Experiencing Christmas hope in new ways

Community exposures change our Advent plans

This was one of the most unusual Advent and Christmas seasons any of us have experienced in a long time. Shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday several members of the congregation had been exposed to the coronavirus and some ended up testing positive. None of those exposures happened during worship or other church activities, but the leadership of the congregation decided to take the precautionary step of moving all activities online for the indefinite future.

This meant that all of our Advent plans had to change overnight. The socially distanced, hybrid worship services we had expected in our lovingly decorated sanctuary were not going to happen. Instead, we were back to an online-only version of worship. The music, children’s moments, and liturgy would be pre-recorded while the preaching and pastoral prayers happened live from my kitchen table. All services would be streamed on Facebook live and a dial-in option was made available for those who did not have internet connections.

In addition, we had a crew of volunteers put together take-home advent wreaths with devotionals, scripts for family candle lighting services, Sunday school lessons, and coloring sheets for kids. These devotional kits were delivered to every member of the congregation so we would all be able to read the same texts and pray the same prayers even when we were unable to be together in the sanctuary.

Throughout Advent and Christmas various families recorded themselves lighting the candles in their own homes. These videos gave us a glimpse into each others’ lives and allowed us to hear voices we may not normally encounter on a typical Sunday morning, including some of our oldest and youngest Disciples. I am incredibly grateful for the talents, dedication, and generosity of everyone who helped make our online services as powerful as they were.

Online pivot brings challenges

By no means did everything go perfectly. Learning new technology was challenging. Recording, editing, and compiling videos took three times as long as simply preparing a liturgy for in-person worship. There were members of the church who were not able to connect because of bandwidth issues. The weekend before Christmas Facebook Live unexpectedly dropped support for the phone-in option. As a result we had to switch overnight to offering DVD’s to those without an internet connection.

Even more challenging, however, than the technology was the lack of human contact throughout this holiday season. Advent is a time of preparation for Christ’s birth. During those weeks we were supposed to be gathering with friends and family. We were supposed to be going to concerts and cantatas. We were supposed to be traveling and hanging out with people we only see a couple of times a year. 

Much of that was set aside temporarily. The increased infection rates around the country, and right here in southeast Missouri, meant that local schools restricted crowds at sporting events, Christmas parties were canceled, masks are mandated in many locations, and the governor extended the state of emergency into the next year. 

All of these precautions are sensible, but they have had several unfortunate side effects. The economy has suffered as families and businesses struggle to stay afloat. Teaching kids through masks and periodic quarantines makes education more difficult. Physical health suffers as surgeries are delayed and diminished hospital capacity forces patients to be sent out of state for even non-COVID related situations. Mental health problems have increased because human beings were simply not designed to live in isolation. 

In the midst of all that, more than one person in the church remarked how hard it has been to get into the Christmas spirit this year. The fact of the matter is that I felt it too. A few days before we were supposed to celebrate the birth of our savior, I had to admit to being tired, frustrated, and still grieving every person and every thing we have lost in the last few months. Quite simply, Christmas was not supposed to be this way. 

A chaotic Christmas in a chaotic world

As much as I appreciate the efforts of everyone who helped our church pivot as well as it did, the truth of the matter is that I still would have preferred to gather with everyone in our beautiful sanctuary on Christmas Eve. Ultimately, in the middle of that bizarre mix of emotions, it is the Christmas story itself which is keeping me going at the moment. For all the sanitized Hallmarky schmaltz that has been grafted on to the holiday over the years, at the heart of the story is the idea that the world was a mess and God wanted to offer us a new beginning. 

Mary and Joseph did not live in Kevin’s fancy “Home Alone” house. They were not purchasing gifts at Macy’s. They did not even have the Cratchit family’s humble dinner on the table. The reality of living under King Herod makes our current governmental dysfunction look like mere child’s play. Health care was non existent and the average life span was only 30-35 years. Wealth was determined by birth. The poor were impoverished or enslaved. 

God’s promises remained unfulfilled and even the prophets seemed to have gone silent. Ethnic, political and religious violence ran rampant. It was a time when hope was in short supply. A time much like today. 

That is the world into which Jesus was sent. The angel declared that a poor unwed mother would give birth to God’s own son. Mary would be forced to flee genocidal violence that threatened to destroy her young family. Her son would grow up to be a nomadic teacher who taught a radically different way of life. He would eventually be killed for it. Frederick Douglass was right, “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” That was true in Jesus’ world and it remains true today. 

Christ brings light to our darkness

The story told by Luke provides an answer to my hopelessness. Strip away the glitz and glamor, and the Christmas story is the assertion of God’s veto over the current state of the world. God loves us so much that we are not left alone in our aimlessness and sin. God shows up. 

Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55 describes the kind of world I wish to see. Most importantly, God’s realm looks nothing like our current reality. The Magnificat is one of the most profoundly revolutionary texts ever written. That is the reality that Christ intends for us.

Isaiah calls Jesus Emanuel, which literally means “God is with us.” In Luke 4 Jesus declares himself the fulfillment of the ancient promises and declares that he has come to proclaim release to the captive and recovery of sight to the blind.

 It is this hope that kept me going throughout this chaotic Advent and Christmas season.

This is Christmas. It is not pretty, but it is beautiful.

Christ our savior is born.