Christmas Weekday
If it were a tad warmer in Dayton, one might see a greater effort to begin the dismantling of Christmas. Lights have to come off of gutters. They have to be extracted from bushes and unraveled from around trees. Of course, in homes, people may have already begun to put away ornaments and take down trees and stockings. And, despite what my wife would argue, that's ok. Seasons have their time because they have a beginning and an end and Christmas is no exception to that rule. As we near the end of the Christmas season, our first reading from John reminded me of a part of this season that should go on even after our ornaments are snug and lights coiled.
In the first reading John talks about the testimony of the witnesses. The witness of the Spirit, the water, and the blood. There is a whole host of richness and depth in this passage. Seasonally, though, I was drawn to the word blood. Blood and Christmas seem an odd pairing, but they were brought together very well in the Christmas homily I heard and I hope I can explain why I found the two connected again.
The Christmas season is of course full of wonderful traditions and time spent with family. There is also a fair amount of time that people might spend watching any number of Christmas movies. In many of our Christmas movies and stories their is the moment that the characters discover, or rediscover, or re-rediscover the 'true' meaning of Christmas. We've gotten so good at this story line and simultaneously, offered so many 'true' meanings of Christmas that the web comic XKCD produced a strip where one character proposes that today's true meaning of Christmas is to discover the 'true' meaning of Christmas.
That's where the blood comes into this reflection. Many of our stories and movies remind us of the 'spirit' of Christmas, but maybe XKCD was on to something. Maybe, we've made the search for the true meaning of Christmas a genre unto itself because we have difficulty remembering the flesh and blood of Christmas. Again and again, John reminds us that Jesus came through water and blood.
As we leave this Christmas season let's not forget the flesh and blood of Christmas. The reality that God became incarnate, and poor. That God worked alongside us, walked with us, dined with us, wept with us, died for us, and rose for us -- and that he can still be "in the least of these" today.
For me, the temptation of of the spirit of Christmas as our movies offer it, is that I'm able to tune out the flesh and blood of Christmas in need all around me. May that temptation be left behind with the season and a greater awareness of Christ's presence be in our lives.
-Spencer Hargadon