Of course, we too reach for God in the design of our own churches, with naves several stories high, like this one here at St. Alban’s, and steeples that reach toward the heavens.
Those of you who have traveled to Alexandria with any regularity probably know the church along Highway 165 in Pollock that has a steeple topped by a hand with finger extended, pointing skyward. Perhaps the builders simply gave up on reaching—and settled for pointing at—God.
Amusing, but kind of sad when you think about it. How could those builders have been through so many Christmases and not know that God is already here?
One of my favorite photographs from my trip to Europe was taken in St. Sebald’s Lutheran Church in Nuremberg, Germany. This church is particularly interesting because it was heavily damaged by Allied bombing near the end of World War II, then meticulously restored to its medieval grandeur and re-dedicated as a monument to peace.
High on one of St. Sebald’s majestic columns I spied a small retablo painting of the Holy Family. I took a picture of it, with pointed arches and tall, slender stained glass windows receding into the background.
I like to put titles or captions on some of my photographs, and so at home, weeks after returning from Europe, I struggled to come up with words to go with that particular picture. Everything about that church—the columns and arches, the artworks and crucifixes, the soaring spaces—had spoken to me of human striving to reach God.
And not just St. Sebald’s but Canterbury Cathedral and all of the magnificent churches I visited had spoken to me of the human desire for God, and of our constant striving for God.. and to build a space big enough and grand enough that God might come to dwell therein.
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| You Were Already Here B.J. Kauffman, 2009 |
And finally I wrote beneath the picture, “You were already here.”
As in, “You—God—were already here,” long before this church, and every other church, not only in Europe but also in the United States of America and around the world.
You—God—were—and are—already here. Before human desiring and before human striving to reach you and to draw you to us, you—God—were and are already here.
In a burning bush in the wilderness eons ago, you were already here. In the utter silence at the mouth of Elijah’s cave, you were already here.
Before the sea was contained and earth formed. Before animals and plants and humankind, before light and dark—you, God—Father, Son and Holy Ghost—were already here.
Why then Christmas? Why a virgin mother, a chaste father, an inn already full? Why a babe in a manger, heralded by angels and worshiped by shepherds? If God was already here, then why Incarnation at all?
Perhaps the answer that springs first to your mind is the one provided by John in chapter 3 verse 16, perhaps the most memorized Bible verse of all time: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”
And that’s a good answer. But… perhaps its very familiarity works against it. Perhaps the ease with which it rolls from our tongue limits its impact, for knowing it and saying it is no substitute for Christmas!
Or, maybe in answer to the question, why Christmas? your mind goes immediately to Easter and the holy mystery of God’s plan for our Salvation. Perhaps you ponder and seek to comprehend the uniquely Christian theology of God come to earth for the specific purpose of dying on a cross in order to redeem and reconcile the world.
And that too is a good answer. But… that takes us past the manger and back into the bleakness of human need for redemption with scarcely a pause! Moreover, all the theological explanations in the world, and all the time we might spend studying and seeking to comprehend them.. are also.. no substitute for Christmas.
We need Christmas. We need this annual pilgrimage to kneel in awe at the manger, and to gaze in open-mouthed wonder at God—who was indeed already here—but now come to us—NOT “in human form” as I’ve heard many a preacher say—but fully human—one of us in every way.
We need Christmas to make real for us, to help us to recognize and embrace and experience, the God who was already here. That’s why we humans spend weeks in excited anticipation and preparation, year after year… for an event that has already taken place!
You are familiar with the concept of the “reality check.” You are accustomed to hearing it as an admonition to stay in touch with the grittier and more difficult aspects of life. When someone seems to be viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, we say, “He, or she, needs a reality check.” Or, I might mention that my very own beloved son got a reality check in the form of his fall semester grades!
Tonight, this holy night, consider the possibility that, as usual, we have it backwards. Entertain the possibility, if you will, that Christmas is the ultimate reality check.
As we kneel at this manger gazing at the infant who is the perfect expression of God already here, yet come to dwell among us and within us, may we experience this as the true and lasting reality.
I do not mean to make light of the grittier and more challenging aspects of life on earth in the 21st Century: the losses we have suffered; our estrangements at times from family, friends, each other; our economic woes. This world too is real. But it is a secondary reality. It is temporary, passing away as we speak.
In the quietness of this night, may we pause from our hustle and bustle, may we let go of our hurts and failures, may we be still enough to hear the voice that spoke the universe into being: “I am already here. Yet tonight I come.”
Amen.
