My Molded Plastic Baby Jesus

I picked up this ridiculously kitschy molded plastic nativity in a second-hand store a few years ago. The three wise men, Joseph and Mary all have light bulbs stuck through their backs so you can plug them in and they’ll light up. It just adds another element of wrongness that is actually what I like so much about this set. That the baby Jesus got covered up by the snow this year is all the more a reminder to me that I don’t do Christmas right.

What I mean by not doing it right is this: Sometimes I send out cards, sometimes I don’t.  Sometimes I put lights on the bushes outside, sometimes I don’t.  I haven’t baked a single cookie, made candy or spent an ounce of energy cleaning the house.  I did not decorate the tree (my daughter did a lovely job). I spent about 3 hours of actual store time shopping for gifts for my family; the rest I bought online.

By many people’s standards, I have not done the essential things that make it Christmas. But I’m not trying to make a statement or rebelling against consumerism. I’m not saying you are wrong if you enjoyed doing the things I haven’t done. I’m not campaigning to “keep Christ in Christmas” or boycotting stores that don’t greet me with “Merry Christmas” or anything like that. And guess what? It’s still going to be Christmas tomorrow.

Why? Because Christmas has nothing to do with what I do and everything to do with what God has done. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:27-29 NRSV).

And what better example do we have than Mary? For God has “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant” (Luke 1:48). This is good news for those of us with a tendency toward perfectionism, who never quite measure up to our own standards. It is good news for any of us who are afraid we have done it wrong. It is good news for anyone who has tried repeatedly and for anyone who has given up trying. It is good news for those who wonder if they’ve done enough and for those who think they do everything right.

That God in Christ comes to us, to you and to me, without any human doing, not Mary’s, not Joseph’s, not yours and not mine is good news. The Christ child comes to us, for us, to be with us, whether we’ve done it right or not.

Wait For It...

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
    my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning,
   more than those who watch for the morning. (Psalm 130:5-6)

I think it’s safe to say we often fail to wait well.  The fact that “express lanes” exist is evidence enough. Watch the cars inching forward next to you at the stoplight. “NoWait” is a phone app that urges users to “Stop Waiting. Get in Line from Your Phone.” Well, actually you still have to wait, but the restaurant can now text you when your table is ready. Maybe it makes waiting easier somehow. When we took the kids to Disney World in 2000, for an additional fee we could bypass the lines at many rides, going straight to the front by showing our “FastPass.” Cell phone companies compete for new customers by advertising shortened periods between phone upgrades. Internet service providers are continually seeking faster download speed. With our third child we are witnessing a new twist in the college admissions process; some colleges now send out “express” applications to select students, promising an acceptance decision in a matter of days instead of weeks.

We just plain hate to wait, and when we do, we complain. After doctor appointments or worse, trips to the emergency room, we feel compelled to report how long we were forced to wait, which we do with mild annoyance at best, indignant anger at our worst.

Related to our aversion to waiting is our love for all things “instant.” Redbox and Netflix offer us movies on demand with no more waiting in theater lines. ITunes gives us immediate access to thousands of music selections. We can get instant loan approval using instant credit applications. With smart phone technology, we can instantly purchase items we see in ads by scanning a code. Online retail giant, Amazon, reported recently that it hopes by 2015 to use unmanned drones to deliver packages within 30 minutes. Instant potatoes, instant pudding, instant coffee, instant oatmeal… the list is almost endless.

Why the obsession with acceleration? Why is it so hard to wait and why do we put so much effort into avoiding it?

One clue has come to me recently by way of observing my mother, who is recovering in a nursing home for an undetermined period of time following a fall in her home. As a registered nurse for 50 years, she is much more accustomed to being in charge than she is being a patient. After spending decades responding to call lights, she is now in the position of having to wait for hers to be answered. If you’ve ever been hospitalized yourself, you know that once you’ve pushed that call button, you don’t have much choice but to wait…and trust.

And maybe that is the real crux of the problem for us. Waiting means not being in control. It makes us anxious and so to relieve that discomfort we try to do something, anything to maintain the self-deception of power over our situation. But in working so hard to avoid waiting, we deprive ourselves of a spiritual practice that can teach us things we do not learn through instant gratification. When we rush headlong into the pre-celebration of Christmas before the frost is even on the pumpkin, we deprive ourselves of an opportunity we have to practice waiting well. We are grabbing with our own hands something that belongs to God.

While it’s true John the Baptist cries out to “prepare the way of the Lord,” I wonder to what extent our preparations for Christmas serve to feed our desire to effect an outcome. When we say we are “having Christmas” on this day or that one, are we expressing a desire to control and perhaps missing out on an opportunity to receive? Could John’s scolding of the crowds who came to be baptized be more about their need to check an item off their “to-do” list? Maybe he was all worked up because repentance is more akin to receiving than it is to doing.  

I have my own challenges when it comes to waiting faithfully, but these words from Isaiah offer assurance that this discipline, instead of being a waste of time, can be a gift like no other.

            It will be said on that day,
            Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
            This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
            let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. (Isaiah 25:9)

            Amen.