Word to the Wise
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Advent
[2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8B-12, 14A, 16 and Luke 1:67-79]Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; for he has come to his people and set them free. He had raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David.
When one is trying to tell a story to someone else about an event that happened many years before and is doing it by putting together pieces of information from many different sources. it is inevitable that the pieces are placed according to the needs of the story rather than from some empirical or logical necessity! The pieces come from many different relatives or eye-witnesses or people who knew eye-witnesses, etc. etc. The story teller may have his or her own experiences to add to the mix! Added to this is not simply the matter of events but the context within which these events occurred! In the case of the birth of Jesus, the Messianic expectations of the Jewish people formed an important context. These expectations were not uniform by any means, but they were indeed part of the very diverse world-view and faith of Judaism at the time of Jesus' birth. Eventually, years after Jesus' death, when the story of his birth became part of the Christian gospel, the gospel writer(s) could draw on many different traditions to tell that story! In today's Gospel, the "Canticle of Zechariah" gives us an example of a song that was used by early Jewish Christians to express what God had done in sending Jesus as Messiah and John the Baptist as his herald. The original hymn (canticle) was probably composed long before Jesus' birth since it contains primarily Old Testament imagery, but it has been adapted as an expression of a new reality - the birth of the Messiah! "He has come to his people and set them free!" The hopes and expectations included in the hymn are exemplified in the first scripture of today from the Book of Samuel! The Messiah would be descended from David and would deliver his people! The theme of liberation is a strong one and one that we, in our time, can give some serious thought to. There are the bonds of materialism and consumerism. There is war and extreme poverty and epidemic illness in some parts of our planet! Is it too much to expect of God that we should pray for deliverance from these many scourges? No, of course not! But if we simply look at the Christmas crib and see something familiar that is part of the annual decoration and have no expectations at all from the event that it represents and the story that it tells, then we are likely to remain in a bondage of our own creation. The crib set will soon resume its attic or closet home and life will go on. But it doesn't have to go on "as usual!" If it is only a holiday that we celebrate, we will be no different once the celebration is over. If it is the birth of Christ, then perhaps we will find a way to accept his deliverance and be very different persons. AMEN
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