"Christmas Fever"

It is that time of the year when the kids get Christmas fever. Mine have it pretty bad and so do most of their friends. Some of them are fairly sophisticated though. A little girl said the other day, "Daddy, a kid in my class said that Santa Claus isn't real." Dad said, "What do you think?" "I think she's got it all wrong! She said that Santa is really God in disguise." "What did you say to her?" "I said, if Santa is really God in disguise, then how does she explain Mrs. Claus?" Ah, the wonder and the mystery of it all!

In today's gospel story, the religious authorities had come to hear of the activities of John the Baptist, especially this business of his baptism for the forgiveness of sins. They had reason to be concerned, for that was their domain, they controlled the authorized animal sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem. And so they sent a deputation to ask him who he was, or thought he was. John replied that, no, he was not the Messiah, or a reincarnation of Elijah, or the expected Prophet who would announce the coming of the Messiah. But he was the voice shouting in the desert, in the words of Isaiah, "Make a straight path for the Lord to travel!" The religious deputation then asked John, "If you are not the Messiah nor Elijah nor the Prophet, why do you baptize?" John answered, "I baptize with water, but among you stands the One you do not know. He is coming after me, but I am not good enough even to untie his shoelaces."

Perhaps we could focus our meditations today on this phrase of John's: "But among you stands the One whom you do not know." It is a touching phrase, for that was true of the life of Jesus, who embodied the wonder and the mystery of God, but whom his friends and family and followers did not truly know until they experienced the resurrection. And so it may also be true of our lives. It can be all too easy for us to overlook, to miss seeing, the wonder and the mystery of God among us, for we are all only too human. Allow me to share with you a story from my native Africa, that describes how that happened to one person.

There once was a man who lived on the edge of a forest, and he lived by keeping cattle. One morning he went to milk them and found that they had no milk to give. He thought, "This is very strange. I shall take particular care today that they are properly fed." So he took them to one of the better grazing grounds and fed them well and he thought, "Tomorrow morning I shall get a lot of milk." But next morning they still had no milk to give. He did this repeatedly until at last he thought, "No, there is something more to it than mere grazing; something else must be happening." So he kept watch on the cattle and in the middle of the night he saw a cord come down from the stars and down this cord came a number of very beautiful young women, of the people of the stars; and they ran with containers to his cattle and started milking them. Well, he ran out, and the star people scattered immediately and quickly ran up the cord, but he managed to catch hold of one of the girls and pull her back. He asked her to live with him and become his wife. She had her container with her still, and she said to him, "I am happy to live with you on one condition: that you will never look in this container without my permission." And he promised her that.

This went on happily for some months. He went out to look after the cattle by day; she went out to work in the fields and they met at night and were perfectly content. Then one day when she was out and it was very hot he came back and was very thirsty; he then saw this container and was suddenly very irritated by it and thought: "This is ridiculous. Why should I not look in it!" He took the lid off, looked inside, put it back and laughed. That evening when they met again the woman gave him one look and exclaimed, "You have looked in my container!" "Yes, I have," he answered, and added,"You silly girl! Why did you make such a fuss about the container, when it was empty all this time!" "Empty!" she cried in distress; And at once she became very sad, turned her back on him, walked straight into the sunset and was never seen again on earth.

It did not matter so much that he broke his word. What really mattered was that he could not see anything in the container which she had brought from the stars. His thirst and irritation and attitude prevented him from truly seeing. Think of the container that is your life and being, the container of your soul which is so full of starlight. Think also of the times when we lose our ability to look into it and see there the wonder and mystery of God.

Perhaps you have recently experienced such a time, or perhaps this is such a time in your life. During those times in my life, when I cannot see the wonder and mystery of God, then I hang on to that great promise of God; the promise of which St. Paul reminded us in his great hymn to love in 1st Corinthians chapter 13: "What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete - as complete as God's knowledge of me." This promise is of great comfort to me: God knows me completely. When we lose the ability to see clearly the things of our life and of God, because of the fortunes and misfortunes we experience in this world; even then we are known completely by our God.

King Lear, the great tragic hero of Shakespeare, was one such who lost the ability to see things clearly. He was brought to ruin by his vanity and by the scheming of his two greedy daughters and the villainous Edmund. Lear had cast away his one true daughter Cordelia for her refusal to bow to his vanity and then his world disintegrated and he descended into madness. Near the end of the play, Lear and Cordelia are reunited, but are also captured and sent to prison by Edmund. Lear now sees things clearly again and he speaks very tenderly to Cordelia. He tells her they will sing like birds in the cage. He says that when she asks his blessing, he will kneel down instead and ask her forgiveness. Lear says they will laugh from their prison at those 'gilded butterflies', the courtiers who scheme and plot to win favour. Then he say something very striking. He says, "And we will take upon us the mystery of things, as if we were God's spies."

Lear sees things clearly again, he sees through all his vanity and all their scheming, and mostly he sees clearly the faithful love of his daughter and his own need to ask forgiveness. Prison brings no fear to him now, there he will live and pray and sing, and laugh at the folly of the courtiers. And most of all Lear has been renewed; ready again, as he says, "to take upon us the mystery of things, as if we were God's spies".

In your prayers today, give thanks to God for Jesus, who embodies the wonder and the mystery of God; give thanks that God knows us completely, even in those times when we lose our ability to see God; give thanks also for the times of renewal and of new chances to take upon us the mystery of things, as if we were God's spies. Thanks be to God. Amen.






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