Christmas meditations beautifully illuminated

By Gerry Bowler and ChristianWeek | November 15, 2007

Christmas is the planet's most prominent festival, celebrated with a mixture of materialism and sentimentality in most countries, and a holiday responsible for generating a sizeable chunk of the world's industrial economy. In Canada we spend at least a month out of each year in thrall to its spell and its demands. We battle crowds in the mall, peruse catalogues, attend school concerts, bake treats, stuff turkeys, trim trees, make lists, write letters, address envelopes, wrap presents and decorate our houses. Christmas is a hurtling roller-coaster of emotions and experiences packed into one end of the calendar.
It is also the second-highest holy moment in the Christian year--a fact which moves not a few of us to pray, meditate, worship and rejoice.

For all of these reasons, and many more, Christmas should be taken seriously. We should prepare for it and live through it with an intentionality that reflects with the large part it plays in all our lives.

Here is a book that infuses this festival with a deep regard to the promises of God, the lessons of history and the embrace of the community of saints.

God With Us is framed as a series of meditations for each in day in the Christmas season--and the authors recognize that Christmas is a season that continues long after December 25. Scripture selections, prayers and insights into the days of saints mark the journey from Advent to Epiphany. The readings are splendidly adorned by examples of the glorious Christmas art that western civilization has produced through the centuries: works by Giotto, Rembrandt, Durer, Bosch, Veronese, Caravaggio and anonymous medieval and Byzantine masters.

The book is beautifully composed and typeset. It's a pleasure to browse and even more rewarding when approached daily.

The authors come from a variety of Christian traditions including Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. Among them are theologians, poets, a priest and a playwright. Not all of the contributions are equally profound, each has something important to say about the weeks of the season through which they guide the reader.

The meaning of incarnation and the need for preparation, repentance, expectancy, joy, mystery, hopefulness, weariness and justice are some of the important themes that confront the reader.

Richard John Neuhaus reminds us in that God is looking for us and we for Him.

"Better yet," says Neuhaus, "He has found us. The great question is not whether we have found God but whether we have found ourselves being found by God. God is not lost. We were, or, as the case may be, we are."

Scott Cairns meditates on Isaiah's prophecy of regeneration which leads him to reflect on the story of the paralytic brought to Jesus.

"When I read again how the man's friends struggled to place him before our Lord, and when I read again how Christ, seeing the faith of the friends, forgave the paralytic, I glimpse again his compassion and his power, and I glimpse as well how corporate a chore this business of healing may turn out to be. One Body."

Kathleen Norris draws our attention to the processional of the Christmas Vigil in the Byzantine rite: "Rejoice, Jerusalem! All you lovers of Sion, share our festivities! On this day the age-old bonds of Adam's condemnation were broken, paradise was opened for us, the serpent was crushed, and the woman, whom he once deceived, lives now as mother of the creator."

Here, she says, "is the essence of Christmas. It is not merely the birth of Jesus we celebrate. It is our salvation story, and all of creation is invited to dance, sing, and feast."

God With Us is full of such gems and deserves a place on our Christmas reading list.