King Forever, Ceasing Never
 

“Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain, gold I bring to crown him again,

King forever, ceasing never, over us all to reign.

O star of wonder, star of light, star with royal beauty bright,

westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.”

(John H. Hopkins, Jr., “We Three Kings,” 1857)

 

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you . . .

Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because . . .

the wealth of the nations shall come to you . . . they shall bring gold and frankincense,

and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.

(Isaiah 60:1, 5-6)

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the First Sunday after Christmas, December 30, 2007

Volume 2 Number 26

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

 

 

The Chronicles of Narnia series, written by Oxford professor, C. S. Lewis, is his re-imagination of the drama of redemption.  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first written, and was made into a film by Disney for the Christmas season of 2005.  The key elements of the Christ narrative are obvious, from the betrayal of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, to the sacrificial love of Christ, as portrayed by Aslan, representing the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  The resurrection, Jesus’ ultimate victory over the Evil One, is fantastically dramatized. 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe opens with the bombing of London in World War 2 when the Pevensie children – Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy – are sent out of the dark dangers of London during the German bombing, to live the country home of the eccentric Professor Kirke.  It is here that Lucy, playing hide and seek with her three siblings, stumbles through the back of a wardrobe to find herself in the magical land of Narnia, a glacial land of snow and ice.  Lucy meets a fawn named Mr. Tumnus who, amazed that a “daughter of Eve” has visited Narnia, tells her that Narnia is under the evil spell of the White Witch and says, “It’s she that makes it always winter.  Always winter and never Christmas.  Think of that.”

 

With those words, the absence of Christmas, C. S. Lewis introduces Narnia as place cold and dreary.  “Always Winter and Never Christmas” is reminiscent of Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming of the Christ to a dark world.  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”  This is a message of hope for a dark and cold world, hope that a new king will arise, a king to whom the magi will come bearing gifts of gold and frankincense.  “Born a king on Bethlehem’s plain, gold I bring to crown him again.  King Forever, Ceasing Never, over us all to reign.”  

 

These two phrases have played in my mind in juxtaposition, working in contrast:

 

Always Winter, Never Christmas

King Forever, Ceasing Never

 

I visited, and was once tempted to live in, a land of Never Christmas.  It was 1984, and I was soon to graduate from seminary in Memphis.  Over the previous year I had read several books written by a well-known Reformed/Calvinistic pastor in Houston, W. E. Best, and I had developed correspondence with this amazing man.  Born in 1919, he passed away this year at the age of 88, and was buried on June 15 after serving as pastor and teacher at Kingwood Assembly of Christ for over 50 years.  Pastor Best read some of my sermons and papers and, before I knew it, an opportunity emerged.  At that time in his early 60s, and I 30, W. E. Best was thinking of hiring a co-pastor as an understudy, one who might be groomed to one day take the reins of the church.  The church, well-known among Reformed churches, flew me to Houston to preach a series.  I was very interested. 

 

Among the many things I discovered was that this church was something of a land of Never Christmas.  They saw Christmas (and all other “holy” days) as pagan days which the church was unwise to celebrate.  While at that stage of my own theological journey we had much in common and, in fact, I paid little regard to Christmas myself in my preaching, still this Christmas issue was insurmountable, it being made clear to me that there would be Never Christmas in this church and in the pastor’s home.  No tree.  No lights.  No gifts.  No Christmas liturgy.  No celebration . . . 

 

No job.  It was this Never Christmas issue that took away any temptation on my part to abandon our decision to move to Michigan to continue my study of Hebrew and Semitic languages.  After all, I had children who were then 9 and 5, and it was our tradition joyfully to celebrate Christmas, extravagance and all.   To pack up my family and move to Houston would have been a land of Never Christmas.  Think of that.  I did, and it was unthinkable. 

 

Carol Zaleski writes about her ten year old son Andy, who loves to hear stories about Christmas “when he was little.”

 

“Remember what I used to do with all my Christmas presents?”  Andy says, every year, wanting to hear the story again.

“Yes,” Carol and Philip say, “ you ignored the gifts and took radiant delight in the wrappings.” 

 

Perhaps this is the childlike nature of faith that draws us to images such as C. S. Lewis offers in Narnia.  We delight in the wrappings, which is to say that we delight in the symbols, the colorful packaging which seeks to contain the mystery of faith.  How Mimi and Papa loved it last week when our granddaughter Christian arrived, going straight to the tree where she inspected every gift carefully.  As I look back to 1984, what that Never-Christmas church in Houston was telling me -- in a very mature, responsible and somber way -- was that the gift of the Word made flesh was the important thing, that our packaging of the gift with our celebrations was merely the wrappings, fit to be tossed away.  They were suggesting that our cultural celebrations of Christmas should likewise be discarded, lest they distract from the real gift.  

 

I suppose, on one level, they were right.  Our Christmas celebrations are the colorful wrappings on a gift given by God.  This is such a gift that cannot, at last, be contained by our wrappings, no matter how brightly we adorn them.   And yet, I want to ask, why should we not, like children, take radiant delight in the wrappings, the cultural traditions which express the joy of this day?  The longer I’m in ministry the more I want to be like Andy, approaching the day, not with the mature and responsible and somber theological demeanor of one for whom the wrappings are unimportant.  Give me the wrappings!  Let me shake this gift for a while, imagining what love is contained within the wrapping.  

 

I’m reminded of the minister who was asked by a small boy what he would get for Christmas.  The minister smiled and said, “Oh, I suppose nothing, I have all I need.”  The boy looked at him as from another planet and said, “Mr., Christmas isn’t Christmas unless you get something!”  I suppose the boy is right. 

 

At Christmas we are prone to moralize about materialism and commercialism, indulgence and waste, implying that our appreciation of the message would be stronger if we would toss away those cultural wrappings of Christmas.  I don’t know.  I rather agree with Carol Zaleski, that Christmas is a time for grace, not for moralism; for amazement, not for theological rigidness; for celebration and singing, not for doctrinaire disputes.  Christmas is a time for paradox and praise, not for penny-pinching; a time for incense, not censoriousness.  If Christmas is a story of paradox, the Word wrapped in flesh, is it not therefore appropriate that we celebrate Christmas with paradox -- with solemnity, but also with silliness; with calm reflection, but also with abundance? 

 

At one point during Cromwell’s protectorate, Christmas caused so much debauchery that it was nearly abolished by the English Parliament, and briefly it was actually criminalized in Massachusetts.  Today, debauchery is less a problem than consumer frenzy and utter exhaustion yet even so, while I would like to dim some of the lights of Christmas, I get a sense that there is something fitting, even if unbalanced, about the way we keep Christmas.  It says, somehow, that the light of the Christ Candle cannot be contained.  Like the thaw which fell upon Narnia to melt winter’s chill, Christmas spills over into the secular realm, generating sentimentality, and inviting indulgence.  In Narnia, when the Lion, Aslan, was on the move, the frozen places began to thaw, to gurgle and to flow, at first in tiny rivulets and at last in great rivers of grace.  At long last, Christmas was come to this place of Always Winter and Never Christmas.  

 

Perhaps that light which we lit on Christmas Eve is thawing out the chill which so long lay upon the world.  May it be so in our world.  Call it wasteful if you will.  Christmas can lead to that.  Dickens’ character Scrooge, once somber and calculating, in whose soul there was “Never Christmas,” was moved at last when Christmas entered his heart to extravagant celebration, showering gifts upon those around him.  Wasteful, he might once have said of his new spirit of grace and love.  Yes, and Wasteful also was the ointment poured on Christ by Mary.  Wasteful was the extravagance of the Prodigal Father who lavished celebration on the returning son.  And Wasteful was the gold and frankincense given to a newborn child, a child who would have cared more for the colorful wrapping than for the gift itself.  

 

Let us be Wasteful then, reckless in the bringing of this glorious message to others, this message of one who is King Forever, Ceasing Never. 

 

Sources and notes:

The spark of inspiration for the writing of this sermon came in an essay titled “Christmas Wrappings,” by Carol Zaleski in The Christian Century, December 27, 2005.  At the end of her essay she wrote, “If, as in Narnia, it is always winter and never Christmas, even the smallest rivulet is a sign of redemption, and the coming of Father Christmas is a bright herald of the unconquered sun.”