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Christmas 1996 |
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Cis for
Cheers, always festive this time of year. In all our holiday greetings there is the warming sound of "cheers," from shopping malls to entertaining at home with friends and family. The merriment of the season often carries over into all our cheering, and cheer-leading. Why else would a Chicago fan like me still cheer for "Da Bears," whether or not they make the playoffs? But for Christmas, the most resounding cheer is for "da feet," as in, "how beautiful upon the mountains are da feet of the messenger" (Isaiah 52:7). Those feet might be cute and tiny on the little infant, Jesus. But not that much later, they would be care-worn, traipsing the countryside, spreading the peace and good news and salvation for which they first came into the world (together with the rest of Jesus). Eventually, they would even be da feet that would be anointed by Mary so that they might look beautiful upon the wood of the cross--not so beautiful in death alone, but beautiful because of the benefits they (together with the rest of Jesus) would bring to you and to me. Cheers! But when da feet of Jesus come running into Jerusalem, as also into our neighborhood, what do they find beneath them? To be sure, there is plenty of rocky ground, but perhaps no ground so rocky as that of the ruins that have befallen Jerusalem, and all of us. It is not simply the devastation of cities that is at stake here, but the devastation of the very people who inhabit those cities. Take, for example, one among the least of these our sisters, Cindy Brown. Cindy often comes to work with her own feet clad in tennis shoes. No doubt, it is from all the running around she does from one job to the next--from her day job as a database manager to her night job as center secretary for Capital University's Adult Degree Program. Here, at her night job, Cindy runs from front desk to copier to classrooms |
 to mail files. All the more reason for tennies. But Cindy has more difficult ground beneath her than the tasks at hand. To begin with, she gets diminished returns from her work at her day job, not so much as in pay as in respect. Because she doesn't yet possess a college degree, her expansive training and knowledge in computers (with which she is a whiz) often goes underappreciated, with some of her coworkers oppressively looking down their noses at her. So far, no such complaints about her night job, though as her boss I am a little more sensitized. But the more devastating ground for Cindy and her family is in regard to their youngest son, Jacob, now six years old. Jacob suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, a terminal illness for which he is given maybe twenty more years to live. That is part of the reason Cindy runs from one job to the next, to earn enough money to keep ahead of the medical bills while her husband gets his business started. We're glad that we can at least offer her work. Tragedies such as these could have a way of bringing to shambles our whole outlook on life, making us cheerless. The ruins we walk upon can, and often do, rot their way right into the very core of our being, devastating our heart and soul. No doubt, Cindy has also had her share of that heartache, though you wouldn't notice if from her persistent cheerfulness. Worse yet is the contemplation that God isn't doing a whole lot to change the scene. The people of Jerusalem pondered that reality, and with grave concern. God is either unable or unwilling to |
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Isaiah 52:7 |