“A Christmas Story” is an iconic Christmas movie that will be readily available to watch over this next month. It is set in the Midwest in the late 1940s, and is all about grade schooler Ralphie’s desire to get a Red Rider BB Gun for Christmas—with numerous adults (including his teacher, and the Higbee’s Department Store Santa) assuring him that it’s a bad idea because “you’ll shoot your eye out”. Despite what Ralphie clearly sees as all of the world’s adults conspiring against him, and kids like him, and with various setbacks that cause his hope to waver, he never fully loses hope that he will indeed get this desired gift for Christmas.
Other side plots are involved in this delightful movie, but the main one is this hope that Ralphie just can’t shake. We are drawn to this innocence and faith—perhaps it reminds us of those kinds of Christmas hopes. And perhaps it inspires us even now not to lose hope.
Hope is one of the themes undergirding Christmas—and the first Christmas. The people represented by Mary and Joseph, by Zechariah and Elizabeth, have for generations been hoping for the Messiah to set things right—to restore their nation to its rightful place as a sovereign nation among the others, and remind them and assure them of their chosen-ness as God’s people. They had been hoping for many years, and the prophets in their sacred Scriptures had warned them of their need to live right—to treat the poor and needy with compassion and mercy—and yet also assured them that God would indeed make it right. And Mary is assured that the child she is carrying, a gift from God, will indeed do that. Zechariah is assured that the child his wife Elizabeth is carrying will prepare the way for the Messiah (John the Baptist). God is being faithful to fulfill their hopes—their individual hopes and the hopes of “their people”--the hopes that even in the face of such a long time when they weren’t fulfilled were hopes that would not die. Hopes with staying power.
We all need this kind of hope in our lives. Ralphie inspires us at Christmastime, but Mary and Joseph and Zechariah and Elizabeth should inspire us even more, because they were participants in hopes being fulfilled. Ultimately, God doesn’t disappoint, and the hope that is fulfilled in Jesus is the hope for peace and love and joy that transcends conflict and hate and sadness. It is the fulfillment not only of God’s restoration of how the world should be, it is God WITH US in that, as Jesus teaches and lives how we should live. And love. And hope. And be participants in the hope that God fulfills.
OLD TESTAMENT Jeremiah 33:14-16
14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
GOSPEL Luke 1:67b-75
67 . . . Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy: 68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. 69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, 70 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71 that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. 72 Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, 73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
GOSPEL Luke 24:13-21a
13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ 19 He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.