Christmas Continues

To continue to reflect on Christmas, we actually need to look back before the first Christmas. This will help us to keep going and growing. Because there is a movement in the way we see the grand narrative unfolding.

In Psalm 115, the composer entertains a question, “Why do the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’ “ and then the psalmist answers the question with, “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.” This is obviously hundreds and hundreds of years before the first Christmas, before the Incarnation of Christ in Jesus.

This is situated within a worldview that is three-tiered. What they called the heavens was up, sky bound. And this is where good is found. Sun and rain, so they understood provision to be enabled from above. Then there is here, where we stand. This is followed by where death is, underneath us. Down there.

Up there, down here, and down there. Three-tiered. And of course the Divines resides where good comes from, correct? The Divine is understood and communicated as, up there.

Then came the first Christmas. Incarnation. The Divine is with us, in Jesus. Now goodness can see us eye to eye, touch us skin to skin, and we can follow foot step within foot step. Excellent.

Christmas has created movement, which means the old worldview needs to be updated.

And when we come to Easter, to resurrection, and then into Pentecost and the story of receiving Spirit, now the system needs a massive overhaul, correct?

The story informs us that the Divine is not simply among us and with us, but also dwells in us. Brilliant.

This isn’s shocking, because we’ve been to the moon, so we know that when we crest the clouds we don’t bump into a big throne with our old, bearded buddy holding court. And we know that when we dig way down into the earth, we don’t collide with the pointy tailed, trident wielding devil dancer. How silly. The three -tiered world view has melted into the bigger, more dynamic narrative.

Now, let’s return to the question put to the ancient psalmist, “Where is your God?” For us, today, we simply smile and respond in good rabbinic form with our own question, “Where isn’t our God?”

Or as the brilliant writer Fredrick Buechner put it, “If God is present anywhere, God is present everywhere. Even in the most everyday places and at the most commonplace times. Even in the most casual words we use.”

Exactly. The story just keeps unfolding, and Christmas continues to write fresh pages of how the Divine is with us.

Which takes us to old hymns and even modern speak which says look up to heaven, offer your prayers or worship up to God. That’s actually three-tiered language, it’s ancient speech offered in the face of a much bigger and deeper world. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it is behind, which can lead to many people rolling their eyes and saying they just can’t buy into a world where God is either up or elsewhere.

And now we see why Buechner’s words are so needed, and why we need the question “Where isn’t our God?” Because people tend to place the Divine somewhere else, and then build a fence around the Divine with doctrines and dogmas.

That’s why I find the unfolding Biblical narrative so compelling, because it’s dynamic not static. It is about growing and expanding. It’s invitational and explosive in its expansiveness.

Christmas participates in this unfolding. Christmas continues the great revealing.