The
Rededication of Christmas
(The Hanukkah
of Christmas)
Introduction
The
liturgical now
Today we exit Ordinary
Time and enter into the Extraordinary Time of Advent in preparation for Christmas
2005. Today is New Years Day in the
church. Today we also go from liturgical cycle A to cycle B for the Sunday gospel
readings. This past church year the evangelist Matthew supplied us with the
gospel readings. This year it will be the evangelist Mark. Today we also exchange
the color green for purple--the liturgical color for penance. That’s a kind of leftover
from pre-Vatican II days when Advent, like Lent was considered to be a strictly
penitential season frowning on partying, gift-giving and decorating before the 24th
of December.
After Vatican II, Advent
is considered to be a season of joyful expectation instead of penance. In some
places even the color for Advent has been changed from penitential purple to
blue in honor of mother
Mary and baby boy Jesus. This Sunday we also celebrate around the Advent wreath
with its four candles. One candle is lighted for each of the four weeks of
Advent as a kind of four-genuflection approach to Christmas, our feast of
lights.
Hanukkah
Close upon our Christmas,
the Jewish community also celebrates its feast of lights—Hanukkah. The Hebrew word
simply means dedication. This year Hanukkah lands on the 26th of
December. The historical background for this Jewish feast is recorded in the
First Book of Macabbees of the Old Testament. In the second century before Christ, there was
a cultural struggle going on between Greeks (Gentiles) and Jews. On the one
hand there was the triumphant Greek culture with its beautifully sculptured
male and female bodies. Even some Jews, for whom nudity was an abomination, found
Greek culture attractive (I Mcc
Antiochus’ desecration of
the temple demanded a rite of rededication which took eight long days. But
legend has it that there was only a one-day supply of consecrated oil to keep
the great temple menorah burning throughout the service. Miraculously that
little supply of oil lasted throughout the long eight days of rededication (I
Macc
Hanukkah strays.
Johannes
Buxtorf, an ancient Jewish scholar, writes about Jewish feast days and their
observance. His sharp pen takes his contemporaries to task. He complains that
the feast of Hanukkah is straying from its original intent and inspiration. He says
they celebrate it today more by eating, drinking and carousing than by giving
thanks to God for their victory over Antiochus and the pagan desecrators. Buxtorf
writes about the senseless busyness which cropped up around the observance of
Hanukkah: “They prepare
a seven branch menorah and then light one light each day until the eighth
night. The lights are not allowed to burn all night long. While the lights are
burning no one is allowed to do any work in the house. The menorah itself must stand on the right
side of the door, not less than ten paces from the ground and not higher than
twenty. The rabbis often hold subtle and futile discussions on how long the
lights should burn, who should light them, whether or not it is permitted to
light one light with the other, and such similar senseless things.” Then Buxtorf’s sharp pen rises to its bottom
line when he writes, “In their observance of our Feast of Lights they’re
so busy with the outer light that they are not concerned about the great
darkness which abides in their hearts!”
Christmas also strays…
Like Hanukkah Christmas also
strays from its original intent and inspiration. It strays many miles from that
spot which an angel of the Lord pointed out to shepherds keeping watch over
their flocks by night. The angel tells the shepherds that they will find a
Savior in a manger in a stable in the city of
…with its orgy of busyness
The Advent and Christmas season has us running here, there and everywhere except to that spot which the angel and the star pointed out to shepherds and wise men. Buxtorf’s sharp tongue would also take us Christians to task as it did his contemporaries. He would say to us, “You people turn your so-called Extraordinary Time of Advent and Christmas into an orgy of busyness which exhausts you with parties you have to host or attend, with Christmas cards you have to write or answer and with shopping sprees for gifts you have to buy and give. In your observance of your Feast of Lights you are so busy with the outer light that you are not concerned about the great darkness which abides in your hearts!”
Listen
to the great darkness which abides in our hearts at this season of our Feast of
Lights. Last Christmas (2004) a
spokeswoman for Target Stores notified the public that it was going to ban the
Salvation Army’s kettles and bell-ringing in front of their stores. She said, “We
have adopted this policy in order to ensure a distraction-free shopping
environment.” What mumbo-jumbo! What
does she mean by “a distraction-free shopping environment” at Christmas time?
Does she mean an environment that won’t distract us and our kids from the hot
pursuit of ourselves and of our superfluous needs? Does she mean an environment
that won’t distract us with uncomfortable reminders of other people who through
no fault of their own are much less fortunate than ourselves? “A
distraction-free shopping environment”---by that does she mean an environment
that won’t distract us from the savage capitalism of our culture which thrives
with a vengeance at this time of the rolling year?
If that’s what she means,
then our Feast of Lights has turned into darkness. Then Christmas has strayed a
million miles away from the spot which the angel and star pointed out to
shepherds and wise men.[2]
Listen to some more of the great darkness which
abides in our hearts at this season of our Feast of Lights: last week in Elkton,
Md., a crowd of 300 shoppers outside a
… with its orgy
of joy
To Buxtorf’s complaint I yearly add my own. It arises out of who I am and from where I’ve come. We turn the Christmas season not only into an orgy of busyness but also into an orgy of joy. Christmas carols blare out that this is “the happiest time of the year,” or they announce that “the merry bells of Christmas are ringing.” For all different reasons this is the saddest and most painful time of the year for many people. For many all different reasons the bells of Christmas don’t ring for them. They toll.
They toll for those who have lost
a beloved partner of 40 or 50 years, and this will be their first Christmas
alone. They toll for those who have recently
received a chilling report from their doctors. They toll for those who’ve lost
loved ones and all their worldly possessions in the hurricanes of Katrina and
Wilma. They toll for all those husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, sons
and daughters who have lost a loved one in
Thanksgiving doesn’t stray.
Like Buxtorf’s Hanukkah, all our national and
religious feasts in varying degrees become adulterated and stray away from their
original inspiration. Memorial Day has now become the kick-off day for summer
vacation, and it’s spent more in picnic parks roasting hamburgers and wieners
than in cemeteries paying honor to our war dead. Easter features bunnies and
bonnets because it doesn’t know what to do with the original inspiration of
Christ’s resurrection which assures us (despite the appearance of things) that death
doesn’t have the last word. Christmas now has us rushing to shopping malls to
find a bargain, instead of hastening to the stable to find a babe wrapped in homespun, warmed
by wood fire and the breath of ox and ass.
Thanksgiving, however, is the purest of all our
feasts. It hasn’t strayed. It has remained uncluttered and faithful to its
original inspiration: the family and the
family table. Thanksgiving still sends us hurrying over the river and
through the woods. It still sends brothers
and sisters, sons and daughters (scattered all over the country) hurrying home
to family, uncluttered and bringing no other gift but themselves. It still
gathers us around the family table, giving thanks for the basic blessings of
life, like family and friends, like having a roof over our heads, a warm bed to
sleep in and food aplenty to eat. Thanksgiving remains faithful even to the very
menu itself: traditional turkey (whether
you like turkey or not), cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes. It’s
that faithfulness to an original inspiration that has hundred of thousands of
us flooding airports, rails and highways, making Thanksgiving the busiest
travel day of the year.
Conclusion
The rededication of Christmas
The Hanukkah of Christmas
This isn’t a crusade against the busyness of the
Christmas: the hurrying and scurrying, the buying and selling, the giving and
receiving of gifts. I’ve outgrown that crusade of my younger days. I’ve come to
realize that many people make a living that way. Nor is this a crusade against the merriment
of the season. Let the bells of Christmas ring and let the carols of Christmas
sing that this is the happiest time of the year, but also let’s be mindful of
those who weep particularly at this rolling time of the year. This, rather, is a crusade for the Hanukkah of
Christmas--for the rededication of Christmas.
I rededicate Christmas this morning for all of us
with this Christmas story
I read many Christmases ago in a Presbyterian magazine. It reads well as we are
about to plunge ourselves into our orgies. A missionary tells it.
Once upon a Christmas time,
I was in a remote
At the end of the service
there was a stir in the rear of the room and a young woman slipped forward -- a
girl she was really - - thin and shy. She carried a tiny baby, surely not more
than a day old. As she approached the
battered desk that served as an altar table, she reached into the folds of her
sari and drew out a single egg. With utmost care she laid it on the table and
bowed her head. "For the birth of her child," whispered the teacher
to me. "It's her thank-offering to God."
An egg! Not a coin, but a
life-sustaining egg! The diet of the Indian villager is notoriously deficient
in protein. This woman needs this egg, I thought. In the economy of her
village, this one egg costs a woman like her about three hours on the road or
in the fields. Even if she is lucky enough to own hens, she sells their few
eggs and buys rice to fill the stomachs of her family. A single egg -- a worthy
and sacrificial offering.
So this Christmas, as we
wearily shop for gifts (like Xbox 360 retailing at $399), as we festoon the tree with
tinsel and lights, as we scowl at the assault of canned Christmas carols on our
ears, as we prepare our 18 pound turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, peas, cranberry
sauce and mincemeat pie, I shall remember a single egg.