Dear Jesus of Nazareth…

I looked this up on Google . . . I am one of approximately 117 billion people who have ever lived on planet earth. That’s a lot of us who have run out of hope at some time or another and wished for something better. Some of us have been told since we were children that, every year at this time, we should write a letter to a jolly man named Santa Claus. And, like a magic genie, Santa would grant us at least one special wish and deliver that present to our home during the darkness of Christmas Eve so that we could wake up to brighter and happier lives.

What Christmas Has Really Meant to Me

Well, I never bought into that silliness, even as a child. I knew that Christmas was really about your birthday. And, although we gave gifts to each other, it was to celebrate your coming when you gave us the gift of yourself—your presence with us. We needed to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell God as a human being—the kind of human we were intended to be—among us.

Approaching My Seventy-First Advent

I’m approaching my 71st Advent season, the celebration of your coming in a body just like mine to this sphere spinning outward in space and time from the centre of your heart. That’s what some who saw, heard, and even touched you in person tell us. They say that you came to “your own”—the very universe and people that you once conceived and spoke into existence as its Source-Deity. They also say that most of us didn’t welcome you then. That grieves me. I can’t imagine what that felt like for you.

Why Do We Keep Returning to Advent

Is that what these repeated Advent celebrations are about? Are you giving us second and third chances, even 2,100 and counting, to welcome you properly? I can’t believe this extravagant repetition is simply about a giant divine ego being snubbed.

What We Still Have Not Received

So, why do we keep revisiting your first visit? I’m guessing it has more to do with us not getting what we needed from you that first time. Have we still not received it after 5, 10, 50, 100, or 1,000 attempts? Shouldn’t we have gotten what we need by now? What if it’s been ours from the beginning and we haven’t realized it? Is it possible that what you wanted to bring us in that first arrival is something that has been hidden in plain sight? Or have we gotten our hands and hearts around it for brief periods but can’t hang on to it?

When Christmas Becomes Consumption

Certainly, we don’t need another Black Friday and its subsequent “X number of shopping days till Christmas.” Certainly, we don’t need to practice another orgy of consumption to close out another year of ever-increasing acquisition and its subsequent emptiness. How did you let your birthday get so associated with commerce and unsatiated longing for more? I guess the nature of our current celebrations argues that we need to practice your arrival at least one more time. We still haven’t got it.

Light in the Darkest Season

While I’m asking . . . how did you let your birthday become associated with the winter solstice? Scholars tell me that you likely arrived in the spring—closer to the time of year when we commemorate your death. Apparently, your offering of your life to the world includes a willingness to let your birth provide some light, hope, and pizzazz to the darkest and coldest time of the year. For me, the winter season would be too long and unbearable without a Christmas break celebrated around a cozy fire. I look forward to sipping warm drinks and eating comfort food with the people dearest to me. So, thank you, I guess, for not being overly stuck on the accuracy of details or “getting it right.”

Darkness That Runs Deeper Than Weather

But the darkness and coldness we want to avoid is deeper than latitude and meteorology. Apparently, this has always been the case. I’ve been told of wars, plagues, famines, and unsettled times experienced by every generation that came before me. It takes little imagination to believe that all of them were likely thrilled when the calendar rolled around to this time. They had reason to re-member your life and message amongst themselves. I’ve even been told that during one of the world wars of the last century, the soldiers on both sides of the carnage stopped at Christmas to sing carols with each other. For a brief moment they offered themselves to your Peace on earth. Then, the next day, they resumed killing each other. What collective madness! Will we ever internalize our oneness with you and each other?

A World Growing Colder

This year feels especially dark—in a series of increasingly darker and colder years. The breakdown of our relationships with each other and with this world we’ve been given so that it cares for us as we care for it . . . it only seems to worsen and deepen.

Why Advent Might Need to Come Again and Again

Perhaps I’ve just stumbled on another possible answer to my question. Maybe we need a repeated cycle of yearnings, anticipations, new beginnings, and advents because we repeatedly fall into darkness and coldness—especially the coldness of our own hearts. It seems far more natural for us to dwell in the darkness, death, pain, and tragedy of this world than find its light, love, hope, goodness, peace, and joy. “Joy to the World! Peace on Earth! Good will from God toward all humans and from all humans to each other!” What a fantasy! We’d more easily trust in a fictitious man at the North Pole, running an Amazon Prime-like manufacturing and distribution centre.

A Final Plea for Re-Membering

Perhaps we’ve always arrived at this season exhausted, out of breath, and out of hope that things will ever be different. Yet, if there ever were a great time for you to show up with some glad tidings, it would be now. Can you re-member us again? The children’s rhyme said that “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.” Can you? Can our re-membering you one more time bring us any closer to participating in your indefatigable love mission to re-member us?

Curt Snell