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