"I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Mark 10:15
Christmas is Innocence.
Well it’s Christmas Eve, or at least it was, and I’m writing last minute thoughts on the day now spent preparing for the day that now is. I'm thinking through what I have learned from a full day preparing for worship, preparing to inspire the faithful to something beyond reason, preparing to invite visitors to discover Christmas, again. And through it all I learned that Christmas is innocence. Let me explain…
The story goes that in the Garden of Eden when we chose to believe our own publicity, that we could be better than God created us to be, we chose to satisfy our craving for power and pride over our love for and trust in God and in the process we lost our innocence. Simple as it may sound, that choice, just like any act of adultery, resulted in the stabbing pain of fear and guilt that has plagued us ever since. I'm convinced that most of what we do is to avoid or hide these two most common human diseases. Cut off from God, we fear that we won't measure up, fear that we won't be good enough to be loved and the fear that we are mortal and thus our lives are meaningless. And then of course there’s the guilt trip we take so often, guilt that comes from listening to our inner thoughts more than talking to them, guilt from not being perfect and guilt from mistakes we've made that never seem to go away.
in·no·cence n. 1. freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil : blamelessness Freedom from guile, cunning, or deceit. f. Freedom from harmfulness; inoffensiveness.Christmas wants to tell a different story through the birth of a child, the epitome of innocence. Certainly part of the story is the humility that children bring to the story, but Jesus invites us to see more. Jesus was born into the world not with power, but overcomes power with innocence. "Jesus became what we are to make us what He is." [Athanasius of Alexandria] So what have I learned during this long day... (1) The more I worry about creating Christmas the less likely I am to find it. (2) The more I play, laugh and sing, the more I feel God's Presence. (3) The more I can help someone, say a kind word, or simply say 'thanks' the more innocence I feel returning to my soul.
“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.” ― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
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