Romans 13:11-12 (NIV)
And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
CONSIDER THIS
Have you ever noticed the striking feature of ghosts in classic Christmas stories and winter tales? Consider the epic poem Beowolf, Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, or Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Haunted by unwelcome beings, characters are challenged to rise to the heroic occasion. They are called to valor, to put on virtue, or to make peace with whatever it is that follows death.
Ancient Roman festivals in December also included the peculiar practice of putting on animal hides, wearing monstrous masks, and behaving in all sorts of role-reversing revelry. In some parts of Europe, these pagan rituals are still practiced with pomp alongside later Christmas traditions, whether they be Christian or commercial. Can you imagine singing, “Deck the Halls,” only to follow it with a dreadful dance enacting the solemn cycle of life and death?
Winter has always made light reckon with darkness. The ethos of the season in many cultures appears to have a hint of irony: celebration and solemnity are wedded together. But for the most part, it has an internal coherence, even when it feels more like Halloween than Christmas. It’s what we would expect from people bearing with the persistence of fallow ground, aching cold, and impending darkness that, following the harvest, has finally come near. It’s what we would expect when Herod faced the foreboding announcement that the true king is born, and the realization that one day he will mature and lay claim to the throne. It’s what we would expect for when we want to put away the dreadful thought that we might be asleep to God.
This is the scene Paul describes in another place when he says, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Cor. 15:32). Might this be why we insist on so thoroughly wrenching up the distractions around Christmas? Despite our best efforts to dial up the extravagance, or to insist that Jesus remain in the manger, we know that it simply won’t do. Our world finds itself in quiet desperation, and we often mask the desperation of our own souls with the trappings of a plump goose, brown paper packages, and even good things, like gift-giving.
“The night is nearly over; the day is almost here,” says the apostle. It’s the same refrain we often repeat to one another (sort of). “Hold on.” “It gets better.” “More eggnog?” But Christmas was never meant to distract us from death. Jesus came not to escape death, but that through it, he would defeat it. It’s a nuance that bears reflection. The world tries to make peace with our final destiny, whereas Jesus walks through it. And because he did, Jesus promises an impending reality—a kingdom—that is truer than what we can perceive with our five senses or intuit with our soul.
What is that “day that’s almost here,” exactly? To be sure, it’s a metaphor, but it’s more than that. If the night is our present darkness—as well as death; then the day is awakening to fullness of life in God, as well as the day Jesus will return with resurrecting grace.
It’s no surprise that historically Christmastime was wedded to tales of ghosts and monsters. It’s naming them that offered our ancestors a hint of relief. That’s how myth works, essentially. But rather than ignore our plight God came down as a child—Jesus—to face it head on. And for those of us who look to him as the source of life, we have inherited the same battle. As the creator of Winnie the Pooh remarked, “Without a monster or two, it’s not a quest.” Christmas calls us away from our preoccupations and toward the resistance of life against sin, death, and the devil. Christmas is a declaration that God is harrowing hell.
THE PRAYER
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)
THE QUESTION
Do you have any holiday customs that serve as a distraction from your tender areas of desperation? Have you made a truce with sin—which ultimately leads to death and decay, or have you awakened to the resistance of the kingdom of God? Are you using the armor of light, which is the Spirit of God and the Word of God, or are you trusting your own traditions and innovations?
For the Awakening,
Andrew Dragos
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One Response
Only the living Jesus, ever-present in the Holy Spirit, can safely lead us beyond the deeds of darkness. Christ in you is the hope of glory! How desperately we need to be trained to let God’s Spirit daily lead us with His inner promptings and conscience urgings! See Romans 8:14.
Let the Bible be your constant training manual. It’s full of real-life examples of people who learned to be led by God’s Spirit.