Long before the ancient and much-needed credal formulas defining the parameters of our basic beliefs, like the great councils of Ephesus and Nicaea, the very first creed was uttered during the drama of the Easter days.
When the two disciples, who had encountered the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus, rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the others of their astounding experience, they heard the words, “Yes, it is true; Jesus has risen from the dead.” That is our faith—indeed, the very foundation of our faith. If, as one inane clergyman said many years ago, the Resurrection was merely a “conjuring trick with bones,” then we should all eat, drink, and be merry, and perhaps become Hare Krishna devotees. Yes, it is true; Christ is risen, and all has changed.
Before that fact, we pause and ponder the cosmos-changing precursory fact, the very reason we celebrate Christmas, without which the Resurrection itself might not have the foundation it required.
I have been pondering, throughout Advent, the idea of our Christian lives, and Advent in particular, being the ‘in-between time’ from Christ’s first coming at Christmas to His Second and Final Coming on the Last Day. That idea comes from the Anglican poet and clergyman Malcolm Guite. What he means is that, obviously, since Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, His First Coming, is the very reason we celebrate, we await His Second and Final Appearance on the Last Day. It is rather silly when we hear about “awaiting His birth” or “preparing for His birth” during Advent; Christmas is the celebration of His birth; all time since, the entire 2,000 years of Christian history and Christendom, is the ‘in-between’ time,’ as we await His Final Coming, which will not be hidden in a stable unknown to the great and the good, but it will be terrifying. All those who denied Him, condemned Him, and continue to wound His sacred body with their sins and hatred—and let us never be presumptuous enough to say that is not us—will, as the Advent carol says, be “deeply wailing.” Our meditation for Christmas is the simple question of who and what we celebrate on Christmas Day, why it brings true and lasting joy, and why it changes everything.
Jesus Christ, born of Mary, foster son of St. Joseph, is God. When we genuflect, as we do, during the Creed on Christmas Day at the words, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” we are acknowledging, both with our words and the physical attitude of worship and obeisance, that simple truth. Body and soul are, for a rare moment, in harmony. It is either true or untrue; there is no middle ground. The idea of the agnostic, a spiritual and intellectual sitting on the fence, is a feeble one; it lacks courage; the fence can also be a rather painful place to perch.
Sir John Betjeman, the late English poet, put it rather well in one of his Christmas poems. When being considered for the position of British poet laureate, The Guardian newspaper described him as “arbitrary and irrelevant,” something The Guardian would know all about. Betjeman, with his characteristic good humour, enthusiastically agreed that he was irrelevant.
These lines from his poem “And Is It True?” form the heart of our meditation:
And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all
“This most tremendous tale” is the truth we affirm in the Creed and the dogmas of the Faith. The dogma, as Dorothy L. Sayers said, is the drama: the 2,000-year-old history of Christianity, the beauty created by Christian culture, the doctrine of the dignity of humanity, and finally the beauty of holiness exemplified in the lives of the saints. All of it, all of it, depends on the answer to that question: “And is it true?”
If it is, and if you are a Christian, your entire life must be based on the affirmative answer to that question; everything is changed. Life, morals, attitude, culture, politics—all of the mundane in the true sense of the word.
Betjeman continues the poem, posing the question that, if it is true, all the Christmas preparations, the food, the gifts, the chaos, all that we do, all that we think is important, not just for Christmas but throughout our lives, cannot, as he writes,
with this single Truth compare
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
Yes, it is true—the Word became flesh, dwelt among us, and rose on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures.
It is a day of joy, a day of hope, a day beginning the Christmas season. Remember, every day of the next week is Christmas Day, the Octave; not so we can desperately try and find new ways to do something with turkey or our meat of choice, but to truly merry-make, to be with friends and family, to acknowledge the truth that we say has changed our lives, and for the better.
But this celebration, this joy, this ‘in-between time’ we who call ourselves Christians are living in until His Second Coming—the day and the hour we do not know, it may be in 500 years, it may be in two hours—is in preparation for that. The Lord, we know, will suddenly enter His temple, as Handel portrays so powerfully in his Christmas oratorio, and who may abide the day of His coming? St. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the 4th century, put it so well; meditate on his words: “He came first in the order of divine providence to teach men by gentle persuasion; but when He comes again, they will, whether they wish it or not, be subjected to His kingship.”
Christ, whose birth we do celebrate, is the only means of salvation for humanity, and all, in this ‘in-between time,’ are offered the way of knowing Him by “gentle persuasion.” The Church, even if it did fail in past centuries, as St. John Paul II used to say, never “imposes but always proposes.” Our persuasion, as St. Paul said, is not by means of rhetoric; it is a gentle persuasion that Christ is the only way to human happiness in this life and the only way to heaven. This is the mission of the Church; this is the mission of all the baptised.
It is the joyful message of Christmas: that it is true, and because it is true, we must show it, live it, and preach it. Not conform to the world, but to change the world; not to go with the stream, but to swim upstream. We are persuaded by words, but most powerfully by the beauty of our lives. There is, however, a warning: the time for gentle persuasion will end. When he comes again, all, “whether they wish it or not, will be subjected to His Kingship.” During this Christmas season, we kneel in adoration before a crib, venerating a baby and celebrating His birth. One day, we will kneel before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, either wailing and lamenting or worshipping wonderfully.
