What is the Point?

2ChristmasB, January 4, 2015, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

                The view from the dining room where I currently work is quite different from that here.  Your view from this dining room is that of a patio where flowers and plants are tended and grow.  My view is that of another building—or I should say a building in progress.  There is a man on our floor who holds onto the hope that when that building is finished, he will take his place a couple of floors up in it, the fifth floor.  Despite the fact that he knows his life is hanging on a thin thread due to his earlier brush with asbestos to his lungs, this is the dream that keeps him alive.  There are other indicators that the correct placement for him is our floor in assisted living, but his hopes help keep him optimistic.  After all, he could have died like many others, of Mesothelioma, that disease that is advertised frequently in the wee hours of the night to offer settlement.  What is it that keeps hope alive?  That sense that there has to be more and that hope alone is a superior motivator. We may not know the details of what it is we hope for, but we will be confident and steadfast that what we are hoping for is more than just an illusion. I still hold out hope that I will someday return to a better job, something that I actually studied for, hoping to help people with the knowledge and skill from actually practicing in the field. Here, you may hope that the next meal is better than the last one or that your loved ones will bring in a treat that tastes better because it is from someone with whom you have a loving connection.  You may also hope, along with other Christians, that Christmas is real, that Jesus really was born into this world and really does make it possible to leave this world in the hope of resurrection for all.

            But far from being a source of hope, many other residents see the new building as an eye sore.  When the man across the hall died, the man on the other side of the hall immediately asked to move into his room.  Who wants to watch all that construction going on for at least two years?  The view is gone and residents, like him, remember what it looked like before with its resident parking garages, the employee parking lot, and the so-called cottages as they line the area making a small, but significant village of people.  Construction and destruction amongst both buildings and people are a constant.  Buildings have their life span, acted upon both from within and without and so do people.  Both people and buildings go through expansion and contraction, soaring to success and coming down in defeat and all the regular ups and downs of life.  Every so often, we are reminded of the tendency of the elevators to quit working.  Most of us know someone who has gotten stuck in an elevator.  It’s something we can laugh about, but at the time, it’s anything but funny.  Just the irregular sounds the elevator makes creates a not too small bit of terror in those who have firsthand experience in an elevator that won’t move.

            Our culture tells us that despite the continued sales on everything imaginable, Christmas is over--- at least until about October.  But Christmas is not over.  The twelve days of Christmas just aren't celebrated as they once were.  If you asked people on the street, “When is the Feast of Stephen?” and sing the song about a king helping a poor man directly with his page, few would actually know what you are talking about.  I listen to the song sung during an advertisement for abandoned and abused animals and note that only the first, rather sad verse is sung.  They don’t sing the hopeful verse.  They don’t sing the verse that goes like this, “Our God, heaven cannot hold him,  nor earth sustain; heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign: in the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed the Lord God incarnate, Jesus Christ.”  They only sing about the cold and the snow on snow in the deep mid-winter.  Of course they are banking on your not knowing the rest of the song because they are only interested in placement for these animals.  In the Sound of Music, they also do not finish with the rest of the verse.  The nun says to the von Trapp family, “I lift my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help.”  The impression is that the help comes from the hills and that the von Trapp family should head for the hills to escape.  Bravo!  But that is not what the actual scripture says or means. “I lift my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help?  My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth.”  The hills are the immediate hope for escape from the Nazis, but our true help comes from God.

            Lest we forget or somehow misconstrue, in the beginning was God.  God did not begin with the birth of Jesus Christ, but Jesus was there with God from the beginning.  This is an important distinction from the other gospel writers.  John’s gospel begins not with Jesus’ birth, but with Jesus’ identity as God.  Jesus was there before being born on earth, being born of a woman.  There is no more appropriate scripture to study during the season of Christmas than this gospel which makes a valiant effort at trying to explain how God can be both divine and human at the same time.

            During this week in my reading and my watching of PBS, people have done more research into the historicity of what the Bible says about Jesus.  A friend of mine sent a model of the nativity scene, pointing out that a lot of it probably never happened or happened at a different timing that what the nativity scene implies.  For example, the kings are probably not kings and probably did not come to see Jesus until a couple years after his birth.  Not to mention that the “visiting Magi” are not even found in the Bible.  Another discovery is that Jesus was probably an urban dweller and well-educated, knowing Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, not a country bumpkin and son of a carpenter.  To this entire sort of thing, one of my friends writes, “Sigh. I always find things like this disheartening. The nativity scene is an image that offers one opportunity to ponder the Incarnation. It's not any different than other religious images that give one a like opportunity to reflect on faith in God. Our postmodern fascination with debunking -- deflate, quash, discredit, disprove, contradict, controvert, invalidate, negate; challenge, call into question, poke holes in, etc. -- all things religious rips from each of us the great mystery of our faith. I'll gladly put out my nativity scene each and every year accepting that it isn't a factual representation of Holy Scripture. It is for me, however, an image that offers opportunity to joyfully celebrate the Incarnation and the astounding love of God for me, a sinner.” 

            It doesn't matter—any of those things that point to Jesus as God made man.  None of it matters.  What really matters is God’s love for us in Jesus.  That is the point, the whole point, and nothing but the point.  God loves us.