Good morning…
Like light seeping into the chilly winter dark, God finds a way to find us where we are.
“Sue,” a friend wrote, “I too have been drawn to Bonhoeffer in the last week. His little book, God Is In the Manger, has some of his Christmas sermons.” Then she shared a portion of Bonheoffer’s Christmas letter from the Tegel prison to his parents Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer on December 17, 1943.
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Imprisoned, separated from his loved ones, Bonhoeffer writes:
“Viewed from a Christian perspective, Christmas in a prison cell can, of course, hardly be considered particularly problematic. Most likely many of those here in this building will celebrate a more meaningful and authentic Christmas than in places where it is celebrated in name only.
That misery, sorrow, poverty, loneliness, helplessness, and guilt mean something quite different in the eyes of God than according to human judgment; that God turns toward the very places from which humans turn away; that Christ was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn — a prisoner grasps this better than others, and for him this is truly good news.
And to the extent he believes it, he knows that he has been placed within the Christian community that goes beyond the scope of all spatial and temporal limits, and the prison walls lose their significance. . . .
With great gratitude and love,
Your Dietrich”
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God comes to us in a manger, a hard stone trough used to feed livestock. Christ is born in a stable, the only lowly place offering room. Community with Christ goes beyond spatial and temporal limits, dissolving prison walls into great gratitude and love.
A commentary continued: “Ironically, we can miss this meaning of Christmas if our celebration is only wrapped up in comfortable warm fires and the fellowship of friends and family. We can miss the memory of our desperation that required the Son of God to suffer for us. We can miss the personal desperation met in the manger. And we can miss out on the fellowship of his sufferings.”
Wrestling with our own misery and sorrow, poverty and loneliness, helplessness and guilt, might we also celebrate a more meaningful and authentic Christmas than in places where it is celebrated in name only?
Write this down for the next generation so people not yet born will praise God: “God looked out from his high holy place; from heaven he surveyed the earth. He listened to the groans of the doomed, he opened the doors of their death cells.” (Psalm 102:18-22, MSG). Do we grasp it? This is truly the good news of Christmas.
Like light seeping into the chilly winter dark, God finds a way to find us where we are.
…Sue…
P.S. Yesterday we received the sad news that Gleaton, the senior UGA student, passed away from his head injury. Please join me in praying for his grieving family and many friends as they prepare to celebrate his life on Monday in Albany, Georgia. Like light seeping into the chilly winter dark, may God find a way to find them where they are.
