In the times in which we live, it is more important than ever to recognize, and state the truth. And not just speak the truth, but mean and do what we say. In other words to live in truth. In the first chapter of the gospel of John, we are told that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
In our celebration of the Eucharist, every week the priest invokes the power of the holy mystery of the presence of Christ, Immanuel - God with us, in the sacraments of wine and bread.
Daniel Clendenin in "This Most Tremendous Tale of All," presents an honest challenge to us all. I choose to believe in the One who brings hope to the hopeless, who is the Truth, and who holds the power of liberation, not conquest, to free us from all which separates us from the love of God and each other. This is beyond sentimentality. Beyond shallow claims of personal salvation without accepting responsibility for our actions and the consequences of our actions. To be the hands which feed, clothe and care for those in need, for those living in poverty, the sick, the lonely, depressed, and outcast, and those imprisoned by whatever imprisons them. Real Christianity comes with a cost. A cost of discipleship. Will the Church be the Church of Christ, or lost in gaudy, loud and glamorous displays of emotional sentimentality, saying one thing, and then doing another, proclaiming to be "pro life," but engaged in the practice of death?
"... And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare —
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine."
- Britain's Poet Laureate John Betjeman (1906-1984)
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