In The Book of Common

Prayer, the words of the prayer assigned for reading in

services held on Christmas Day seem at first glance to

have a disjointed sound to them.

Each year, at this service,

we praise God "who makest us glad with the yearly

remembrance of the birth of thy only Son Jesus

Christ."

Then, we pray that God

"Grant that, as we joyfully receive him for our

Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him when

he shall come to be our Judge."

It has always sounded just

a little bit out of "sync" with what we have

all been experiencing in this happy season of

carol-singing, bell-ringing, tree-decorating,

package-wrapping, gift-giving, card-sending,

well-wishing, friend-toasting, family-feasting season of

the year.

After all, Christmas is a

happy holiday, the most joyous occasion on our calendar,

a time for recalling all that is good and hopeful in the

world.

What does the author of

this prayer mean interrupting our gaiety with words about

some future judgment?

Why, the only judgment we

will face when Christmas is over is having to lose the 15

pounds or so we gained from all our celebrating and

paying off the bills incurred by our generosity.

Right?

Not quite - and this

is the real message of Christmas which so many people

miss! - for the journey which begins in this holy

season does not end when we find the babe in the manger.

It continues on until we

come face to face with ... the cross.

For, that rosy-cheeked

infant, wrapped in homespun and nestled amidst warm straw

in the trough of a stable in Bethlehem, grows up.

He learns fear early when,

as a very young child, he is roused from his sleep in the

middle of the night and forced to become a nationless

refugee in Egypt to which his parents fled to avoid the

wrath of an aging despot who ordered all male infants to

be slaughtered in order to protect his throne against any

pretender.

He learns the value of hard

work at the side of his earthly father, a small-town

carpenter who worked long hours with his hands, shaping

wood into furniture and farm implements in order to earn

enough to feed his family.

He learns the historic

traditions and the laws of his faith, and the teachings

of the prophets, about the God who created the world and

all who inhabit it.

He learns about the world

and the powers - sometimes benign and sometimes evil

- which rule it.

He learns sadness as he

mourns with members of his extended family over the death

of a close friend.

And, finally, he learns (in

the words of a man who would follow his teaching

centuries afterward) that things which are worth living

for are also worth dying for.

Die, he did - a

horrible death on the cross on that Friday called Good.

Then, when it is over, he

is hurriedly buried in a borrowed grave just as the sun

goes down.

But, for Christian

believers, the journey does not end even then.

For, the most beautiful

mystery of the Church is that when the women arrived to

anoint his body after the Sabbath, the stone was rolled

away and the tomb was empty.

And, for centuries, the

creeds have taught us that "he ascended into heaven

... is seated at the right hand of the father, and ...

will come again to judge the quick and the dead."

That is why the prayer

assigned to Christmas Day talks about "behold(ing)

him when he shall come to be our judge."

They are not hollow words

for believers; and, we know it is not an either/or

proposition.

So, if our preparations for

Christmas did not include getting ready for judgment,

then we still have to get ready for the rest of the

journey.

And, it is time we got

started.

[Lee N. Howell is an

award-winning writer who has been observing and

commenting upon politics and society in the Southern

Crescent, the state, and nation for more than a quarter

of a century.]