Jesus didn’t come to make us Christian. He came to make us fully human.
Hans Rookmaaker
Every Christmas season the Fontanini crèche sits atop one of my bookcases. Collected over a number of years by my wife before her death, the main figures in the crèche each stand five inches high. In addition to the standard crèche attendees—Mary and Joseph; the baby Jesus, who makes his appearance in the crib on Christmas Eve; some shepherds; angels; the Three Wise Men—those coming to see the Christ Child include musicians, townspeople, an old man with a lamp, singers, dogs, goats, and sheep. Every year I scatter a bit of artificial straw on the floor of the stable, set up the figures, and leave them on the bookcase through the Christmas season.
Hans Rookmaaker
Every Christmas season the Fontanini crèche sits atop one of my bookcases. Collected over a number of years by my wife before her death, the main figures in the crèche each stand five inches high. In addition to the standard crèche attendees—Mary and Joseph; the baby Jesus, who makes his appearance in the crib on Christmas Eve; some shepherds; angels; the Three Wise Men—those coming to see the Christ Child include musicians, townspeople, an old man with a lamp, singers, dogs, goats, and sheep. Every year I scatter a bit of artificial straw on the floor of the stable, set up the figures, and leave them on the bookcase through the Christmas season.
My bookcase crèche induces in me a sense of calm and peace. It makes me think of certain sweet, slow Christmas carols like “Silent Night,” “Oh Holy Night,” or “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear.” Sometimes as I pass the crèche, I am inspired to sing one of those carols, whispering the words, humming the tunes.
Of course, the actual birth of Jesus would have looked nothing like my peaceful crèche. There would be the odors: unwashed shepherds, cows, Joseph’s donkey, and other animals, dung and straw. There would be the sounds: animals grunting, farting, making waste; carts and pedestrians in the streets; the cries of a new-born baby. There would be the anxious parents; no new father could possibly look as tranquil as the Joseph in my nativity, particularly if his son was spending his first night on earth in a barn. And however Jesus entered life, his mother could never appear so otherworldly as my statue. Both she and Joseph would have been busy snatching up swaddling clothes, looking for whatever served as diapers in those days, and trying to set up a temporary home in a stable.
This violent contrast between Christ’s birth and my crèche serves well, I think, as a metaphor for the shocking disparity we often experience when the real world plows into our apprehension of God and our faith.
Practicing Christians are aware of the obligations and laws of their faith. They know and try to obey the Ten Commandments and the Two Great Commandments taught by Christ: to love God with all their being and to love their neighbors as they love themselves. Linked to these commandments are the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, which convey those obligations to their neighbors. Finally, there are the many teachings of Christ Himself: the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, His discussions with his disciples. For Christians, these directives are the chief guidelines for living.
Despite what some may think, these commandments and laws were not devised to punish us. Quit the contrary. God gave them to mankind to increase our freedom, not to restrict it, to enhance our joy, not to induce despair and doubt. Live by these guidelines, follow this map, and we will “be happy with God in heaven.”
Of course, there is a catch.
For while these teachings, these ideals, make sense when read or studied, living them out is a wholly different game. Every day we Christians encounter people and situations that demand a moral response, and all too often on these occasions we fall on our faces, sinning “in what we have done and what we have failed to do.” The son who returns home from his first semester of college and declares himself gay will require a response combining love, mercy, and wisdom. The daughter who ignores her aging parents for months at a time must someday reconcile her selfish act with the commandments posted on the wall of her church. People who break the commandments in major ways—murder (or murdering someone’s reputation), adultery, lust for money, or any of the other sins—leave in their wake broken hearts and overturned lives.
One failure I suspect most of us share is our daily disregard for God. How many of us turn to God only when catastrophe strikes? How many of us love God with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our minds? How many of us have “no other gods before us?” How many of us truly trust in God? How many of us honor Him throughout the day?
Fortunately for us, that baby born in the stable brought more than laws and guidelines. He knew the fallen state of the world. He knew most of us were fumbling, foolish creatures, blinded by our desires, deaf to the cries of the poor and the oppressed, and negligent in our gratitude and love for God Himself.
And so that baby brought the greatest of all Christmas gifts: grace. He brought us the way to find forgiveness. Believe in the Good News, we are told, repent and ask forgiveness, and God will show us His mercy. Belief and repentance can be tough propositions, yes, but we are assured of mercy if we make the attempt.
We are now winding down the season of Advent. For many of us, Christmas Day is only the beginning of the holy days, followed as it is by the often forgotten Twelve Days of Christmas. This celebration is a time of festivities and light, a time, too, when we should remember God, count our blessings, and offer mercy and pity to those around us.
“Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,” the poet William Blake once wrote, “There God is dwelling, too.”
May it ever be so.
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
Of course, the actual birth of Jesus would have looked nothing like my peaceful crèche. There would be the odors: unwashed shepherds, cows, Joseph’s donkey, and other animals, dung and straw. There would be the sounds: animals grunting, farting, making waste; carts and pedestrians in the streets; the cries of a new-born baby. There would be the anxious parents; no new father could possibly look as tranquil as the Joseph in my nativity, particularly if his son was spending his first night on earth in a barn. And however Jesus entered life, his mother could never appear so otherworldly as my statue. Both she and Joseph would have been busy snatching up swaddling clothes, looking for whatever served as diapers in those days, and trying to set up a temporary home in a stable.
This violent contrast between Christ’s birth and my crèche serves well, I think, as a metaphor for the shocking disparity we often experience when the real world plows into our apprehension of God and our faith.
Practicing Christians are aware of the obligations and laws of their faith. They know and try to obey the Ten Commandments and the Two Great Commandments taught by Christ: to love God with all their being and to love their neighbors as they love themselves. Linked to these commandments are the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, which convey those obligations to their neighbors. Finally, there are the many teachings of Christ Himself: the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, His discussions with his disciples. For Christians, these directives are the chief guidelines for living.
Despite what some may think, these commandments and laws were not devised to punish us. Quit the contrary. God gave them to mankind to increase our freedom, not to restrict it, to enhance our joy, not to induce despair and doubt. Live by these guidelines, follow this map, and we will “be happy with God in heaven.”
Of course, there is a catch.
For while these teachings, these ideals, make sense when read or studied, living them out is a wholly different game. Every day we Christians encounter people and situations that demand a moral response, and all too often on these occasions we fall on our faces, sinning “in what we have done and what we have failed to do.” The son who returns home from his first semester of college and declares himself gay will require a response combining love, mercy, and wisdom. The daughter who ignores her aging parents for months at a time must someday reconcile her selfish act with the commandments posted on the wall of her church. People who break the commandments in major ways—murder (or murdering someone’s reputation), adultery, lust for money, or any of the other sins—leave in their wake broken hearts and overturned lives.
One failure I suspect most of us share is our daily disregard for God. How many of us turn to God only when catastrophe strikes? How many of us love God with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our minds? How many of us have “no other gods before us?” How many of us truly trust in God? How many of us honor Him throughout the day?
Fortunately for us, that baby born in the stable brought more than laws and guidelines. He knew the fallen state of the world. He knew most of us were fumbling, foolish creatures, blinded by our desires, deaf to the cries of the poor and the oppressed, and negligent in our gratitude and love for God Himself.
And so that baby brought the greatest of all Christmas gifts: grace. He brought us the way to find forgiveness. Believe in the Good News, we are told, repent and ask forgiveness, and God will show us His mercy. Belief and repentance can be tough propositions, yes, but we are assured of mercy if we make the attempt.
We are now winding down the season of Advent. For many of us, Christmas Day is only the beginning of the holy days, followed as it is by the often forgotten Twelve Days of Christmas. This celebration is a time of festivities and light, a time, too, when we should remember God, count our blessings, and offer mercy and pity to those around us.
“Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,” the poet William Blake once wrote, “There God is dwelling, too.”
May it ever be so.
Oh, and Merry Christmas.