As a preacher and writer, I use a lot of words, hopefully most of them simple and the meanings well known. Lately, maybe because of my age, I find myself doubting the way I have spelled a word, and I check it out. Sometimes I use my cell phone, but as a creature of habit, I still reach for my printed dictionary.
Recently I wanted to write that something was eneligant, but rightfully doubting myself, I reached for the dictionary, and there it was spelled not with an e but with an i: inelegant.
Loving and curious about words, the next entry in my trustworthy Webster’s was ineluctable. Who could resist checking it out? There it was… not to be avoided or escaped; inevitable. And the pronunciation, in-ih-LUK-tuh-bul.
So much for the word study, but it is purposeful. It’s Christmas, yet by so much of their thinking and acting, people are asking, So What?
We should have a big hint in the name of the day, Christmas. Preachers, and all who are Christ followers, should be ready to answer the So What. The answer is ineluctable. It’s central in our Scripture and in our liturgy. We sing a lot about it. One of my favorites hymns will be sung in many places all over the world this Christmas day.
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine
Love was born a Christmas,
star and angels gave the sign
That’s Christmas! Love all lovely, Love divine,
Too few have answered the SO WHAT? as clearly and challengingly as Mother Theresa. In the little book, Something Beautiful for God, she tells the British journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, that her aim is to help those whom nobody else will touch, the outcasts, the destitute and diseased who have been left for dead on the streets of Calcutta. Then she writes;
“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. Nowadays for all kinds of diseases there are medicines and cures. But for being unwanted, except where there are willing hands to serve and there’s a loving heart to love, I don’t think this terrible disease can ever be cured.”
Deep down we all know it, don’t we? Our need, the need of everyone, is to be loved. Likewise, to be whole we need to be loved and we need to love others.
Stop and think for just a moment this about someone in your life who may never know the redemptive love of Jesus Christ unless it is shared through you. Who is that person? Call them now by name, silently, to yourself. How are you going to show love to that person?
Jules Feiffer, the celebrated cartoonist talks about these kind of people who need us and our Christ so desperately. In the successive panels of one of his poignant cartoons, a character is depicted as saying:
“I live inside a shell…
That is inside a wall
That is inside a fort…
That is inside a tunnel…
That is under the sea.
Where I am safe…from you.”
But in the last panel there is this heart-tugging word, “If you really loved me…you’d find me!”
It’s Christmas! How are you answering the So what?