What the Weather says at Christmas
There’s a man out in Colorado, Bill Barr. He has set up a weather monitoring station in Gothic CO, his own personal way of monitoring climate change since 1974. Every day he gives detailed information about weather, vegetation, and bird and mammal sightings, and his data goes as far back as 1974. He has cameras that live stream 24 hours a day on his website and on YouTube. He calls his website “Gothic Weather”. I go on this website every once in a while, just to look at the glorious mountain views. Sometimes these views lead to brief times of meditation. I went on the website yesterday, Christmas morning. Temperature was about the same as in Portland. Several birds and mammals sighted. But as I scrolled down the home page I saw three quotes that I had never noticed before. Three very short, one-line quotes, all inspired by weather, but all three with messages that went beyond weather and which I found relevant to my thoughts at Christmas time:
“If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.” – Steven Wright
“The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.” ~ Joan Didion
“Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.” ~ Vista M. Kelly
There are no easy fixes, no easy solutions. If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain. Life is complex, and God’s solution to humanity’s increasingly complex problems was the birth of a baby in a remote village, in a part of the world that suffered under the heel of an empire.
A very fragile birth it was – fragile like a snowflake. ‘Snowflake’ has become a derogatory word these days. People will call you a ‘snowflake’ if you have a tender heart and you care for people and social problems, if you’re not macho and arrogant enough. But look at what snowflakes can and will do when they stick together. The church of Christ is as fragile as the baby in the manger, fragile like a snowflake. But look at what the church can do when we stick together, when we work together! God’s power is perfected through weakness, through the fragile people of this world (2 Corinthians 12:9) – through the snowflakes of this world!
Joan Didion died a couple days ago. She listened to the wind and what the wind can teach us about life and how close we are to the edge. Perhaps many of us feel as if we’re on the edge these days. Rapidly spreading virus mutations. Climate change. Political instability – not only on the other side of the globe, but right here in our country. Opioid overdoses, increasing crime – including crimes committed by those whose mission it is to protect us from crimes.
“The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.” Or, as a great American songwriter put it almost 60 years ago, “The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.” Are we listening? Are we listening to the promise of Christmas? Or are we so inundated with gifts and food and drink that we negate the meaning of that fragile birth so long ago, and yet so close at hand? And yes, we have to put up with the rain in order to see the rainbow that God promised long ago.
The wind, the rain, the snowflake, the edge…. it all comes to a focus on that fragile baby. Born in times that were even darker than our own, hunted down from the moment of his birth, almost destroyed by an evil king, opposed by religion and empire acting together, and finally crucified when religion and empire joined forces.
It is the fragile birth of that baby who would become our Savior that we celebrate today. And we celebrate as church. The baby was fragile, the church is fragile, like a snowflake. But look at what the church can be and do when we stick together. Look at what humanity can do if we join God’s plan and live in the rainbow promise of a new world and a new humanity. A new world and a new humanity made in the image of that fragile birth.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
CHRIST IS BORN! GLORIFY HIM!!
His website: https://www.gothicwx.org
Note: Much of the above in a similar version was preached as a sermon at the Liturgy on Friday night, December 24th.