REV. CONSTANCE L. MENTZER Don't let 'things' snuff out the light

Bah, humbug!
No, really! I mean it! Drive down U.S. Route 224 this season and just see if you don't say the same thing!
If you dare, and if you are very brave, go to any shopping mall. Find a parking space, if you can. You don't even have to shop. Just find a place in the food court, or somewhere in the middle of the mall and just watch. You will see just about every rude, surly and unseemly behavior possible.
I've seen adults squabble over the last Tickle-Me-Elmo on the toy store shelf. I've observed weary parents lugging weary children through one store and then another. A sea of humanity crowds the fast-food lines, trying to find something to sustain life until the shopping is done.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that what we've done to Christmas isn't working. I'm normally a pretty even-tempered individual and easily touched by many of the sentimental trappings of our cultural celebrations. I love "A Charlie Brown Christmas," still cry over "It's A Wonderful Life," and I can get positively giddy over sitting in the glow of the Christmas tree with a plate full of cookies and a glass of milk.
Forgetting the meaning
But the older I get, the more I am bothered by the hype, the frenzy, the crowds, the traffic, and what increasingly appears to be the callous disregard for what we are supposed to be about at this time of year.
So, it's Ebenezer Scrooge and me! Bah, humbug! The wisdom of an elderly gentleman who shared space with me once in an overcrowded Burger King still echoes in my ears. Frustrated, he muttered something he thought was just for himself: "Christmas would be OK ... if it weren't for all the damned people!"
Does that offend you? Me, too, but for a different reason. It becomes downright disturbing that the sin perpetuated in what is supposed to be a season of light is the sin of demoralization. We cheapen our experience of a deeper, more faithful honoring of the coming Christ by being dazzled by the trinkets of instant gratification. We scramble to make meaning for ourselves this time of year with unreasonable expectations. My hunch is that behind these vain attempts is the belief that somehow we aren't worth God's amazing love through Jesus Christ. In other words, we believe the Burger King prophet. Don't we sometimes think that God would have done much better without having to worry about the whole lot of us?
Redeeming light
But there is a larger truth to counter our sin found in the words of the prophet Isaiah: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined."
The same God who spoke and created the light speaks again and brings redemptive light to the world. God means to have the last word concerning us, and it is a word of grace, a word of mercy. In spite of us, God dares to do something that is still extraordinary. God will not let his people dwell in darkness. God promises to bathe the world in light, and does so not from the vantage point of dominance, but as Emmanuel, as "God with us," as One who clothes himself in our living so that we might live with joy and hope in the promise of life in his name.
It is because of us that Christ promises to come, that Christ bids us daily to prepare for his coming. It is because of us that the shadows of Advent longing and expectation finally lengthen to reveal the death-defying shadows of the Cross.
Deeper truth
In the Cross the promise reaches its culmination. God will gather up the vanity of our seasonal preparation and will refine it with a refiner's fire. God through Jesus Christ will brush away the dross of our superficial holiday clamoring, and will show us a deeper truth, a deeper and lasting joy which will stand the test of time and will not be tucked away with the ornaments in January.
The message of the light of Christ shining in the darkness is a message which will ever and always rise above the din of a noisy and aimless humanity. For all the damned people. For you and for me. For the world.
Having seen the light, we can be light. It is an additional gift that God through Christ gives. We are blessed in order to be a blessing. And once we get that message straight, then Advent opens the door to an amazing spiritual pilgrimage for Christ's people.
God transforms our vision so that we can see the Christ in all of the unexpected places we know he'll be, among the poor and displaced in our city and community, in the beauty and wonder of a child's innocent gaze reflected in candle glow, in acts of charity that begin and end in a posture of gratitude for God's richest blessings. The world will continue to devour itself with empty platitudes of holiday sentimentality, and those who are its adherents fill themselves up with so much spiritual cotton candy -- all fluff and no stuff.
Reflecting the light
You and I are empowered by the Christ to draw others to him just as surely as he has drawn us to himself -- to reflect the light first given us, to point to another way of being and of living, to allow ourselves to be embraced by a love which will outshout the powers of death for our sake.
That is the wonder of the season. Look to the light of Advent. Rejoice and be glad, for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
XThe Rev. Constance L. Mentzer is pastor of Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Canfield.