It's nearly Christmas! Four advent candles lit and only one to go. My son Callum is thrilled about this, by the way. He hates having candles on the table that he's not allowed to light yet and he loves all of the Christmas biscuits we've been attempting to make.
I say, “attempting” because all week I couldn't seem to get the recipe right. Luckily for me I have a very appreciative taster who even went so far as to tell me that Monday's batch were “double yum” when to me they tasted like small, powdery, star shaped rocks. The presentation was good, they certainly looked like Christmas biscuits, but the flavour just wasn't there ( and the texture really left something to be desired).
I didn't really understand why this was happening. I went back over the recipe but I thought that I had followed it step by step. I had measured everything, mixed everything. I hadn't put the biscuits too close or far apart on the tray, I hadn't undercooked or overcooked them. I felt I had done everything and yet, for most of the week my biscuits have been disappointing.
But, it did get me to thinking. Because Christmas, as celebrated by most people in twenty first century Australia, is a lot like my biscuits were. It might look good on the outside but it leaves us feeling unfulfilled, hungry, disappointed.
It's missing something.
We're sure we've got the recipe right: tree, presents, tasteless light display in the front yard, presents, food, carols by candle light, presents, a visit to Santa (as he's now known), token gift to the less fortunate, presents, sunburn, and... custard. Surely that's everything?
We even attend church on the big day.
But the day after all we have is a stomach ache, peeling skin, credit card debt, a whole lot of wrapping paper... and emptiness.
Even when we understand that Christmas is about celebrating the coming of God into the world, the very God become truly human to walk with us, feel with us, suffer for us, even then we can feel that “missingness”.
We have our Advent recipe to go with our candles: Hope, Joy, Love, Peace but even that can seem incomplete.
At this point, if this were Christmas biscuits, I'd go back to the recipe book and try to find what I had missed. When it comes to how we experience Christmas, it helps to go back to our book too, our Good Book, and our reading today gives us a picture of what we might be lacking.
What we need are not so much ingredients, as techniques – ways of doing, ways of being, ways of cooking and mixing – that can make all the difference. We need to find some: “Techniques for a Truly Fulfilling Christmas.”
So, imagine for a moment that you are a fifteen year old girl. You're home alone, baking biscuits (or the first century Jewish equivalent), thinking about the man you're going to marry and how kind he is and how he's going to provide for you and how life is going to be relatively simple. Then an angel appears. In your kitchen. And greets you and tells you not to be afraid. At this point we can assume that Mary swallowed the scream of terror because she stayed to listen to what the angel had to say.
This shows trust – our first “True Christmas Technique” if you will.
And when she is told that she is going to conceive and bear a child who will be the long awaited Messiah, she doesn't scoff or back away in fear, which personally I think is pretty amazing. It must have seemed so surreal but she takes the announcement seriously and comes up with a very practical question.
“How?”
This shows courage, technique number two.
And her courage is rewarded with a truthful answer.
She will conceive by the Holy Spirit. And to give her proof that with God all things are possible, the angel announces that even Elizabeth, Mary's older relative, her cousin or aunt, is pregnant, against all probability, because God has willed it to be so. Astonishingly, she keeps her head. I might have been terrified, might have run, might have refused to listen or believe that such a course of events could happen to me.
Mary responds with a statement of obedience.
“Behold, I am the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.”
Obedience is our third “True Christmas Technique”.
Trust. Courage. Obedience. And ultimately, Faith.
All of these things are Mary's path to and an expression of her faith.
I think, sometimes, when I'm at our local shops at this time of year, that what is missing in the people around me, desperately buying presents and decorations and sweets, is faith. Faith in something more than the mundane and the material.
Trust. Courage. Obedience. Faith.
This was the way Mary experienced Advent and Christmas (although for her advent lasted about nine months). “Let it be to me according to your word.”
I've been told that faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the rest of the staircase. Mary probably knew that on some of the stairs there would be hardship, humiliation and public ridicule for being pregnant and unmarried, and joy too in knowing that the Messiah had come into the world.
I'm sure she probably had no idea that thirty three odd years into her journey up that staircase her son would echo her words, and her conviction : “not my will, but Your will be done.” But she chose to take that step all the same, and we can too.
It seems easier at Easter, to decide to embrace the spirit of rebirth and live our lives anew. But what about at the time of actual birth? At Christmas? What better time to dedicate ourselves? And say: do to me according to Your word; not my will but Your will. That's true giving.
That was Mary's gift.
And we shouldn't underestimate what a huge thing this was for her. Being pregnant and unmarried could have led to her losing her home, her protection, her life. Would you have done what Mary did, with as much conviction and commitment? At age fifteen?
She was an amazing young woman. She is an example of holiness and what it means to say yes to God. But that doesn't mean she was exceptional. We shouldn't put her up on an unreachable pedestal and say that she is different from us. We shouldn't shy away from following her example, especially at Christmas.
We need to remember the “Techniques for a Truly Fulfilling Christmas” that she has shown us:
Trusting God, no matter what kind of unexpected angel turns up in our kitchen.
Being courageous enough to talk to God and take responsibility as a member of that relationship with God.
Responding to God with obedience, no matter how improbable the situation seems.
Having faith in God and knowing that God will be faithful.
These things can seem rather small or simple or even obvious in the grand scheme of Christmas preparation and merriment. To some they even seem unnecessary. Why can't we just bung the ingredients in any old how? But quite often it's the little things, the simple things, that can have a huge impact on the outcome.
A bit like the simple techniques in making biscuit dough, I've discovered, like; using your fingers to get the butter and flour mixture to really look like bread crumbs, and using a knife to mix in the milk, and not over kneading your dough.
They seem really simple and obvious, and to an inexperienced cook, a bit unnecessary. But the proof... is in the biscuits. The soft, springy, melt in your mouth little star shapes I finally succeeded in creating.
You don't need to over work the dough, just like we don't need to over work Christmas.
You just need a little faith.
So, give yourself as a gift to God this Christmas, in trust, courage and obedience, with certainty, bravery and humility, and guaranteed you will feel satisfied and filled.
And the taste in your mouth will be sweet.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment