The Spirit of Christmas

The scriptures referred to are Galatians 4:4-7.

There is an interesting phenomena that existed before the internet but which, as usual, the worldwide web has exacerbated. It is taking a really good, pithy, insightful quote and misattributing it to someone famous. As one meme puts it, “Don't believe everything you read on the internet just because there's a picture with a quote next to it.” And it is attributed to Abraham Lincoln complete with his picture. For some reason people cannot believe an obscure person made a succinct or witty observation that is universal. It must have been said by someone well known. Consequently, there are large sections on the Wikiquote pages of Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and C.S. Lewis listing things they supposedly said that are disputed or mistakenly attributed to them. There is even a Facebook page called Confirming C.S. Lewis Quotations.

Fortunately one of my favorite theological quotes was in fact written by C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity. He wrote, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” Even so Lewis, who was extremely well-read, was probably paraphrasing Irenaeus of Lyon, a second century Greek bishop, who put it this way, “He who was the Son of God became the the Son of Man, that man...might become the son of God.” I think Lewis said it better. But both may have been thinking of a verse in today's passage from Galatians: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”

Often we get so caught up in the idea that God became a human being that we forget that there was a reason for it and it wasn't merely to die on a cross. It wasn't merely to change our destination in the afterlife. It was ultimately to change us into children of God.

There is an idea out there that all people are automatically children of God. But that's not strictly true. We are his creations. Yes, we were created in his image but you have to admit that if you look hard at people the most you can say is that we are a caricature of God. We means we can appreciate Hamlet's monologue where he says, “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.” The gap between what people are capable of and how they actually behave is astonishing and not in a good way.

Every good thing humans have invented has also been used for evil. The Athenians came up with democracy but then excluded women and slaves and restricted it to adult male citizens, perhaps 30% of the adult population. And in the US we did the same, adding that the males had to be white and own land. We have expanded the franchise but there are always those who fight to limit the political power of the average person. 

Inventors have come up with innumerable labor saving devices...and torture devices. Thomas Edison, in order to discredit his competitors who used alternating current rather than his direct current, invented the electric chair using alternating current! Science has made great breakthroughs that have extended lives and it also has been used to justify racism and eugenics. After World War 2 we acquired a lot of valuable data on human endurance...obtained by Nazi scientists like Joseph Mengele who experimented on Jews and disabled people. 

And of course we ended that world war by developing atomic weapons which are so horrific we have never used them again. Except in experiments in the Marshall Islands that have left the Bikini Atoll more radioactive than Chernobyl and Fukushima 60 years after the event. Oh, and the 100 above ground tests held in the Nevada desert a mere 65 miles from Las Vegas which the CDC says resulted in 11,000 cancer deaths. C.S. Lewis said, “Actually it seems to me that one can hardly say anything either bad enough or good enough about life.” The same goes for human beings.

And it is the gap between what we aspire to be and what we actually are that has turned many people off to the church and to God. There was actually a group called Fundamentalists Anonymous in the 1980s and 90s that was set up to help people leaving religious groups that are rigid and controlling. Worse, I just read a article in The Times that said, “Nuns running a children's home in Germany prostituted boys in their care to priests, local politicians and businessmen in the 1960s and 1970s, according to a victim who won a court fight for compensation.” This is the same church that builds and runs hospitals, homeless shelters, food pantries and aids and resettles refugees.

How does this happen? Because we cannot be what God created us to be if we try to do it on our own. Let's go back to the beginning. In Genesis it says, “...the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” As in Greek, the Hebrew word for breath and wind also means spirit. We become living beings created in the image of God, thanks to the Spirit of life God gives us. As C.S. Lewis points out, God makes us the way a human being makes a car. And just as the car is designed to run on gasoline, we are designed to run on God. Try to fuel your life with something other than God, even good intentions, and your life won't run very well or go very far. Most of humanity and sadly, some Christians are running on empty.

That's what I meant about us not automatically being children of God, but creatures. Lewis compares it to the difference between a toy soldier and a real one. And if he lived today, he might talk of the marvelous toys and robots we have now that are able to mimic human beings to an amazing degree, thanks to computers and electronics. But have you noticed that the more they look like humans, the creepier they are? Because they aren't actually human. They lack real humanity.

And when people do awful things, like abuse children, we say such things are inhuman. Except that they aren't. Humans do such things. But part of us knows that is not how humans should act. Somewhere inside us, we remember that we were meant to be like God, as Hamlet says. We have the potential. Why do we fall short? (And by the way, that is literally what the Greek word for sin means: to fall short, to miss the mark.)

We need God's Spirit. When we turn to God and accept his offer of grace, we become not merely creatures who vaguely resemble God in some ways but his children. Paul says, “And because you are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba! Father!'” The Spirit that empowered Jesus in his ministry empowers those who trust Jesus to follow him and to be like him.

Christmas does not end with the baby lying in the manger, just as Christianity doesn't end with Jesus ascending into heaven. It's just the beginning of what God is doing in us. Jesus shows us how to live and then passes the baton on to us, so to speak, by sending his Spirit to us. The Son of God became a human being to enable human beings to become children of God. He did it not just by dying for us but by giving his life, his Spirit, to us. If we are God's children, the resemblance should be so strong that people will see what we do and say, “That's His kid, alright!”

There is a meme I saw and shared on the internet that has become wildly popular, especially on the Episcopalians on Facebook and ELCA Clergy pages. It shows Jesus sitting and talking to a little girl. He says, “Love, compassion, forgiveness, healing, understanding and renewal. These are the tenets of Christmas...” And she says, “Shouldn't that be year round?”

Indeed.