Don't Forget the Mysticism of Christmas

Christmas Eve  C       December 24, 2018

Is. 9:2-4,6-7          Ps.96:1-4,11-12        

Titus 2:11-14        Luke 2:1-14  

Lectionary Link

Most of us admit that Christmas is quite an imposing holiday.  It literally means the "Mass of Christ," referring to the Eucharist which celebrates the birth of Jesus.  But Christmas has grown way beyond the Mass of Christ.

It has become quite a social, cultural, entertainment and commercial phenomena unlike any other holiday.  It has become so much more than the observance of the "Mass of Christ" for the celebration of the birth of Christ.

And we might want to go all "bah humbug" on all the extra trappings which Christmas has accrued.  Or we may just want to regard it all as a great smorgasbord of religious or cultural activity from which we pick and choose for our own religious and secular observances.

One could cite the success of the evangelization of cultures by Christmas.  Even the Christmas date was a way to replace a Roman pagan festival and convert the social energy that once was expressed for the Sol Invictus event into the Christ event.  One might say that Christmas continues to evangelize; around the world the word Christ in Christmas is proclaimed, and it invites anyone with access to Wikipedia to look up Christmas and study further the origins and the meanings of Christmas.  As crass as Christmas commercialism can be, the culture of excess in gift exchange, extends beyond personal gifts exchanged to help most of the charities to be able to survive for the rest of the year.  Certainly St. John the Divine is willing to accept big Christmas gifts this year, as always.

The popularity of Christmas as a cultural and commercial phenomenon might intimidate us in the religious profession as we watch more children line up to see Santa Claus than come to the manger to see baby Jesus.  We see diminishing church attendance even as the Black Friday crowds stampede the malls.  Christmas sermons streamed and blogged get but a few hits compared to all of the Amazon.com traffic and youtube Christmas music.  So, we can be intimidated about the things which Christmas has become other than the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

I, myself, am less concerned about all that Christmas has become; I am most concerned about the mysticism of Christmas.  I am more concerned about the inner event represented in the New Testament writings about the meaning of the birth of Christ.

In a significant way, we can say Christmas began after the actual birth of a baby named Jesus.  Christmas began as the mystical teachings of St. Paul and the apostles who experienced the birth of Risen Christ within their inner lives.   Paul and the apostles were not at Bethlehem.  They did not know Jesus growing up as a boy in Nazareth.

But Christmas for Paul and the apostles began after the resurrection appearances of Jesus.  Christmas, you might say, began after Easter.  Why?  There was a spiritual phenomenon which created the Jesus Movement and this Movement became the churches of gathered people in the cities of the Roman Empire.  Many people experienced this spiritual phenomenon.  How did they talk about this mystical experience?  They said that Christ had been born in them.  And what happened to them when they had this experience?  They said that they were overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.  They said they had unspeakable joy and peace and faith and goodness and self-control.  The mystical experience of Christ being born within them also created friendship beyond birth family; it created a community of people with common interest and purpose.  Something so good had happened within them, they wanted to share it others to see if the experience could be replicated in the lives of others.  And you know what?  It did.  The recurrence of this mystical experience into the lives of many people shocked the leaders of the Jesus Movement.  They knew that the success would not diminish because they knew that another Higher Power was responsible for the mystical experience.  The Higher Power of Holy Spirit was the explanation given for making the birth of the Risen Christ occur in the lives of increasingly more and more people.

Before Bethlehem was written about, the birth of Risen Christ happened in the lives of many people.  And it kept happening and it created communities in many places.  And these communities wanted to teach the mysticism of the birth of Christ into their lives to anyone who would want to have this experience.

What did the leaders do?  They created spiritual manuals for their membership and for those who were being initiated into this interior event of the birth of Christ.  But the early churches were still very much minority communities in the Roman Empire.  They could not be public gatherings.  Home churches could not even have the same public profile that synagogues had attained in the Roman cities.  House churches had to "fly under the radar" to avoid too much public attention.  Their teachings and writings had to be private to their communities and their writings had to be cryptic, that is, they had to hide their mystical reality within an actual story.  The Christmas stories hide the elements of the mystical birth of Christ in spiritual ways that were understood by initiated members of the churches.

So how is the mysticism of the early church hid in the Christmas stories?  The Virgin Mary is the paradigm of all persons who knew the conception and birth of the Risen Christ within themselves?  It was not of human origin; one's life was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit to experience the birth of Christ.  But Mary and Joseph had physical and social reality too.  The birth of Jesus happened in Bethlehem.  For the early Christians, "Bethlehem" represented the physical location of their lives when they experienced the birth of Christ in themselves.  Paul's Bethlehem was on the road to Damascus.  Bethlehem fulfilled the ancient Scriptural reference to the city of David.  The early Christians following, Paul believed that this experience of the birth of Christ into one's life was a very providential event and was regarded to be the furtherance of universal salvation that was predicted in the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures.

So tonight, I am here to say, "I like Christmas,in fact, I love Christmas."  You and I can pick and choose from all of the Christmas trappings in our culture, but the question for me and you is this?  Has Christ been born in me?  Has Christ been born in you?  How would we know it?  Love, joy, peace, forgiveness, self-control, sacrificial giving, friendship, hope, faith, practicing justice, helping the needy and vulnerable, and patience.  You and I know the birth of Christ in us by the fruits of this birth which initiated the transformation of our lives.

Tonight, I salute you as I would the Virgin Mary; Congratulations on the birth of Christ in you by the power of the Holy Spirit.  But not just in your inner lives; you have locations like Bethlehem and Nazareth.  You and I have places to let the birth of Christ live and grow in us and make a difference in the Bethlehem and Nazareth locations of our lives.

Christmas, by all means celebrate it, but don't forget the origin of Christmas: the mystical birth of the life of Christ in us.  Merry Christmas and congratulations on the birth of Christ, in YOU!  Amen.