Christopher H. Edmonston
Lessons and Carols Meditation
May We Come In?
(Never Underestimate Christmas)
Scripture – Lessons and Carols – Luke and the Shepherds
(Chapter 2)
I want to begin with a tough story, I'll call it an Advent story. An Advent story is a story of an unrequited
theme, a story of waiting. It is a story
of longing, hoping, of being trapped in a darkness.
I once knew a young woman, years ago, who had lived a hard
and tragic life. She came from a broken
home, was self taught, and had learned she could only rely on herself. And just as she was beginning to taste
success, at the age of 30, out of the house, on her own, paying her own bills,
dating a good man, she was brutally attacked and assaulted and her life fell
apart. The scant life she enjoyed was
ripped away.
I knew her roughly ten years after this assault, this brutal
crime. For ten years she had walked
in a daze of memory and shame, regret
and lament. Ten years. By the time I met her it could be said that
her life had just collapsed from the weight of her suffering. Her Advent was a long one indeed.
I met her of course at church when she had moved to our
community. We heard she was alone and
needed help moving and so we organized a moving crew. We baked cookies for her. We had a house warming of a sort, and where
there were deficiencies in her furnishings, we passed on gently used versions
and we filled her small home with love and warmth. We shined a little light into her darkness.
You would think she would have been thrilled, overjoyed.
But she cried. She
sniffled. She pulled a friend to the
side - "why are you being so nice to me?"
What happens to the soul that doesn't recognize grace. What happens to the life forever trapped in
an Advent of waiting for help, hearth, hope, or home?
"May we go in?" / “May we come in?” - that is the
question that the anthem asks – the anthem we just offered to God. Think of the shepherds, the poor, the
longing, the trapped in Advent people?
Imagine them waiting at the door.
Just imagine them....
How far is it to
Shall we find the stable
room lit by a star?
Can we see the little
Child? Is he within?
If we lift the wooden
latch, may we go in?
Great king have precious
gifts, and we have naught!
Little smiles and little
tears are all we brought.
Christ in his mother’s
arms, Babes in the brye;
How Far is it to
“May we go in?”
And then take the leap that Christmas asks you to make - the
trust that God rightly asks you to give -- and realize that we are like those
shepherds. We all need grace. We all need Jesus' light.
I had a thought this week that I think worth sharing (and it
is certainly not a thought original with me, a thought preached many times
before) -- what if we this Advent and Christmas were to take a risk and begin
to see Bethlehem as a metaphor for our lives.
The busyness all around, a village, a life full of obligations and there
is simply no room for Jesus, no room for grace.
Go -- be born someplace else, Jesus.
Deliver him down the street, Mary.
We’re all full.
And in comes Jesus anyway; some
Innkeeper deep within us makes a place for him in the barn, outback where we
often overlook the on-goings. And in
that place Jesus barges into our lives, our souls, our hearts – comes crashing
in with the infant screams of a newborn.
(Again, it's an old idea preached by many before me, but it is a good
one) -- What if we saw our days as
In my brief experience as a Pastor I have found that many of
us lost in a never ending Advent where we wait and wait and wait for grace or
second chances to arrive are there because of one of two reasons, both of them
false: 1) we either think that we don't
need grace, that we are OK enough as we are (these folk are representative of
the wise men in the Christmas story Matthew tells); or, 2) we don't think we
are good enough for grace, we don't think that it is OK to ask God for more, we
don’t think God can love us in our deficiencies or regret (these folk are
representative of the shepherds in the Christmas story Luke tells).
"Why are you being so nice to me," she asked. Why?
Well because she had convinced herself that she wasn't worthy of love --
she didn't think we, our church, or God could love her.
Dare I say it? She
needed Christmas.
Dare I say it? We all need Christmas.
“That time He was creating not
simply a man but the Man who was to be Himself: was creating Man anew: was
beginning, at this divine and human point, the New Creation of all things….The
miraculous conception is one more witness that here is Nature’s Lord. He is
doing now, small and close, what He does in a different fashion for every woman
who conceives.” C.S. Lewis, Miracles
Christmas dares us to hope. It renews possibility. Christmas throws caution to
the wind. The Man who was and is God with us is nothing like caution. God risks
Himself to show us love. And if God can do this, God who made time and moved
mountains, God resolute and all powerful, then it strikes me that others may
follow suit. The relationship long broken might be repaired. The job long lost
may come back. It is easy to risk nothing and lay fallow in hopelessness.
The trouble with Christmas is
that it is risky. The soul that risks
hope is a soul that dares disappointment. Expect nothing and you cannot
washout. We know that the reality of
washout looms. And so we only invest the hope for change that we think we can
afford. “If I hold a little back, it won’t hurt so bad when it doesn’t happen.”
Ever think like that? Me too. We limit. We hold back. God does not! In Jesus,
babe of
Never underestimate Christmas. It is like underestimating God. What new thing
will God do for us this Christmas? What darkness be pierced? What light be
shone? What wound made clean? It strikes me to expect nothing is to, in turn,
be able to see nothing. The soul that hopes for naught is blind when the object
of fruition shows up. Or, on more than one occasion I have thought that the
Shepherds were able to see God in the poverty of Jesus because their souls had
been focused by the hope they had long held dear. They didn’t underestimate
Christmas. Nor should we.
May we go in? May you come in? Why Yes.
Even if you are a wise man and
don’t realize you need the grace Christmas and Jesus offer until the moment you
have paid your homage and given your gift.
Even if you have it all figured out until the very moment of offering –
and you are overwhelmed by the revelation that you are not complete without
this grace and this child will cause you to question all you have ever known –
yes, even you may go in.
May you come in? Why yes.
Even if you are a shepherd –
lonely and poor, forgotten and shame-filled.
Even if you don’t think anybody can love you – and you are longing to
have all you know transformed even though you don’t know why God would allow
you to know and feel and bathe in grace – yes, you too may lift the latch and
go and see the little boy and his mother and feel the earth move beneath you as
time stops all around.
“Why did you do this for
me? Why are you being so nice?” Her question a good one.
“Because we love you and we
want to help you.” The answer a good one
too.
And then she wept. Big, sobbing tears of relief, of
gratitude. When your normal is Advent,
longing, lament, and then suddenly grace shows up in the form of Christmas-tide
– well anyone with a heart would cry….
Christmas came for her in the form of helping hands and moving boxes and
old furniture and the most important word that she was loved. She lifted the latch, and she went in, her
Advent over.
It might be said that if we
will let Jesus answer our question – “May we come in?” – with his gracious yes,
that Christmases like this one happen all year through.
Happy Christmas. Happy hoping.
Happy expectations. C.S. Lewis’ most enduring quote for Christmas has long
been: “The Son of God became human to enable men and women to become the sons
and daughters of God.”[1]
May the grace implicit in such
a promise give you hope-filled, and soul-full nights this Christmas and beyond.
May we go in?
Yeah, we had better.
Amen.