12/24, 25/19
Right after I got out of college in the mid-1970’s I moved to New York City, to study acting at a place called the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre. The main acting teacher there, and really the guiding genius of the whole place, was a man named Sanford Meisner. Mr. Meisner was a legendary figure in American theatre and had been since the 1940’s, one of the greatest acting teachers of the 20thcentury in this country, with many famous actors among his former students, and there are countless teachers now who use his technique and the exercises he developed.
So he was a genius. He was also a crabby, vain, sometimes detestable old man – old by the time I got to him: I’m sure he’d been a crabby, vain, sometimes detestable young man as well; but if you wanted to learn from him – and there was a lot to learn from him – you just had to put up with who he was.
Near the end of his career, around the time I was at the school, one of his graduates came back for a visit, bringing with him his first child, a six-month-old boy. He came to Mr. Meisner’s office to pay his respects, they talked for a while; then the young man said he wanted to poke his head into the school’s theatre for a minute and just look around. And Meisner told him, You can leave your son with me if you want, I’ll look after him. So he did, and when he returned a few minutes later, he found his son sitting placidly on Meisner’s lap, looking up at him; and Meisner was looking back at the boy, and quietly weeping.
I heard this story from another graduate of the school, and that’s where the story ended; because anyone who knew Meisner wouldn’t really need an explanation of why he was weeping. It was because the sudden and unexpected appearance of this baby had shoved in front of him what he knew was missing in his own life: that is, the sense of any very young child that the world is a good place, hospitable place, that’s going to be joyful to live in, and explore; the sense of any very young child that the love we naturally give, all the time, others will just as naturally return; the sense of anticipation, and hopefulness, that, as young children, we go to sleep with on Christmas Eve, and wake up with on Christmas morning. This state of mind, which is Square One for a child, was what Meisner knew in his heart is the truth, but which life in this world had always seemed to be snatching away from him, knocking out of his grasp; as, for any and all of us, life in this world sometimes so abruptly and inexplicably does.
Well, tomorrow/today is Christmas Day, the day when we get a gift: the gift of God which addresses just this problem, which we all have.
This gift that we get, as we bring alive, in our celebration of Christmas, the birth of this one child, two thousand years ago, this gift is really twofold. First, the gift is a promise: God’s promise: that it’s all going to be all right; that when life suddenly snatches peace away from us, when we feel overwhelmed by fear, or anxiety, or despair, or anger, or hopelessness, God’s promise is that none of that is the last word: that God’s love for all of us, the current of God’s love that runs through life, that fuels our life, that we are living here now – that love is infinite, and eternal, and will finally make all things well.
So first, this gift is a promise. Second – it’s the flip side of the same coin – this gift is an invitation: God’s invitation. God offers the power of God’s love to each of us: a power which, working through us, makes joy; heals; brings light into darkness. All of which is to say that, with this gift, God invites us to join in the creation of the kingdom of God, here where we are now; which creation God is engaged in, all the time, all around us.
This twofold gift – the promise, and the invitation – is the one that all the gifts we exchange on Christmas morning represent. Those gifts are all little tokens of that love. It’s what they all come from; one way or another, it’s where they originate. And the better we understand that, the more strongly we make that connection, the closer we draw to the true holiness, and the true joy, of Christmastide. And I love to use that old English term “Christmastide”, because it brings to mind the unfathomable power, and the constancy, of God’s love.
A few years ago a parishioner here introduced me to a Christmas prayer he’d discovered that was written by Robert Louis Stevenson (appropriately enough, a writer whose works have always spoken most powerfully to young people.). I think it exemplifies all this that I’m talking about, and I’m going to close with it.
Let us pray.
Loving God, Help us remember the birth of Jesus,
that we may share in the song of the angels,
the gladness of the shepherds,
and the worship of the wise men.
Close the door of hate
and open the door of love all over the world.
Let kindness come with every good gift, and good desires with every greeting.
Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings,
and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.
May the Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children,
and Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts
forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.