Christmas : When You Realize Love Is Already Here

We watch and do wait Lord we anticipate…the moment, you choose to appear.

We worship we praise until there’s no debate, and we recognize you’re already here.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hal-le-lu-jah – Brian Courtney Wilson

We talked about racism after breakfast this morning. Over pancakes LiChai told me about a situation he encountered in class a few weeks ago. He and a few friends were discussing the “N” word. He also wanted to know why racism only involved African-Americans and whites. Why not Mexicans or Asians? I told him about Chris Rocks brilliant piece in the Hollywood Reporter. I reminded him of the shameful past we’re fighting to break free from, the wounds…that just won’t heal. I gave him the breakdown on the complexities of our love hate relationship with THAT word.

In all my dreams of motherhood and parenting I never imagined conversations like this would take up so much of our time. I think I dreamed the dream my parents probably had for me. I dreamed the dream of a better world. He’s 13. Still a little green and super geeky. He likes manga comics and still leans way in when I read to him. He’s old enough to know that the love-filled multi-cultural world of family and friends we created for him isn’t what he’ll always experience when he leaves the nest.

And so the questions, the conversations continue…

Trading the kitchen for the family room Ila opens up with how she overheard two lighter skinned girls call a darker skinned girl ugly. Specifically pointing out skin tone as the reason for her poor looks. Chailah and Ade’ floated in and out of the room dressed up as ninjas while we talked Disney and Barak Obama, the doll test and Native Americans.

We talked a river of words. It couldn’t be stopped. The volatile virus of earthly angst that’s permeated the city all but robbed us of a season of joyful expectancy. But we still want to believe. By His grace we’re a family that knows love wins.

The time is right for Christmas. This world needs the undeniable truth of an unbelievably scandalous birth to remind us that God is here.

So we pick out and put up trees. We read the Christmas story and endure the labor of advent. We bake cookies and hang stockings. We buy presents and plan celebrations – because we still believe. We have to.

The atmosphere is littered with stories of hate, the threat of war and rampant disease. Racism, the dirty laundry of our American family drama is splayed across our collective consciousness. It is the current cloud that covers the story of love we cling to. But there is love. And love wins. I tell myself over and over – Love wins.

How I got over
How did I make it over
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over
How I made it over
Going on over all these years
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over – Mahalia Jackson

I watched Alex Haley’s Roots when I was 11 years old. And The Butler at 46. Huddled together around our floor model tv we watched the evil of slavery come to life on the big screen. Despite claims that Haley’s work is fiction it still exposed the horrors of slavery. Do you remember the whipping of Kunta Kinte or Mariah Carey as Hattie Pearl when the slave owner said he “needed her help in the shed”? The look on her face stays with me. And too, that of her emasculated husband. My children are a little embarrassed by slavery. They see themselves the way God sees them and resist a connection to anything less. They want it to be over and feel uncomfortable seeing images of people that look like them treated so unfairly. So do I. But I want them to know the beautiful history of a people that survived. I re-frame every conversation with “how we got over”.

I grew up with a father whose views were what you might call militant. From my mother, I learned the religion of love. I mourn the tragic loss of any life but I do stand with those who protest police brutality and racism. My faith is big enough to do both. But right now all I feel is peace. I’m quieted by a rumbling urgent wave of silence. God says hush. Growing up, my mother seemed unbearably passive but I see, especially now, the power in her quiet stance. Sometimes love is the only answer to live with. Sometimes love doesn’t say a word. And lately,  prayer-filled silence is all I can offer.

The worst thing that could happen in response to repeated cries for justice happened three days ago. Innocent police officers, serving their community were killed by a lone gunman. This man also took his own life.

Peace, like a river, come quick.

We should mourn with those who mourn and in this God simply asks for our silence. No words. No debate. It’s the resolved silence, the very voice of death that shifts the paradigm of this battle. May this be the tipping point, where the crux of the message is driven home. Would that it could be finished.

Brian and Mahalia and Stevie are the balm for my soul today. My advent song has no words today. And that’s okay. My praise and worship is a lifting of hands to a holy God who simply says surrender. Maybe I’ll do this until I mean it. Maybe I’ll sit with love until I feel it.

I keep looking for the sweet softness of love swaddled as a baby in a manger. But Jesus isn’t a baby anymore. He’s all grown up. His love eclipses the facts of a familiar birth story. His love is truth. What we experienced as love come down in a manger has exploded – showering the world with fiery sparks. If we pay attention we’ll find burning bushes every where.

When Jesus returns He’ll look like Michael Jordan. Or Chris Martin from Coldplay. Or maybe like Malala Yousafzai. Maybe Jesus comes now in the rocking chair wisdom of a grandmother when she admonishes us to remember that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Maybe Jesus huddles with the hobos under the Metro North Tunnel at 106th Street. Maybe we can see Jesus in the tears of the mother of that gunman, as she laments her sons wrong choices and repeated cries for help. Maybe we’ll be about the business of kingdom living instead of creating our own. Maybe Jesus is on Facebook every now and then…disguised as hopeful status update. You know, that message that suggests we simply love one another. Maybe Jesus is in and about everything and if we could see him in all he’d actually be the all that we need.

Maybe..

Maybe Jesus comes as the Eric Garners of the world. Martyred for a movement…a moment in His story.

We are a community of people groaning towards heaven. We are the weary who grope in the dark of night for a star. We are souls crying out for the union of our disjointed spirits. We crave a communal redemption. If we are not all saved then none of us are. None of us are.

And all I hear is praise. Because if we won’t do it the rocks will..they’ll cry out and sing a heavenly praise and redemption song. His word is for the fallen, the broken, the lame and the sick. His word is the gospel. His word is for the sinner. And that’s all of us. His word picks us up and puts us back together again. All of us.

He’s already here. Jesus is in the middle of the rally. He sits in the tension filled moments when we wonder what’s next. He is the thrill of hope for a jaded world. He is the peaceful resolution to this revolution. He is Jesus.

And He’s already here. He’s in the middle of every choice we make. This Christmas might we choose Him. Before we speak a word, write a post, unfriend a follower. May we not miss him in the middle of the madness.

Love’s in need of love today
Don’t delay
Send yours in right away
Hate’s goin’ round
Breaking many hearts
Stop it please
Before it’s gone too far – Stevie Wonder

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Lisha Epperson