This Year, 1965, in many

This Year, 1965, in many homes, Christmas will be spent without the usual presence of some young man. He may well be engaged in the struggle in Viet Nam, or he may be suffering from the wounds received there; or he may be enroute there, or he may not be returning from there. The struggle is costly, it’s demanding, it’s all-consuming for those caught up in it, and it’s also symbolic. It’s symbolic because, it is a vivid sample, a sharp image of all of life. The one thing which seems to be present in all aspects of daily living, if we face the reality in our lives, is tension. All new life emerges out of tension. Now, we in our affluent society, seek to insulate ourselves from all anxieties and inconveniences. We are not only the greatest developers and users of time savers, we are the largest users of tranquilizers, both in liquid alcohol form or in various attractively shaped pills. If we can’t rid ourselves of an environment which disturbs us, we seek to insulate ourselves against it by some diversionary tactic, or a chemical comforter. We are ‘brainwashed’ to believe that ‘the good life’ is one which is rid of all d i f f i c u 11 y, and kept smooth. The unwelcome message of Christmas is that Life does not come that way. Life emerges out of tension! The indispensable part of life itself, childbirth, is the prime example! Life begins in tension, and every mother knows it. Likewise every good pprent knows that each day produces its own tensions^ bfcth before and after the chiltfl is born. The symbolic truth for Christmas is that even; God in Christ subjected himself to the growth formula... tension. The child in the manger started his life in tension...he was rejected even while in his mother's womb... for the innkeeper had no room for him. Though he was born a Jew, the Jews themselves could not stand him, for he disturbed their tranquility. Finally, they nailed him to a cross, and even his death position on that cross was ‘in tension’, with hands nailed in opposite directions, on the cross-arm. Our disposition is to think that life would be far better if we could say a prayer, or invoke a miracle, and have the many difficult things in life disappear. If we saw any path of escaping them, we think we would take it. But the unwelcome message of Christmas is that the grandeur of life is not attained through avoidance of scars; but it is attained through the hard hero ism which dares. The message which tries to get through to us at Christmas is not the sweet baby Jesus, meek and mild! But rather, that all things in this world require development. And that development must be brought about