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Pastor Peter Bastien, in Footnotes:
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Advent and Christmas are upon us again. For bishops, pastors, and theologians
this joyous time of year is fraught with anxiety. We struggle with how "to keep Christ in Christmas," as the old saying goes.
We are afraid that the commercial Christmas will completely overwhelm the Christian Christmas. We have good reason to worry
about these things, but worry often motivates us to become the grinch that stole Christmas, which is a bad strategy, no matter
how understandable it is. Christmas needs to be a time of joy, a festival of lights, parties, gift-giving, and good, healthy
fun in celebration of God's love so over-the-top that it results in the giving of a Son. The job of pastors at Christmas must
not become being a wet blanket.
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Instead, I would propose that our job is to put all the fun, frivolity, and
merriment of these days into their proper context. Walter Zimmerli, a Lutheran Old Testament scholar, teaches us: "In Israel...the
self-designation of the pious man asebed Yahweh (the servant of God) is characterized by its total claim. The thought
'no man can serve two masters' embraces not merely the moment of the worshipful turning towards God but the whole of life."
So Christmas needs to be service of God, not just in Advent Vespers or the solemn high mass at midnight on Christmas, but
we must also "serve God" in our Christmas cookies, in our parties, in our gift giving, in our decorating. One of the ancient
Church Fathers said that "the glory of God is human beings fully alive." Christians are not constipated puritans, suspicious
of all fun, all joy. Christians are people of hope and joy because in Jesus, born at Bethlehem,
God made a claim on all of my life. He gives a context to my work and my play. He gives me a life lived toward a goal.
Some people oppose life against itself by dividing it into a secular life versus
a religious life. Ancient people, be they Jew, Christian, or even pagan, would find such a bifurcation of life to be inane,
and maybe even insane. God will not and cannot be cordoned off into some spiritual plane. All of life is under God. All of
life is about God. I am a Christian when I go to church. I am also a Christian when I go to work or go to vote or go to the
movies or have sex or eat dinner or open gifts. Christ is not a part of my life, he is the center of my life. Everything else
radiates from that center. Therefore I celebrate Advent/Christmas.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas,
--Pastor Bastien
Taken from December 2005
Footnotes
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To read other newsletter letters, select a link below!
(Please be patient as we pull these from our files to go on-line)
CTS
is a Reconciling in Christ Congregation and
a
member of the Washington Metropolitan Synod of the ELCA
(Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America).
We
are located in Montgomery Village (Gaithersburg) Maryland
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