by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Don’t let me rush you to Christmas. I, of all people, want to sit in the gentle anticipation that we call Advent. And if any of this sounds familiar to you, it relates to an 11 pm meditation I did a couple Christmas Eves ago. It just seems even more appropriate given the state of things at year end 2008.

“We can, and should also, celebrate Christmas despite the ruins around us.”

The words came flowing from the thoughtful pen of a man sitting in a Berlin prison, cell #92. It was the first Sunday of Advent 1943, and Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was writing to his parents. He would remain in prison until executed by the Nazis in April of 1945. In the letter, he referred to a 16 th century painting of the nativity by Albrecht Altdorfer. The holy family sits huddled in the stark ruins of crumbling bricks and dark buildings. Bonhoeffer was astonished that the artist would picture the nativity in such a different way than virtually all of his contemporaries, who imagined soft lights, flowing robes and even stately columns for the Christmas scene.

“We can, and should also, celebrate Christmas despite the ruins around us.”

Ruins? It’s not the way today’s beer commercials picture the season, nor the endless advertisements for diamond rings, new automobiles or upgraded computers.

But commercials don’t have to portray reality. Our world today contains a lot of “ruin”- lost jobs and income, foreclosures, plunging markets, anxieties, fears, wars and threats of war. Certainly Bonhoeffer’s Advent thoughts in 1943 arose out of far worse and more somber conditions than anything we remotely deal with today. Yet the questions are the same. How can we be happy? How do we celebrate? Bonhoeffer’s response to such things was to shrug off “happiness” as circumstantial and shallow, and focus instead on joy and WHY we celebrate. It was exactly into the ruins of the world…that Christ came, and still comes.

“We can, and should also, celebrate Christmas despite the ruins around us.”

Jesus became part of a world filled not just with cattle and shepherds, but where maniac kings rampaged against innocents, armies oppressed and refugees fled. In Jesus, God entered into the worst anxieties, fears and darkness the world could produce. Ruins? God knows them intimately. And despite them, no actually in the midst of them, calls us to celebrate. Perhaps this year, more than any in recent memory, we can move beyond mere circumstances to the deep joy of knowing we are loved beyond measure. Perhaps we’ll be able to remind each other more often, in more creative ways. And perhaps we, who experience this joy, will feel free to invite others to celebrate with us.

“We can, and should also, celebrate Christmas despite the ruins around us.”