Wind

The wind is persistent, steady like the passing of train, endlessly pouring from the horizon. It does not rest or gust, but it simply blows. Low clouds race across the sky with barely time to perceive their shape. They are in such a hurry I wonder if they know where they are going. And above it all the moon throws its pale blue to the earth below. It traces cloud, leaves no puddle without projection, and sets the rest into hard shadow. This is not moonlight that washes over everything, but some sort of heavenly street light in the midst of a cold, dark alley. Stories and tales of the darker things are born in a night like this, yet against this sinister canvas there is nothing looming, fearful, or wicked. The night is rare in its beauty, and rich in the senses. You do not breath of the air on a night like this, you drink it. It is standing in the awareness that the world is alive all around you and that something is driving it all, something big, something mysterious.

We really have very little to go on as to what kind of night it really was. We know that magi followed a star, but that is really about it. It may have been cold, the moon may or may not have been out in the night sky, it may have been cloudy, we just do not know. Yet when we think about Christmas Eve, we picture a night of endless stars, the moon beaming down through the cracks and the cold onto the birth of Christ, our Lord. We imagine because it is an event that is easily romanticized. I do not think this is a bad thing yet it is amazing how many assumptions we apply to an evening we really know very little about. In the scriptures we get only a few verses about that night, but there is one thing I am relatively certain about. In the culmination of the physical and emotion turmoil that was Mary’s teenage pregnancy, there must have been a tremendous sense of life and the world around them - something big, mysterious, and driving it all like a strong winter’s wind.

Imagine a world in which everyone lives with a sense of something bigger at hand, something more meaningful. When I picture this world, I picture a lot of happy people who seldom fret the woes of life. To engage all your senses is to experience the world with wonder, and to give yourself up to the inevitable is to live without care. I am convinced this is joy, living without regard to the petty things or even the dramatic, but rather with a healthy and gracious understanding of the bigger picture. When I imagine the Bethlehem sky and the couple in the manger, I have to believe they felt the same overwhelming peace and belonging, even in the midst of labor.

There are many focuses in the season of Advent. I have written about the prophecies and anticipation of Israel, and about peace, to no adequate effect, in some prior work. It is also common to hear sermons about hope, joy, the magi, and the shepherds, not to mention Mary and Joseph. I wanted to take the time to consider the weight and worth of this season, I wanted to change the way I looked at Christmas. But I quickly realized how incapable I am of truly capturing and considering everything there is to consider. The Old Testament alone tells of the hundreds upon hundreds of years of anticipation, then factor in all the players in the story and what makes them essential, and it is downright overwhelming. I do not want to over think Christmas.

Now I sit here in the dark in front of the Christmas tree at my parent’s house and I picture that moon, the wind, and the shadow. I listen to Andrew Peterson and picture the stable, what the sky must have looked like on that night Christ was born. I sink back into the couch and I rest in the knowledge of something big and mysterious, something driving it all. The ancient prophecy, the star-gazing magi, the dumbfounded shepherds, noble Joseph, and blessed Mary, it all fits together so well. The circumstances surrounding the birth of Christ were perfect in every way.

I originally planned to write something for every week of the Advent season, which I obviously did not do. This week was intended to be joy, but I am realizing that if joy is living gratefully in unconditional acceptance, then perhaps all these other aspects of the season fall right in. By living in joy, we experience peace and hope, and in these things we get a pretty good picture of Christ. But joy would not exist without love, and perhaps the most important thing I have been thinking about these last couple weeks is that the coming of the Christ was a tremendous act of love. Christ became man and squeezed into this world because He loved us enough to want us to be with Him.

As Christmas day is now upon us, it is my hope that we can all rest in the knowledge of God made man through the little baby boy born in a manger. Why God did such a thing is much bigger than us, yet it is a joy to be a part of it. I hope and I pray that this Christmas is filled with the knowledge of something big and mysterious made complete in that little boy. Behold the Lamb of God, never changing, never running astray, and upon him all the Glory of the world. Merry Christmas.