Christmas--Not There Yet

 

Now we are moving closer to Christmas. But we are not there yet. The decorations are all up, most of the presents are bought and outside houses glow with lights and beauty. But with all of this—we are not there yet. The little boy asked his grandmother: “Will there ever be another Christmas ?” And we’ve asked it too. For along this Christmas road we look back at the too-muchness of it all. Hatred and divisions. Refugees wondering, wondering. Putin with all his cruelty and pain. People still sleeping in old papers boxes. And tears far into the night. Yet this is not all. The children bring us wonder again. The old Biblical story tells us where we are and where we will be is not the end of the story.

We have been here before. For when the curtain comes up we see on the stage a man and a donkey and a woman-girl heavy with child. We are told they are on a journey. Forced by the Roman government they go back home to pay taxes—even thought they have little. They carry their bundles on that donkey. And the young man leads the donkey and carries part of what they will need. Maybe water. Maybe handfuls of meat and bread carefully wrapped along with a pan or two. 

It was seventy miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Seventy miles. The journey usually took four days but with a woman who had to rest and way-stops along the way—they would be on the road at least five days. And she asks softly : “Will we ever get there?” And Joseph wondered too but said nothing.

We don’t talk or preach much about that winding rocky road from here to there. We forget the wind that blew. How cold the nights must have been. And the rain—the cursed rain that kept coming. They did not know what the road ahead might bring. They took the longer route hoping there would be less bandits along their journey. So they traveled five long days. 

We cannot cosmetize the story with blinking lights and even the gorgeous music of this season. Because, like them we are not there yet. And we wonder like Mary and Joseph if we will ever get there. For if we dare look back at our own treks we had rocks, boulders too in our road, and ups and downs and downs and ups. We lost this year. That loved one with memory loss. The funerals—God, will they never end. And the storms like our own Caesar Augustus and Herods and so many others. We are not there yet. 

So we light a third candle on Sundays—flickering though it may be. But we are not there yet. For our journey too, is long and fraught with danger. The story says they kept going day after day. And so do we despite our divorces and Stage Fours and depression and doubts. And it just piles up around us. Will we ever get there?

This is not the end of the account then or now. For though we must remember that old story that we keep telling as if for the first time—still surrounded with all this too-muchness. And there is hope trudging along on that donkey not knowing exactly what will happen but hoping though we are not there yet—hoping we will light another candle and we will remember once again.

                                       --Roger Lovette  / rogerlovette.blogspot.com