Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 3

Spirituality Column #214
December 14, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Finding Christ in Christmas, Part 3
By Bob Walters

I once visited a local church to hear an internationally known Christian minister and author preach at an evening worship service.

Shockingly, this visiting purveyor of the loving Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Holy Word of the Bible stopped speaking midway in his sermon and in mid-sentence demanded that a young mother – at whom he actually stretched out his arm and pointed – remove both herself and her somewhat-crying baby from the room.

The child was distracting him, he said. “Sorry,” he said. “That’s my fault,” he said. “I couldn’t concentrate.”

Nothing else the famous preacher said was as memorable as that. Most likely the humiliated young mother hasn’t forgotten the rebuke, either. As she retreated from the room holding her baby, my momentary relief at the silence turned to shame at my own impatience. My sympathies grew toward the mother, and away from the famous preacher’s broken concentration.

I thought of another young mother, a couple thousand years ago, who also had to hide a real, live human baby – Jesus – from earthly authority and social convention. Mary, with God’s grace, was patient with her circumstances.

I have narcissistic tendencies which make me not naturally patient. When we love ourselves too much, one finds, we have difficulty loving the world amid the world’s inconveniences. This would include lacking patience with crying babies, waiting in check-out lines, inconvenient stoplights, traffic, whatever.

Christmas too often is an exercise in impatience. One might rightly notice that the first victim of impatience is joy. Perhaps “Joy to the World” ought to be understood to mean, “Be patient with the world.”

God is. Christ is. The Holy Spirit is. Patient, I mean. Sinful man usually is not.

Try this as an antidote. Next time you’re inconvenienced, pray for the person that is inconveniencing you. That would include each person in line ahead of you. Or the relative whose Christmas plans conflict with yours. Or the baby crying in church.

As our Pastor Derek Duncan once advised, let a crying baby remind you of the one in the manger whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

Christ came to reconnect mankind’s loving relationship with God, and to build our human communion with the Holy Trinity and with each other. Crowds at Christmas are an awesome time to do that, but to find Christ amid the chaos, you have to be patient.

Concentrate.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) doesn’t mind a baby’s cry in church as much as … alas … he minds its parents’ deafness.