"See, I will send my
messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the
Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the messenger of
the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the Lord
Almighty. But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can
stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner's fire or a
launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of
silver; He will refine the Levites and purify them like gold and
silver”
Malachi
3: l-3a
Christmas,
1989
Christmas
means many things to different people.
For
some, it is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus
Christ.
For
others, it is a holiday to be avoided because of its historic
pagan roots and associations.
For
some of us, Christmas is a time to reinforce family ties and
traditions.
For
others-- a season to be endured for the way it accents our
loneliness.
For
those who have, Christmas is a time to spend what they have.
For
those without, it is a time to be reminded of what they do not
have to spend.
If
it is alright with you, I would like to offer still another
perspective….
For
the Christian world, I see Christmas as a powerful reminder from
history that can teach us how not to look for the
Lord's second coming. Christmas can be the opportunity to learn
how to avoid the mistakes made before us by those who first
expected the Messiah.
Christmas can prepare us for tomorrow,
Perhaps
you wonder why I would use Malachi 3:1-3 to head a Christmas
letter? Doesn't that passage refer to the second coming? What
does that have to do with Christmas?
The
answer is, it has everything to do with Christmas. For, you see,
it was on the basis of this prophecy and others like it that the
Jews expected the Messiah to come the first time.
But
what happened? The Lord bypassed everyone's scriptural
understanding of how He was to come such that, naturally
speaking, His coming was quite unexpectable.
As
we read the Christmas story, we go on to learn that the only
ones who were able to perceive and participate in the Lord's
Advent were the handful of saints who had the spiritual
sensitivity to be able to receive the Father's revelation in the
critical hours at hand-- Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph,
Simeon, Anna, some shepherds and foreign magi. That was all.
We
see that outside of these few, the nation-at-large was left in
the dark. Their careless, assumptive scriptural understanding
was not enough to prepare them for the coming of the Lord.
Really, given the size of the nation with its numerous
scriptural teachers and scribes, the small number of people able
to receive the message and participate in the Christmas story is
indeed remarkable.
What
then does Christmas mean for us? What can it mean for us?
For
us Christmas can either be a time of mere looking back, a time
of using our nostalgic images of the nativity to reinforce our
private self-indulgences among one another. Or else it can be a
motivator to shake ourselves awake, to learn from history, to
remind us of how a supposedly spiritual people were not ready
for the Lord they expected to come "at any time".
Christmas
can put us back to sentimental sleep, or we can turn it to our
advantage to hone our spiritual readiness. As we watch Europe
coalesce through the demise of the Iron Curtain, as we listen to
the U.S. President speak of the "family of nations", we know
that once again, the critical hours are upon our
generation. The Advent of the Lord once again draws near.
Do
we rest in the assumptive knowledge of our scriptural
eschatology as they did that very first Christmas? Or are we
sharpening our ears that we might have the spirit of Mary and
Joseph, of Elizabeth and Zacharias, and of Anna and Simeon? Will
we be among the New Israel-at-large who miss out on The Return
through our faulty power of expectation, or will we be among the
few awake enough to participate in the nearing
revelation?
This
is what Christmas means to me, and what I hope it might mean for
you. Personally, I have lost my natural capacity to expect the
Lord. I realize the bankruptcy of my understanding. But I do
have the heart desire to receive the revelation when He comes,
and to participate in the events at hand before us. I hope you
might share my desire, too.
With
these thoughts, I close by wishing each and every one of you a
watchful Merry
Christmas!