Dec. 21, 2003

Pastor Marcia Sietstra

Christmas, in a sense, belongs to children—the excitement of presents arriving on Christmas Eve, the twinkling lights, the church and school programs, the anticipation of relatives coming together. Remember Christmas Eve when you were a child? We had our church program on Christmas Eve at the Reformed church that Phil and I grew up in. I always had a new Christmas dress with black patent shoes. I rehearsed my memorized rhyme until I could say it flawlessly. After the program, on the way out of church we each received a sack of peanuts in the shell, along with an orange and some candy mixed in. We’d excitedly count the number of chocolates among the hard candies. Yes, Christmas is a magical time for children.

This Christmas you’ve done something that must seem almost magical to two Sudanese boys who really aren’t children anymore, and I want to thank everyone who contributed to the Sudanese Boys Scholarship Fund as your Christmas gift to me. Jacob and Andria never really had a childhood, having been separated from their parents by the civil war in Sudan at very young ages. I asked Andria recently if adults were assigned to care for groups of boys at the refugee camp in Kokuma where he lived for 9 years. ‘No mom,’ he answered, as if surprised at the idea that anyone would have taken responsibility for helping him. Each boy was given a bowl of maize, a bowl of wheat, and a cup of beans every 15 days. The ones who survived were the ones who learned to go without for a day or two and ration it out. It makes you wonder how tall Andria would be if he had been well fed! Water was available only at a specific time each day. If you didn’t get there at that time, there was no water until the next day at that time. Jacob told us that many of the boys fled first to Ethiopia, and lived there in a refugee camp for several years, but when fighting broke out in Ethiopia, they were forced to go to a refugee camp in Kenya. I imagine the boys can identify with Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt in the Christmas story. In a very real sense, Mary & Joseph were refugees too. There has always been violence in the world and children who are victims of it. This Christmas I’m so glad you have made a place for Jacob and Andria, that they are safe here. They are both at work this morning; as you know they work a lot of hours, Andria at HyVee and Jacob at Spezia’s. They’ll be joining our family celebration on Christmas Day along with our own children.

I’ve been thinking lately that Christmas is for children, not only because of their excitement, but because perhaps we adults have become too cynical. As I grow older, I find myself fighting a certain melancholy about the world, I think because I am increasingly aware of the scope of human suffering, and the systemic evil that keeps people in poverty and keeps wars waging for decades in places like the Sudan and Sierra Leone and the Middle East. The problems are so vast, we are tempted to shut our minds off from them to protect our own psyches from despair. It truly is the darkness of Advent that we feel—a recognition that the world’s pain is deep.

But then I discover the Christmas story happening around me. I read last week about a young Israeli child who is alive because of the gift of a lung, donated by the parents of a Palestinian boy who was killed for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Christmas came in the midst of that Middle East conflict because one family saw a child in need instead of an enemy.

I read about hungry and hopeless right here in this country, children who don’t understand the politics of welfare or the mistakes of their parents, or that sometimes people just fall through the cracks. All those children know is cold and fear and uncertainty. For them to hear that God came to earth like one of them and knows what it’s like to be in their place—why, that must mean even more to them than any toy they might receive from the Salvation Army. The Christmas story is a story of hope that something in their lives might change for good, because you see, if God understands, then maybe other people, with voices to speak the truth, might understand as well. God’s Christmas gift of God-with-us, Emmanuel, is for all children.

We can move beyond cynicism and despair today, because the Christmas story is, above all else, the story of hope. It is the hope that the Christ consciousness born in the world that night is born in people all the time! This is a story about human life, full of symbolism. We are in this story, and we find our true selves when we let the way of Christ, the way of love, find a home in us, and shine a light on the dark places of life. No matter how confusing or overwhelming life is, that Christ consciousness shines brighter.

****

Look at the difference Jesus’ one life made in the world. Look at the difference you make in the lives of every one here by caring for one another. Look at the difference you are making in the lives of two Sudanese boys who, two years ago were still fending for themselves among 80,000 other hungry refugees in Kokuma Refugee Camp. Look at the effect you have on the people God has given you to love. Look at how much difference we can make in the world when we care passionately, and work faithfully to spread that Christ-love. The Good News is that with God, we have the capacity to be agents of change in a world so sorely in need of transformation. The Good News is that the world is changed, one individual at a time.

Yes, you are in this story and so am I. The Christmas story is for children and it is for adults too. It is for those looking for a home and those who have a home to share. It is for those living in a war and those who need to work to end wars. It is for those who need to hear the angels declare ‘Fear not, I bring you good tidings of great joy,’ and it is for those who are assured once again by the angels that ‘peace on earth’ is possible and worth working for. Merry Christmas, and God bless us everyone. Amen.