Focusing
This week CBC radio had a story about 100 students from Ukraine at the University of Toronto, who for the past year have been supported and sponsored in a variety of ways by the University, to allow them to stay here, to study, and to build a foundation for their lives while their homeland, their home towns, and their families are ravaged by the Russian invasion.
The reason for the story is they are going home for Christmas—to Ukraine, to celebrate Christmas with their families in the midst of war, loss, suffering, disruption of power and water and food supplies, and extreme danger.
What does that say about Christmas? About what Christmas means? And what it means to celebrate it in the world as it is today?
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 11:1-10
Isaiah 11 was written in the 8th-century before the Christian Era. Isaiah, like other prophets whose books are included in the Old Testament, is struggling mightily with kings of Judah who are hardly worth the name of king. Corruption, injustice, division and suffering are everywhere. People are set against one another in a struggle for survival. Plus, the Assyrians – a hostile empire to the east, are knocking at the door, and are about to break through.
In this time of despair and hopelessness, the prophet
has two main messages. One, is that the
king, the kingdom and all the people will suffer the consequences of their
corruption. The tree of their kingdom
will be cut down – all the way to a stump.
The other. is that God still has a dream to be accomplished through
them.
A shoot will come up from the
stump of Jesse;
from
his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest
on him—
the
Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the
Spirit of counsel and of might,
the
Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by appearances,
nor
decide things by hearsay;
but with God’s sense of fairness he will judge the needy,
with
justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with
the breath of his lips he will overcome the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and
faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the
leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and
a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their
young will lie down together,
and
the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and
the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on
all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as
the waters cover the sea.
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples;
the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.
Reflection
Do you remember Band-Aid – the super-group of British and Irish pop stars assembled by Bob Geldof in 1984 to record the song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” It was to raise money for relief from the Ethiopian famine of 1983-85, and for all its flaws it was well-intentioned and it did raise a lot of money and awareness to support relief efforts.
This
week CBC Radio and TV has featured stories about a famine now decimating Somalia. They’ve included interviews and pictures
recorded on site. Each time, they advise
listeners and viewers that what they will hear and see is disturbing, but say it’s
necessary in order to comprehend how desperate things are for people there.
Somalia is known for droughts. Years when the rainy season doesn’t come are so common, they give their droughts names, like the Equalizer Drought, and the Cattle-killer Drought. But this is a bad one. The worst since 2011. It’s already known as the Long Famine, because it’s now five or six years since the last rainy season. Climate change is suspected as one of the causes.
Crops do not grow. Natural plant life has disappeared. Animals are dying. People are starving. They are leaving dead farms and fleeing to towns along whatever rivers and streams still flow.
One story told was an echo of the Christmas story – a story of a family on their way from their now-dead farm to a river-town a few days’ journey away. They were using their last living animal – a donkey, to ride and help carry their few possessions. Along the way, their donkey died. Not quite how we’re used to the Christmas journey turning out.
A result of all this is the creation of massive refugee camps around these overwhelmed towns. That’s where international aid agencies come in and set up camp to offer at least some help as people struggle to live, and are dying. And why do they do this? Why do doctors, nurses, teachers, labourers, social workers, journalists and ordinary people come to Somalia, knowing the problem is bigger than they can fix, to be with people as they are struggling to live, and as they are dying?
It is maybe for the same reason that 100 Ukrainian students are going home for Christmas to celebrate the holiday with their families in the midst of war, anxiety, deprivation and danger?
Is it because, deep down, part of what it means to be human is that when you see others who are at risk, in need, in danger, in sorrow – whether they are family or not, they are? And because they are, you need to be with them if you can? For the sake of their humanity, and your own?
In the 8th century before the Christian Era, the prophet Isaiah spoke to people in a time of calamity in their kingdom. What had begun well centuries before under God, was now deeply divided, in trouble, and in collapse. The tree we were, that God has made us to be, Isaiah says – the tree of Jesse through whom God gave us King David and the glory we used to be, is cut down. As a people we are gone -- nothing now but a stump and the rings to show what we used to be.
The kingdom itself was no longer one. For some time, it was divided into two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, each home to different tribes, and each sub-kingdom, a chaos of other sub-communities – the privileged and powerful on top in their secured estates and positions and fighting for control among themselves, the disadvantaged and poor scattered and struggling everywhere else just to stay alive. Everyone claimed allegiance to one God – Yahweh, God of their ancestors, but did any of them really knew him? And outside the kingdom, were the Assyrians and Egyptians – powerful empires about to overthrow and over-run them. The whole world was at odds and fighting within itself.
Into this darkness, the prophet speaks a word of light. From the tree of Jesse, he says, a new shoot will come. A new shoot, from the root. Not just a reflowering of an old branch. Not a repeat of any of our old kings. Not even a repeat of King David, because for all his gifts and accomplishments, David also was deeply flawed and a source of many of the fatal divisions we suffer.
No, he says, there will be a new and different son of Jesse. One who will live and guide in a more wise and godly way. A way not swayed by power and privilege, nor needing to hang on to it. A way that will lead from the heart and know God’s desire. A way that will seek the well-being of all. A way that will be about being-with those who are without. A way that will live by the vision of one world of singular, shared well-being.
A world where wolves and lambs – predators and prey, rich and poor live side by side. A world where lions – kings of the jungle, victors in the contest, and oxen – lowly beasts of burden who do all the work that others benefit from, will eat the same food and sit at the same table in peace for the well-being of all as members together of one family. A world where a little child will place its hand in the adder’s den and not be hurt – a world where the innocent, the unsuspecting, the uneducated, the under-privileged, the ill and the weak and the vulnerable will not be taken advantage of, but will be safe from harm, protected, and well cared for.
The gift that God’s king gives, he says, is a new family of humanity not carved up and separated from and against itself, but a family bound together by commitment to the well-being of all, by willingness to share what is needed, a family – whether they are family or not, that values being-with others for their good – especially those who are without, whenever we have a chance to be.
And is this at least part of what Christmas is about? The emergence of that new shoot from the tree of Jesse, in the birth of the one in Bethlehem who came to live and to guide us in a more wise and godly way of being human in the world?
Christmas is the birth of Jesus, who grew into the Christ, which is God’s code word and God’s blueprint for what humanity is to be – for what and how we are created to be.
What does it mean for us to remember and celebrate Christmas? To come to that manger? And to let ourselves become part of the new family he comes to make of us all?
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