Did Mr. Scrooge and the Grinch steal your Christmas?

Did Mr. Scrooge and the Grinch steal your Christmas?

Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch are laughable characters.  Death is not. Death comes to countless numbers of people every year at Christmas. So does unemployment or the loss of one’s home. Many people watched TV movies hoping for the promise of sugar plums and gifts and making it home in time to reconnect with family. Many were disappointed. They just couldn’t see any hope. Christmas came…and God didn’t wow them with a miracle.

Where is the hope of Christmas when death or some personal let down comes like a Scrooge or a Grinch? Can the Christmas Story bring hope to those facing hard times?

As the Christian Story goes, Mary is pregnant with a miracle—an immaculate conception.  Should the authorities find out about Mary and Joseph, they and Mary’s gift could be killed. Miraculously they escape the death grip of the lawful governor and his assassins and they arrive in the Inn. There, they are faced with another moment of near death. The Inn has no room for a woman about to give birth to what Joseph names as Jesus and the Heavenly Messenger claims is “God Emanuel”. The Innkeeper and his wife put them up in an adjacent Barn.

Still today, lawfully accredited authorities threaten Mary and Joseph and the Holy Family that they began that night the Innkeeper and his wife made room for them. There is simply no unbiased historical evidence to support Mary’s conception that the birth and rebirth of Jesus brings people Eternal Life.

Like the cold-hearted, Ebenezer Scrooge and the mean-spirited Grinch, the cold hard factual truth comes in the form of death, war, earthquake or some horrible tragedy to tell people flat out. There is no miraculous birth of Emanuel.  Eternal Life is an illusion, fake news. The Madonna’s new born Don is fiction. He’s not Eternal. Only God is.  When people die, they leave this earth and it hurts like hell to say goodbye to them. God has Eternal Life. People in earthly form do not.

Many Christians have lost the hope of ever seeing their loved ones again in this world. Not wanting to completely abandon their faith, they cling to the hope that one day they will see their loved one on the other side in spirit form, without a body. The “other side” being that place where righteous people go when they die to live in spirit form with God.

Atheists on the other hand are adamant. When people die, they die. Their hearts stop beating and their organs shut down. It is the end of the game. Sometimes people can have a near death experience that gives them the illusion of floating over their bodies or seeing Jesus.  That’s as good as it gets. There is no God.

Despite all this negative evidence, many Christians believe in the miracle of ETERNAL LOVE that Joseph and Mary brought to the Inn that dark “starry” night. They are not fooled for a moment. Joseph and Mary are their proof.  It was God’s plan that Mary and Joseph should fall in love and marry. The miracle is. They who had lived and died countless times, found each other at a moment in history when the priestly family of God needed a wake-up call.  As their love for each other grew and became more visible to the Innkeeper and his wife and the shepherds and the angels, people began to celebrate the news. The Don loves the Madonna and their Eternal Love is a Gift from God.  They together with the Innkeeper, his wife, et.al present Emanuel to the World. This is truly a wondrous gift that ushers in a whole new era. Death is fake news.

Oh-oh. Wait a minute. If death is fake news. Why should people try to make peace with each other, with their families and with their neighbours or with their enemies?  Sure, Christmas is about Love. It is also about, Peace and the hope for Justice.

The Christmas story takes place in winter. In winter, the road to the Inn gets muddy and full of cattle dung. Many days and nights are dark. There are times when the couple could have given up and simply allowed themselves and their love to die without pressing on toward the Inn.  Yet, they trusted God and what God was doing in their lives and so did the Innkeeper, his wife and the visitors who came to listen and watch as Mary presented her gift.

Christmas is about being cold and hungry and frightened and slipping and sliding and almost giving up because it is a time when death is very real and near. Yet, Mary and Joseph pressed on toward the Inn.  Getting to the Inn was God’s plan.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

May the gift of Emanuel bless you and give you hope for the New Year.