"The Mystery of Christmas" | The Rev. Peter Sipple | December 27, 2020
Most of us love a good mystery! That helps explain the popularity of Christmas. For the Christmas season—from the first Sunday in Advent through the last in Epiphany—is full of mystery: visitations by angels; Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, struck dumb; the virgin birth; a phenomenal star; travelers out of nowhere who somehow stumble upon the Baby Jesus with gifts full of symbolic import. The story even includes a villain in Herod. These and other mysterious elements engender a sense of wonder and speculation. As with good mysteries, we want to learn more. How is this happening? What are we to think? And as if there weren’t sufficient metaphysical elements in the original Christmas story, our culture has layered on more: Santa and his elves; flying reindeer, one of whom our popular culture has given a red nose; snowmen that sing; and on it goes! At one point we even had mommy kissing Santa Claus!
How do we demythologize all these elements in order to retrieve whatever happened when the incarnate God entered the world? We are challenged to remove layers of myth wrapped around the event of Christ’s birth, apparently to safeguard it from those who might actually want to find out what it all means—such as children. We create a problem for ourselves by focusing on the mystery and forgetting about its resolution and revelation. A homely example comes to mind: it’s October; you’ve just bought some tulip bulbs to plant. Behold the bulb—hardly a thing of beauty! But you know something important about that scruffy-looking object, for without that piece of information you wouldn’t be going to the trouble of planting the bulb correctly. You know that it contains within it the hidden beauty of the leaves and flower of a tulip. You even know what color it will be! The beauty is there, inherent in the bulb, waiting to be released by the right combination of events: warm air, water, the soil and its nutriments, sunshine. The promise of the flower’s beauty makes the bulb desirable, not the bulb itself.
So it is with God’s gift of the Messiah. The revelation of Jesus Christ, of God in man made manifest, was inherent in God’s presence in the world since the beginning of time. We could not see God; what we could see was the world around us, and we knew that, though inherently good, it could be inhospitable, unreliable, at times ugly. The mysterious presence of God was yet to be revealed. When the right combination of events emerged in the fullness of time, that revelation took place. All that went before had new significance now, for like the flower somehow mysteriously present in the bulb, God was there all along. Hebrew prophets like Isaiah knew this; their genius was to understand that the intentions of God that were inherent in the rough old world would one day be revealed to human beings—at least to those who would maintain their faith in that promise.
Most natural growth requires light; it’s no surprise that the revelation of God Incarnate is described as light banishing darkness—as abruptly as sunshine can invade a dark bedroom. Eight hundred years earlier, Isaiah predicted that the people who were walking in darkness would one day discover a miraculous light. In Ephesians Paul prayed “that God may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know the hope to which he has called you.” What a great little prayer for each person of faith who struggles to overcome the darkness wherever and however it enters our lives. For if light is the catalyst that brings about revelation and resolves mystery, then hope is surely its byproduct. The wise men from the east found Herod to be a master purveyor of darkness, whereas they knew instinctively that the light of the star above them signaled hope for the individual soul and for the future of humankind. You and I solve the mysteries of the Christmas story as we accept, with humility and joy, the light of Christ and the hope he brings to people around the world.
One reason we like mystery stories is so we can keep the secret to ourselves. I’ll bet you don’t know who did it! Was it Professor Plum in the ballroom with a lead pipe, or Miss Scarlett with the candlestick in the conservatory? You don’t know, but I do! Such inside knowledge may be necessary when you’re playing Clue or reading Agatha Christie, but the revelation of God’s mystery shines out in the darkness for all to see. What difference does it make? The light of God’s incarnation informs and inspires us, helping to make us hope-bringers, truth-tellers and light-bearers to others.
Every week, somewhere in the world, people encounter terrifying natural disasters, the concentrated, destructive forces of nature. We may ourselves encounter them, though we pray we will not. The works of darkness are also mysteries, whether caused by natural phenomena or by the dark unnatural tendencies lurking in some human hearts. But here’s what feeds us Christians and keeps us hopeful, resourceful, and creative: we believe that the light of Christ can shine in and through us as we try to find the means to light the path others are walking and lighten their burdens as well. For that’s what the sharing of the mystery is all about, isn’t it? We pick up the light of Jesus and shine it into the dark places in our own life and in the life of another, whether that person lives elsewhere in the world or in the room next to ours. We celebrate the mystery by revealing it in our own lives.
It’s tempting for us, especially given all the hype that attends the Christmas season, to focus our attention on the mysterious and mythical elements of the birth narrative—not to mention the odd ways we have layered myth upon it. But with the coming of Christmas light shines again on the central truth: that God became human and lived for a time with other human beings. God’s Son, Jesus, came to be present in our world. Once here, he gave new meaning to our lives and showed us how to behave. It is with the Incarnation that God reveals the full significance of the mystery of creation. Now we recognize that everything and everyone has been made new.