Christmas 2 C + It’s Christmas, why am I anxious? + ACL + 1.2.22

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It’s Christmas, why am I anxious?
Christmas 2C, 2021 (Luke 2, [Colossians 3])
All Saints, Oxnard

The Rev. Alene Campbell-Langdell (shared by MCL)

            Not long after our now adopted daughter came to live with us as a 12 year old foster child, we went to visit her grandparents in Pasadena.  Feeling all of her pre-teen independence, she asked us to let her off several blocks away from the restaurant where we were meeting up, so she could walk there on her own. We gave careful instructions (we thought) and let her out of the car.  My wife and I continued on to the restaurant, parked the car, and went inside to greet the parents/grandparents.  Minutes passed.  No sign of the kid.  More time passed. Still, she was nowhere to be seen.  With anxiety rising, we got back in the car and began to retrace the path from where we let her off.  We couldn’t find her!  Finally, we thought through our instructions and followed the street she would have taken had she missed the last turn.  A mile away, across the freeway, we found her still dutifully marching forward, looking for her turn. 

Merry Christmas!  Because isn’t that our experience of Christmas?  We are looking desperately for some kind of hope, some light in our darkness, a feeling of togetherness that will make us forget even momentarily our sense of isolation and the grief of those who are not with us.  We want a magical hero whose appearance changes the world we live in from chaos into beauty.  What we get is a baby who is vulnerable to all of the dangers of the world and more.  And we get a promise that, although the powers at work in the world continue, that something at the heart of it all has changed.

 

One of the things that makes Scripture ring true to me is its outright refusal to gloss over our humanity.  The Gospels refuse to be fairy tales.  The divine baby in the manger grows up in the next scene to be a precocious, egotistical, rather normal pre-teen who thinks everyone naturally sees the world the way he does.  “Why were you worried?  Didn’t you know I’d be in the temple?”  The magical child stories of turning clay into live birds are relegated to myth and instead the Gospel invites us to live into our very human reality.  As one commentator asked, “What do you do when you’ve been entrusted with the son of God and you’ve lost him?”  What do you do when you’ve entered a season that is supposed to be about peace, joy and hope for the future, and instead you feel lost and anxious?  What if the baby in the manger feels kind of plastic this year?  If that is not you, I am thrilled for you!  Feel free to stop listening to me right now and just bask in Christmas joy.  However, if you are one of those for whom the Christmas season is hard every year because it reminds us of those who are not here, or if you are one of the approximately third of Americans who are experiencing heightened anxiety because of the ongoing trauma of this pandemic,[1] you are not alone and todays’ Scripture readings are for you because there is no plastic baby in these Scriptures! 

Anxiety is a normal part of life as a human and as a Christian.   Have you ever met a new parent whose life was peaceful and calm and who felt less anxiety after the baby was born?    Imagine if the Scripture told us instead that Mary and Joseph discovered that Jesus was missing and continued calmly home knowing deep down that he was surely doing what he was called to do and would show up again when he was ready.  We’d think there was something very, very wrong with Mary and Joseph or any other parent who acted that way!  Dr. Lisa Damour, a psychologist who works primarily with teenage girls, suggests that anxiety and stress are not the problem.  She says that we need a bit of anxiety to push us to do the right thing.  Well-used anxiety can push us to study for an exam we’re worried about.  It can protect us and those around us in a pandemic by reminding us to wear a mask or get a test if we’re symptomatic.  Anxiety sends parents looking for a child who might be in danger.  That is a good thing!

But as we all know, anxiety can also be harmful.  Psychologists tell us that high anxiety or feeling threatened can trigger the fight, flight or freeze response in our brains.  Rather than pushing us to do the right thing, the fight response might cause us to lash out in anger at someone we love.  We might find ourselves trying to run away from the things that make us anxious—making ourselves so busy that we don’t have time to feel, or think, or be present to those we care about.  And anxiety can paralyze us and keep us from following the dream that God has given us or even from leaving our house to care for our neighbor. 

So how do we use our anxiety for good rather than harm?  Our scriptures today point us towards three wonderful ways of doing just that.  Mary went home and treasured all these things in her heart.  We are told very clearly that Mary did not understand what was happening with Jesus or what Jesus was talking about.  Her response, instead, was a form of prayer.  She held it in her heart before God.  We can take the thing that is bringing up feelings of anger and simply sit with it in God’s presence.  As you do, allow the words from Colossians to bubble up in your heart.  You are God’s chosen one.  You are holy and beloved.  Allow compassion to cover your prayer.  Or maybe kindness, humility, meekness, patience or love will become your word for the year.  Hold it in your heart, ponder it, let it do its work. 

The writer of Colossians gives us another great tool for turning anxiety to good use.  “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God.”  This is a great new years’ resolution!  What if every time you began to feel overwhelmed with life, your response was to find something to give thanks for about it?  Your boss gives you another job to do when you already had a full plate?  Thank you for that job security!  The plans you so carefully made get thrown out the window?  Thank you, God, for guiding my steps when I do not know where I am going. 


 

And finally, when the fears of the world threaten to turn us to stone, we are reminded to look for Jesus.  Writing about this passage, Craig Satterlee points out that “Mary and Joseph find Jesus alive and well after three days in a place they didn’t expect.  This sounds like Easter….  Our searching will come to an end in new life, meaningful life, the life God intends, but not the life we expect.”[2]  For that is the good news of Christmas.  The world has changed because God is with us.  And if we look, we will see what God is doing.  We will see that at the very heart of it all death is being turned into life.  We are chosen, we are beloved, we are held in God’s heart.  Thanks be to God!


[1] Gallager, M. Zvolensky, M. Long L. Rogers, A. and Garey, L. (2020). The impact of Covid-19 experiences and

associated stress on anxiety, depression, and functional impairment in American adults. Cognitive Therapy

and Research, 44, 1048.

[2] Craig Satterlee (2012).  Commentary on Luke 2:41-52. Workingpreacher.com.  Available online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-of-christmas-3/commentary-on-luke-241-52

 

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