Become Bethlehem
I sat down the other day for ten minutes and watched a little of an old movie version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” It’s a beautiful story, and Hollywood doesn’t always do it justice, as again in that case. The point of Dickens’ story is to show us the meaning of the Christmas story; which for him means that people are more important than money, and once Ebenezer Scrooge figured that out, he was a delightful fellow all-year round.
Of course, if you flip the channel, you find another Christmas special with its own take on the real meaning of Christmas. The old Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer program teaches us that Christmas means that there are no misfits, there are only people (and toys) that haven’t found their perfect place yet. Charlie Brown’s Christmas special teaches us that Christmas means that the seemingly imperfect can become perfect with just a little love and faith. The Grinch teaches us that Christmas means that happiness doesn’t come from the abundance of things around us, but from the love within our rapidly enlarging hearts.
Christmas, apparently, has more than one “real meaning.” But it doesn’t stop there. Think of all the holiday songs that try to drum into us the real meaning of Christmas. There are the secular ones, that talk about Silver Bells and city sidewalks, granny’s pies and fancy ties and folks stealing a kiss or two. There are the spiritual songs that talk about peace and universal brotherhood and giving your best to God, even if it’s just a little rum-pum-pum-pum on your drum. You hear these songs on the radio, at the mall, in the restaurant, at the grocery store. You can’t get away from them, all telling you yet another real meaning of Christmas.
But your neighbors think you don’t really get the real meaning, so they put up yard signs and even billboards to remind you of the “reason for the season,” which is not to be found in the TV ads that started well before Thanksgiving, which try to convince us that the real meaning of Christmas is buying more stuff.
And so, by the time we get to this holy night, our brains are spinning from all the “real meanings of Christmas” that have been pelted at us for a month and a half now. We have already been exposed to so many “heart-warming” Christmas messages, that our hearts get to be like the Christmas ham on New Year’s Day, warmed and re-warmed so many times that it turns tough as shoe leather.
And then, to add insult to injury, the priest gets up and thinks that he’s going to tell you something you don’t already know about Christmas, dig some new and exciting meaning out of frankincense and myrrh, like he can spin gold from the straw of the stable.
Not this year. Amidst the flood of “real meanings of Christmas,” I offer you nothing new.
Instead, I offer you something old. Ancient, even. I offer you the analogy of the Fathers and Mothers of the Orthodox Church from the earliest centuries, who took the Christmas story and found in it an allegory. Remember that cattle trough in the stable, the manger, out in that lowly cattle shed?
The Fathers of the Church said, Think of your soul as that manger, and your body as that stable. Saint John Chrysostom wrote a prayer for Holy Communion that reads, “Lord, as you humbled yourself to lie in a cave, in a manger for dumb beasts, so now condescend to enter into the manger of my beastly soul and into my soiled body.”
Here the meaning of Christmas is something very different from all our songs and shows and variety specials. Here the meaning of Christmas is that Christmas must happen over and over and over again—that Jesus Christ appears on earth in the flesh, but in the flesh of each of us as His own home, His own stable, His own Temple. There is no other meaning or message to Christmas other than this: to let it happen to you, to let Christ be born in you, to be ready to receive Him whenever He appears within your heart.
It’s a little harder to make a Claymation special about that! But there is room for just a little more sermon here.
And that is to point out this: the stable where Christ was born so many years ago was a stable in Bethlehem. Every village back then had a stable in it somewhere; every town, every city, every metropolis. Rome must have had thousands of stables. But Christ did not come to a stable in busy, important Rome.
Athens—the center of learning for the ancient world—must have had thousands of cattle sheds. But Christ did not come to one in scholarly, learned Athens.
Alexandria of Egypt—bustling port and crossroads of the Mediterranean—must have had many, many mangers to feed all the horses and cattle in its city limits. But Christ did not come to any of them in mighty, wealthy Alexandria.
Jerusalem, the holy city, certainly had its quarters for oxen and donkeys, horses and goats. But the Christ-child was not to be found in any feeding trough of that kingly city.
It was away from the busyness, away from the noise, away from the lights and the attractions of high society—there in the quiet, dark, still, little town of Bethlehem, there in that insignificant little hamlet, there was the manger that Christ chose for his entrance into our world.
Do you want to experience Christ coming into your heart, and bringing you the real meaning of Christmas for you? Do you want to make your soul His manger and your body His stable?
Then you have to become Bethlehem. You have to become quiet and still, you have to shut out the noise of the season, and all its real reasons, and all its true meanings that get sung and rung and shouted and broadcast at you. You have to become Bethlehem if you want Christ to visit your manger.
In many ways, the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season work against the very purposes of Christmas. In all this busyness and noise, who can become Bethlehem in spirit? Who can slow down and find silence and prayerfulness and peace?
It takes a superhuman effort, it seems to get away from it all, not just outside on city sidewalks, busy sidewalks, but even in our own homes, with all our gadgets and devices and entertainments and distractions. It takes superhuman effort to find a place for holy silence and rest.
And so my message to you this Christmas is simply: take the gifts you get this year and above all else, learn how to turn them off! Learn how to spend time alone with God. Learn how to switch off the TV and the tablet and the iPod. Learn how to find the quiet dark place in your own soul where the light of God shines.
Learn how to be like that tiny town that time forgot. Become Bethlehem, and Christ will find the manger of your soul, and there He will teach you the true meaning of His birth.
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous Gift is giv'n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Holy, and a “Stable” New Year.