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Near the end of World War II, my grandfather who was serving in the Royal Hungarian Army, was captured in Budapest. He was put on a train with other prisoners of war to be taken to Siberia. Amazingly, the conductor of the train that day happened to be a fellow from the Transylvanian village where my grandfather was born. He recognized my grandpa and slowed the train down as they were crossing the region near their birthplace. My grandpa jumped off the train and hid in the fields for several days before he was reunited with his wife and recently born baby daughter—my mom.
For my family, this is a story about the wonderous inbreaking of grace that made a new beginning, a new chapter possible for my grandpa and our family. We love to tell this story often. And we do it, year after year. For us, this is a story of unexpected compassion, courage and hope of what can be. It is a story of deep joy flowing from the experience of surprising, mysterious grace.
Not unlike telling the Christmas story over and over again, every year - the story of the wondrous inbreaking of God’s love into the midst of fraught and vulnerable human lives. It may seem strange to keep on repeating a story about God being born into the life of a lowly couple living in the hinterlands of the Roman empire, facing the daily struggles of people under military occupation, the story of God being born into the lives of an unwed young woman and an ordinary carpenter.
Yet, even 2000 years later, this story resonates. This story of Christmas is “weird,” Esau McCaulley writes. “Christmas… has never promised to soothe every pain or cure every ill,” McCaulley contends. “Instead, Christmas is the grand miracle that makes space for all the smaller miracles. It gives us enough hope to walk a little farther in the dark toward the glimmer of something that seems too distant to reach.”
The Christmas story is the story of divine love that unsettles traditions and customs and expectations, offering hope, healing, and forgiveness. It is a story of a new beginning and growth and transformation where we could not have imagined it possible.
This story resonates with the longings of Christians in Jordan and Palestine where churches have canceled Christmas celebration this year. For as Bishop Munib Younan from the Lutheran Church in Jordan and Palestine said recently:
“How can we celebrate Christmas?... Even if the war would end at Christmas, how could we celebrate in such a situation? Thousands have been killed in Gaza, 60 percent of houses bombed and destroyed. Instead, we will pray to God to stop the war, to find a peaceful solution.”
This story resonates still in our world fraught with wars and natural disasters, diseases, and human greed that keep so many without food, safety, and companionship. It resonates with our deep longings for fresh hope.
In one of my favorite Christmas carols, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” there is a verse that goes like this:
"How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of God’s heaven.
No ear my hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”
This carol reminds us that the story of Christmas is the story of God’s wondrous gift to us, the greatest gift of all: the story of Emanuel—God-with-us no matter what.
Friends, as we continue our journey through Advent toward Christmas, may we keep on telling the story. May we inhabit it until it drowns out all other voices that stifle life, until we live it—the story of unexpected compassion, courage and hope of what can be. And may we find deep joy flowing from the experience of surprising, mysterious grace.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Enikö
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