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The Hope of the World

By Charles Rush

January 3, 2010

[ Audio (mp3, 6.7Mb) ]

r story starts off with a rather rude political cynicism as Herod plots to kill a would-be rival while he is still just a baby in the crib. Just to be sure, he orders all baby boys murdered in the region. I don't know if this particular event has ever been actually confirmed historically but it is not full of hyperbole unfortunately. Herod was a man that killed several of his sons and many of his in-laws; this is the guy that had John the Baptist's head cut off and delivered on a platter out of simple lust for his step-daughter; These have all been historically confirmed and the Roman legions were quite capable of mass rape, pillage, and burning the whole place to the ground and we know they did it regularly.

The older I get and reflect on this story, the more realistic it seems to me, each year. No one really wants to think about all of the bad men in our world but they are legion. Think about the headlines in just the past couple weeks. Iran appears to be coming apart and we don't know but a sliver of what is really happening there but the YouTube videos are chilling.

I think it was Christmas Day that top officials of Hezbollah were murdered in the south of Beruit. Israel has denied involvement but it certainly has the look and feel of a well plotted sabotage on a day when a large part of the world population is simply not watching. The Economist has an article on the actual reasons that Somali's have turned into pirates. It is a region where anarchy is starting to resemble nothing so much as a Mad Maxx movie.

And not a week goes for the past several years that we don't read about some religiously inspired fanatic that drives a truck full of explosives into a children's playground to kill 135 children and mothers like happened a couple days ago in Pakistan or blowing up a Mosque in Iraq that murders pilgrims. On the way to church this morning, I heard the Priest at a church in Baghdad that has two thousand members explain that 96 of his parishioners were murdered for being Christian last year alone. Already, 5 have been murdered this year, simply for following the faith of their families have followed for the past 2000 years. I could go on an on. We have real violence around us all the time.

Perhaps this is exactly why the story of the birth of a simple child in a manger, in the peace and stillness of the night, is so poignant. It stands in rather stark apposition to the actual world of violence and power that we know all too well.

And it is certainly tempting to become cynical at the end of the year, reflecting on the actual politics of our companies and our work places and the way things really operate all around us. I've gotten several of these emails that indulge in a bit of this spiritual cynicism. Can you imagine working at the following company? It has just over 500 employees and the following statistics are for real:


29	have been accused of spousal abuse
7	have been arrested for fraud
19	have been accused of writing bad checks
117	have bankrupted at least two businesses
3	have been arrested for assault
71	cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14	have been arrested on drug-related charges
8	have been arrested for shop-lifting
21	are current defendants in lawsuits
84	were stopped for drunk driving in 1998 alone

What company could that be? No, it is not the Soprano's. I'll give you a hint. There are actually 535 members. It is our United States Congress. We wonder why we have problems. We don't have to look for an evil conspiracy. We have met the enemy and it is us. Having said that, I'm sure that our former Congressman, Bob Franks or former Senator Jon Corzine are not to be found on that list. (Right Boys?) No, our world is full of bad news and this background of bad news can make us cynical, jaded, aloof and diffident, can it not?

And the only known spiritual antidote for cynicism is wonder. Children are great for that, particularly in our season of Christmas. I'm standing in the back of Church on Christmas Eve at the children's pageant. Young Bridget Bowen is literally bouncing up and down, she is so stoked that Christmas is coming. If I could bottle that and sell it, the line would go around the block.

I took my granddaughter Ava, aged 3, out to the farm this week. It was snowing and we were out in back of the house and I was showing her the base of a huge Black Walnut tree that is near the house. On the base of the tree there is a little front door and two windows that Nana had showed me that look just the right size for Faeries. Ava asked me if I'd ever seen a fairy. I had to tell her ‘No' but I've read a good deal about them. She asked me how you know if they are there. I explained that the best way to tell is when the light goes on from the lamp that is hanging near the front door. We are standing there looking at this little lamp right at dusk. I kid you not, the light goes on. This is Ava. (Eyes wide open, mouth agape)…

Oh, the wonder of the world. I wish I could bottle that sense of wonder, that moment when children are thinking, “Oh do I believe”… It just doesn't get much better than that.

And, oh, we do need to believe in something good. Yes, we do. Maybe especially at this time of year. I think our ancestors were on to something when they established Christmas right when the days are shortest, darkest, coldest, and things look pretty grim in nature. We need to find that star of hope in the difficult days and stay with it.

From here on, every day going forward, dawn is a few seconds earlier and sunset is a few seconds later. T. S. Eliot, reflecting on the ever changing nature of our world remarked "What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make and end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

There is an important sense in which marking the changing seasons can be an exploration into the more profound spiritual beginnings and endings, from death and new birth, from ending and beginning in a new way, from letting go and embracing.

There is a sense, of course, in which we can embrace the darkness in the intimacy that it beckons but for the most part our ancestors understood the darkness of this season as a metaphor for the death of the world, the hibernation of production, and the very beginning of renewal that was part of the life-cycle. It is only bearable when you have plenty of food in the storage bin because the harsh reality is that it will be many months of tiling, planting, pruning and weeding before Mother Nature yields any productive nourishment again.

The Christians probably picked the solstice to celebrate the birth of Christ to symbolize the promise of hope that the birth of the child meant for all of us. It is the hope that begins, humbly and simply, with new birth, the fullness of which we will not experience for quite some time to come. But that hope is enough light to guide us. And the wise will align their lives, not only according to the dark omens that blind us regularly but also by the solitary light of hope that beckons our dreams.

That is such an appropriate symbol for us pagan Europeans and Africans and Asians, represented as we are in our story by the Wise Men that come from a far, following the star to find the birth of the Messiah. The good news that came to the house of David and the tribe of Israel was never meant solely for the Israelites but ultimately for all of us as well. Over time, the Wise men came to depict each three directions that Christianity took:

The first was one black African face, for the very earliest Christians from St. James went Westward to Cairo and on to Ethiopia forming the Coptic Church and even today Addis Ababa on Christmas day rings forth with strains of African music and prayer that can be traced back to the 1st century church in Jerusalem from the brother of Jesus.

The second is an Asiatic face, remembering the very earliest churches in Damascus, Baghdad- both Christian cities for 6 centuries before the birth of Mohammed- and the earliest witness that went to India. On Christmas morning you can hear the strains of music sung in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, in domed Oriental Cathedrals. This second face later was often Russian because Armenia and Russia were among the very first nations to become Christian once the Russians became Christian their influence and scope was so vast.

And the third face was European, remembering St. Paul, taking Christianity to Greece, and St. Peter taking Christianity to Rome, and we now believe that it may well have been St. Timothy or one of St. Paul's immediate disciples that took Christianity to Ireland because Christianity came there well before it migrated through Roman expansion.

Each of our cultures bearing a different kind of wisdom, some philosophy, some science, some meditation and prayer, some music- all of them help us reach toward the holy and the spiritual- but each of them is in need of the orientation that is provided by the light that rests over the Christ child.

Lawrence Kushner got a hand-held navigational computer for his birthday that utilizes Global satellite positioning. As you know these are pretty nifty devices. Once they lock to the satellites orbiting above the earth, they can give you your longitudinal and latitudinal orientation within 100 yards. Very nifty. I think much of our erudition and wisdom is like that. It is quite effective in telling us where we are, who we are, and where we've been.

But this is only half of what you need when traveling. Kushner is a sailor and especially on the sea, knowing where you are is only helpful in relation to some other fixed point. Anyone who has ever sailed at night knows how dramatic and important this is. He was out one night and lost sight of shore, with just his GPS navigational device. He says, "At such a time there are only you, the other members of your crew and the boat, patiently working her way through the waves and the night. Deprived of light, the effects of wind and waves can only be felt. The sea seems bigger than in the daylight. After a while you get confused about where you end and the boat begins and where the boat ends and the water begins." That is the helplessness of the utter dark.

What you are looking for at that moment is the 10 second flash of light from over the horizon from one of the Lighthouses on the shore. Each light house has its own distinct pattern of flashes which you can look up the Coast Pilot List. It allows mariners to identify them and then they know that they are somewhere on a line between their GPS and the established point of the lighthouse.

I think the Christ is like that for all our wisdom from each of our cultures. We get some idea of where we are from our inherited science and religion. The Christ helps orient us with again with a beam from afar. The Christ keeps our wisdom humane: forgiving, understanding, tolerant of others different from us, loving, compassionate towards the marginalized, peace abiding in the midst of strife, gentle in the midst of harshness.

And the Christ also takes our dreams and shapes them with a new frame of reference to give us better, more substantial dreams as well. Symbolically, we come to the Christ in search of what we want and the light of the Christ orients us towards what we need.
We come from afar with the Wise men seeking magic. We want to be able to heal that which is sick when we need it. We want a kind of divine protection that will exempt us from natural catastrophe, unjust tragedy and random accidents.

The light of the Christ reorients us towards hope and love that will see us through all manner of success and deprivation. It points us in the direction of St. Paul who learned to say at the end of his life, “I can be content in all circumstances of life wherever I find myself” because he learned of a “peace that passes all understanding”.

We come from afar with the Wise men seeking power. Secretly we would all like a supernatural boost that would separate us from the ordinary. We would like an occasional miracle.
The light of the Christ reorients us towards compassion for others. The light of the Christ encourages us to help everyone find their place at the table.

We come from afar with the Wise men seeking authority and recognition. We would like others to look up to us. We would like to be set apart. We would like to know how to become distinguished.
The light of the Christ reorients us towards service for other and finding our own fulfillment as a by-product of fulfilling others.

We come from afar with the Wise men seeking knowledge. We would like to understand the mysteries of the universe. We want to know about the nature and destiny of man.
The light of the Christ reorients us towards discernment. Jesus would teach us to focus on the character of others and to learn to read for the signs of the times of the world around us.

In this changing season that marks the shortest day of the year and looks forward to the rebirth in the spring, I hope that you too will be able to dream, to see where you are headed and what you need to be about. As you dream, know that God's star is orienting you as well, pulling your dreams in a direction that keeps us humane, forgiving, understanding, tolerant, loving, compassionate, and peaceful. Amen.