Joy to the world

Well, it’s a merry Christmas after all.

It’s a little different this year, rolling up a sleeve to get the gift we’ve all been waiting for, rather than ripping off bows and tinsel and wrappings. And in a year that’s been turned upside down, inside out and sent skittering off sideways, it should be small surprise that what we want most isn’t going to be under the tree Friday morning. Good things, after all, come to those who wait.

Trouble is, we’re not particularly good at waiting. With the virus on the verge of being vanquished, more of us than makes sense seem determined to get out there and catch it, then spread it around like so much Christmas cheer. It sure seems this Christmas has a shortage of wise men and a real surplus of jackasses.

Yeah, with no parties, no carols, no pageants or concerts it does feel like the Grinch has been set loose in the land. The choirs of angels haven’t had a rehearsal since spring and every sighting of Rudolph’s red nose sends him back in for another COVID test. White or not, we’ve been dreaming of a Christmas we’re dreading won’t come to pass.

And if we’re really fortunate, it won’t. This season we’re not so much called upon to give gifts as make sacrifices – not just to give, but to give up things we like to do, places we want to go, the presence of people we want to be with. To do what we know is wise.

St. Luke’s Christmas story might help point the way. We like to think of it as an event sent from heaven, but living through it must have seemed like hell.

Think of it…setting out on a cross country journey in the middle of winter, nine months pregnant and sitting on a donkey, no less. No truck stops. No Mac and Don’s. No Sirius XM radio. Just a desolate rocky trail from Nazareth to Bethlehem and no Travelocity to lock in motel reservations when you get there – and, of course, we all know how that worked out. You betcha -- history’s worst hotel room. Not the neat little manger scene set up in front of the church altar or even the live nativity on display on the front lawn. No, think a ramshackle old sheep shed. Dark, drafty, no door to speak of, ankle-deep manure and barely a dry spot in the dirty straw to lie down on.

All this just to pay your taxes…

And, of course, now it’s time to go into labor.

Yeah, nothing like a cobweb draped, manure crusted, rat infested obstetrical suite to welcome a first-born child. Sweating, pushing, grimacing … a fat horse-fly lands on the infant wrapped in his mother’s travel-stained shawl and laid in a dirty feed trough still damp with donkey slobber, while, all alone, Dad does his best to staunch the bleeding and help the new mother make it through the night.

 That is the event we commemorate every year – usually tidied up to a considerable degree, the better to fit our tidied up lives. But this year, as we are so tempted to feel so put out and offended by disrupted traditions, frustrated expectations and a general weariness of life too long thrown out of kilter it may be a good time to reflect on what is, for virtually all of us, our relative good fortune.  If after that journey, after that birth, angels could proclaim joy to the world, good will to all, how much more – even now -- do we have to celebrate?