this moment, it is the grace to obey.

Should We Observe Advent?

December 6, 2018December 6, 2018 ~ John Koessler ~ 2 Comments

This is the first week of Advent, according to some Christian traditions. It is the season of beginnings as far as the church calendar goes. The church year starts here with its rolling cycle of readings, days, fasts and feasts. Most of us approach the church calendar the same way we do our cable service. We sample a little here and there but rarely utilize the whole package. We dabble a little in fasting during lent, mixing it with an occasional foot washing service. Then we break our fast on Easter with ham and candy. Perhaps a handful of us will tip our hat to the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday and pretty much everyone makes a big fuss at Christmas. But beyond this, we don’t pay much attention to the church calendar during the rest of the year.

I am not criticizing. How could I, without condemning myself? And does not the apostle say that we mustn’t let anyone judge us because of our non-observance of religious festivals (Col.2:16)? The New Testament church does not seem to have observed advent or even Christmas. As far as Scripture is concerned, observance is not required.

I do wonder, though, what we are missing with this kind of selective attention. I suspect that by approaching these days and times the way we might a buffet, picking out one or two which appeal to us and ignoring the rest, we lose the theological framework which surround the few that we do observe. There is an intentional rhythm in the church’s calendar that is both narrative and theological. Selective observance interrupts the storyline and wrests these practices from their theological intent. The result is either a one-sided emphasis or a calendar which only dresses up pagan values in Sunday clothes and takes them to church.

Of course, some would argue that the traditional church calendar already does this. They claim that Christmas is just the Roman feast of Saturnalia repurposed for the church’s use. They might also argue that even those who do come from traditions which mark the church calendar don’t understand the theological context of its observances any better than those who pick and choose their practices or those who ignore them altogether.

There may be some validity to both criticisms. As a holiday (not a holy day), Christmas has always had a tremendous power to assimilate other non-Christian traditions. Our popular observance is more of an amalgamation of customs with roots that stretch far beyond the Christian story, and some which do indeed find their origin in paganism. According to C. S. Lewis, three things go by the name of Christmas. One is a religious holiday. Another is a popular holiday which has complex historical connections to the religious holiday but is primarily an occasion for merry-making and hospitality. The third is only an occasion for making money or as Lewis puts it a “commercial racket.”

As far as the second criticism goes, that those who observe the church calendar do so without consciously considering its theological meaning, I think Lewis might say that the calendar works best when we do not think about it. He makes this very point when writing about liturgy in general. “Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore” Lewis explains. “And it enables us to do these things best–if you like, ‘works’ best–when, through long familiarity, we do not have to think about it.”

However, somewhere along the way, somebody has to explain the significance of what we are doing. Otherwise, our practice not only becomes rote but ends up being detached from the very meaning that set it in motion in the first place. It is like the church I once visited that always kept a red light burning above the altar during the service but could not remember why they felt it was important to do so. The meaning isn’t just off the radar for the participant, it no longer exists. Not only is the church’s observance both mechanical and empty, other less worthy meanings can be attached to the practice.

Should the church observe Advent? I think Paul’s directive in Colossians 2:16 demands that we leave it to the individual’s conscience. Yet whatever we do, we must do with understanding, if the aim is to honor Christ and benefit the church. The fact that some practice is ancient or lovely and will add spice to the holiday season or the worship service is not good enough. Our observance must connect us to the story of our redemption. It must point us to the foundational truths that we believe. It must, as Lewis observes, provide us with an opportunity to receive, repent, supplicate, or adore.

Antiphony: The Song of Zechariah and Elizabeth

December 2, 2018December 2, 2018 ~ John Koessler ~ 1 Comment

Zechariah was an old man when the angel appeared to him. His priestly career was mostly behind him as was the hope of fatherhood. In fact, Zechariah was long past hoping. He was trying to understand the reasons why. He and his wife Elizabeth had tried to have children for many years. They had prayed too. Of course, they had prayed. Zechariah was a priest and Elizabeth a descendant of Aaron! They had been faithful to God for many years. Yet in all that time God had withheld this small blessing from them.

By now you would think that this ambition would have burned low, along with the desire that accompanies it. Yet when the day came for Zechariah to enter the holy place to pray and offer incense, it occupied his mind. After all those years of faithful service, had it really been so much to ask? Others had been granted this blessing, some many times over. Family members, friends, and some who seemed far less devoted to God than Zechariah and Elizabeth had been allowed to become parents. Time and again he and Elizabeth had been called to celebrate the birth of someone else’s child. Elizabeth wept secret tears over the pitying looks she received from the other women. Zechariah tried to comfort her in his clumsy way and urged her not to give up. Now it was too late. They both knew it. Elizabeth was barren. He was old. They were both too far gone in years to hope for children any longer.

Was the old priest brooding? Perhaps, a little. But it was short lived. He was interrupted with a start when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a figure in the shadows standing next to the altar of incense. The flickering light from the seven branches of the lampstand made the man seem to dance. Zechariah gasped involuntarily and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. His first thought was that there has been some confusion. Perhaps another priest had mistakenly thought that the lot had fallen to him to perform this duty. Maybe the error been Zechariah’s.

Zechariah realized that the figure standing by the altar was gazing intently at him. The priest was about to demand an explanation when the stranger spoke. His tone was reassuring and his face bore the hint of a smile. “Don’t be afraid Zechariah, he said. “Your prayer has been heard.”

“Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.”

Zechariah recognized these rules. They were the laws associated with a Nazarite Vow. If the stranger was speaking the truth, not only would he and Elizabeth have a son, but their son would be devoted to the Lord from birth. He would be like Samson or Samuel.

“He will bring many of the people of Israel back to the Lord their God”the stranger went on. “And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

A thrill of happiness swept over Zechariah, like a wave that breaks upon the shore. It dissipated just as quickly. This was too good to be true. Perhaps someone was playing a practical joke. But it couldn’t be. No priest or Israelite would dare to trespass here. It was too dangerous. He had heard stories of this kind of thing all his life. Visitations by strangers with promises that came from God. It was the sort of thing that happened to people like Abraham and Sarah, Elkanah and Hannah. But that was in the old stories. He could not imagine such a thing ever happening to him.

At last Zechariah found the courage to speak. “How can I be sure of this?” he demanded. “I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” There was a note of helplessness in his voice. As if Zechariah was afraid to believe what he heard. He and his Elizabeth had prayed so hard and had waited so long. He did not think they could bear to be disappointed again.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Zechariah regretted them. He saw the speaker’s expression change in the lamplight. His eyebrows rose in surprise and the timbre of his voice changed from reassurance to indignation. “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news” he declared. The angel had not actually raised his voice. Yet his words struck Zechariah like the blast of a trumpet. If terror had not kept him frozen in place, he would have fallen on his face and covered his ears.

“Now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time!” the angel declared.

And then suddenly he was gone. The light seemed to flicker the way a candle does when it gutters. Or the way the sparks rise when incense touches the coals on the altar. There was a hint of fragrance in the air. Not the usual smell of incense but something else. A fragrance that Zechariah could not identify. It made him dizzy. The old priest stood there for several minutes breathing heavily. The ancient silence of the place gathered around him and he tried to collect his thoughts. At last, he made his way out of the Holy Place, stumbling like a blind man.

Meanwhile outside in the temple court, there was a growing sound like waves that have been troubled by the wind when a storm is rising. It was the sound of murmuring coming from those who waited for Zechariah to finish his duties. They were nervous. This delay was not a good sign. Some wondered whether Zechariah had died. Perhaps he had collapsed from old age or maybe he had been smitten by God. After all, such things had happened before. Hadn’t Aaron’s own sons had been struck down when they offered strange fire before the Lord? The waiting multitude cried out in relief when Zechariah finally came into view. But something had happened. That much was clear from the expression on his face. They began to pepper him with questions.

Zechariah raised his arms like someone pronouncing a benediction in a vain attempt to ward off the crowd that swarmed around him. By now he was fully possessed by the joy of what the angel had said. He grinned like a fool. He reeled like a drunken man. He opened his mouth to shout the good news but of course, he could not utter a word. Zechariah began to heave with silent laughter, as tears streamed down his face. He gesticulated wildly with his hands in an attempt to communicate by signs. “He has had some kind of vision,” someone said at last. And Zechariah nodded emphatically.

Zechariah finished out the course of his service and returned home to his wife Elizabeth. The two of them began to count the days until the promised child’s birth. “The Lord has done this for me,” Elizabeth said to those who expressed their amazement. “He looked on me to remove my shame.”

In this way, it came to pass that Zechariah and Elizabeth were drawn into the ancient stories they had known all their lives and so became a tale themselves. Like the answering line of some advent carol, their joys and sorrows were joined to those who had come before. Just as their promised child would set the stage for everything that would come afterward. When Elizabeth’s time was complete, she gave birth to a son. Zechariah wept. Elizabeth laughed. They named him John, just as the angel had predicted. And this was only the beginning of signs.

Once Upon a Time

November 27, 2018November 29, 2018 ~ John Koessler ~ 5 Comments

Picture of The Annunciation by Fra Angelico

Last Christmas Eve I attended church. It was the sort of church one often sees these days: chairs where there used to be pews, a worship band instead of a choir, skinny jeans rather than vestments, and exposed ductwork in the place of vaulted ceilings and stained glass. In other words, it was your garden-variety contemporary congregation.

Just before the message, the pastor invited all the children to come on stage and listen to someone read from a picture book about a mouse who discovers the true meaning of Christmas. I’m afraid that I can’t recall the details about the storyline. Only that it was unmemorable. Indeed, if there was anything at all remarkable about the tale, it was the church’s assumption that the Bible’s own account of Christ’s nativity did not possess enough wonder to capture a child’s imagination. I find this hard to understand.

C. S. Lewis described the incarnation as “a myth which is also a fact.” By this he did not mean that the events were non-historical but that the historical facts of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection reflect the great themes of myth and poetry. Lewis calls this a marriage of heaven and earth: “. . . claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher.”

It is a tragic twist of irony, not to mention a monumental folly, that the church has lost confidence in the power of its own story. Perhaps the reason is that we have convinced ourselves that the old story is too familiar. Like those who turn on the television only to find a rerun, we fear that it will not hold our attention. We think we need a new story. What we fail to recognize is that it is precisely the familiarity of this ancient storyline that makes it so captivating. The tale of a god who comes to earth disguised in human form is one of the oldest storylines in history. It speaks to the ancient heart of the human race. The particular wonder of the Christian story is that it is no disguise. This God actually becomes flesh and dwells among us. It is also no myth. “The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact” Lewis explains. “The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history.”

What we need is not a new story but renewed confidence in the old story that has been entrusted to us. To use the Bible’s language, what we need is faith. We live in a world that is starved for wonder. Anyone who doubts this need only look at the other stories which occupy our imagination. They are tales of super-beings and superpowers, angels and demons. They depict a world where the dead come back to life and evil is vanquished. Yet it is a world where God, if he exists at all, is conspicuously absent. That is to say, we are immersed in stories which not only reflect our dreams but also our disease.

It is time we put the picture books away and returned instead to the story that begins: “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph….”