Some of my most cherished insights into the meaning of Christmas have come from reading the journals of saintly lives. Few contemporary Christians have touched my life with the impact of Henri Nouwen. In his published journal which covers the events of Advent, 1985, Henri rendered a daily reflection upon events surrounding his vocational calling. Late in his career he had departed from a distinguished chair of teaching on the faculties of Yale and Harvard in order to pursue a ministry among peasants in the Altiplano regions of Bolivia and Peru. He returned to Europe and was spending Advent among friends near Paris. Henri was struggling over an invitation he had received from the monks of LArche in Toronto, Canada, to enter their ministry among mentally retarded adults. On December 13 of that year, he made this journal entry: It is the first time in my life that I have been explicitly called. All my work as priest since my ordination has been a result of my own initiation.

Henri Nouwen had taught for years that the meaning of the incarnation is the downward mobility of God. Our human inclination is always to move up the ladder of prestige and achievement. But God came down to humanity, born as a homeless refugee with peasant parents. Thus, Henri reflected on December 19th of 1985: The glory of God stands in contrast to the glory of people. People seek glory by moving upward. God reveals his glory by moving downward. If we truly want to see the glory of God, we must move downward with Jesus.

By Christmas Day, Henri visited his aged father and his life-long friends, the Van Campen family in his native Holland. Amidst the joy of a reunion Henri reflected pensively upon the state of Christianity in his homeland. The elderly Van Campens had centered their lives around Christ and the Eucharist. Their two sons and their families only occasionally visited the church during the major religious holidays. Their younger children had become totally alienated from expressions of corporate worship or personal piety. They were totally oblivious to matters of faith and lived a completely secular style of life. The church and its message had become irrelevant to them. The Bible was no longer read in their homes. The power of the sacraments was unknown. Prayer was nonexistent. Thoughts about a greater life than the present age were regarded to be utopian. These grandchildren of the elderly Van Campens looked upon their former neighbor Henri as some alien in their midst, vested in his alb and stole on Christmas Day.

Henri pondered the reality surrounding him: a European culture that had become radically materialistic and totally secular. Nothing in the conversation around the meal table gave evidence of pointing to that which is transcendent. He asked, Who is to blame? Within three generations in the post-war era the faith had faded into a cult of materialistic trivia. So, he made this journal entry: ‘I wonder if those who are between thirty and fifty and who no longer find the Church a source of strength will ever be able to let Christ heal their wounds. But maybe one day their children will ask them the old question again: Is Jesus the Messiah, or do we have to wait for another?’

John the baptizer, the infamous wilderness prophet, had been thrown into prison by Herod Antipas. This was indeed his question as he awaited his inevitable execution. After all, his call to repentance had political implications. He could use the assistance of a powerful Messiah who would indeed clear the threshing floor, burn the chaff of injustice, and rescue him from the dungeon of darkness. John had courageously denounced the sexual promiscuity of the king who had usurped his brothers wife. He had attacked the purification rites at the temple because he viewed Herods temple to be a sham. He especially had denounced the Sadducees whom he regarded to be pawns of the pagan, Roman oppressors. Johns message had become far too popular among the common people. He was viewed by Antipas to be a political threat.

So far, in Matthews account of Jesus ministry, the man of Nazareth had performed miracles only in his remote native Galilee region. He had remained in this agricultural sector, a safe distance from the center of political power -- Jerusalem. Furthermore, unlike cousin John, Jesus had not really attacked any of the reigning political or economic figures of the day. He had healed lepers; but he had not gone to the root of Palestines skin problems -- the unjust class structure, the oppression of the masses, the subjugation of Israels religious identity under Roman military authority. The Fortress of Antonio towered above the dome of the Temple on the plateau that Antipas father had fashioned. So, from the darkness of a prison cell, John of the wilderness cried out for the liberating light of a fiery Messiah who would crush Israels oppressors. Are you the One for whom we await, or must we look for another Messiah?

From the vantage point of John, Jesus was practically irrelevant: teaching upon hillsides, healing the sick, touching individual lives, but doing little to change the structures of systemic evil. What kind of Messiah was this Jesus anyhow? John ached for Malachis refiners fire -- the Coming One who will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. The baptizer was holding out for One who would purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.

But Jesus had not come with vengeance. He was not a Che Guevara guerrilla like the Zealots who hid in the caves of upper Galilee or the Sicarii who carried their revolutionary weapons into the dark streets of Jerusalem. Jesus promised more oppression, not a liberation from it.

Jesus coming would be marked by signs reflective of the hopes of the prophet Isaiah when the wrote, Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

Some have called JesusSermon on the Mount the Magna Carta of the little people. The meek are blessed and told that they will some day inherit all the real estate. The mournful are blessed and promised comfort. But earths great reversal will not be brought about by violence or political maneuvering. The Kingdom of Jesus will come through a gradual, patient allegiance to the way of the Messiah.

The third generation of the Van Campen family of Holland does not comprehend such a Messiah as this. And neither does the culture that surrounding the churches of Charlotte. We exist in a post-Christian era. We celebrate Christmas in this culture more like a commercial winter festival than a season of spiritual renewal. Jesus has little real appeal to those who think they already have everything that really counts.

This is the third Sunday of Advent. We light the pink candle of this lovely wreath in order to symbolize the joy that Christ brings into the world. We contemporary Christians know much about the pursuit of happiness and little about the reception of joy. We are like the third generation of the Van Campens: when we own enough of the comforts of existence, we assume we have achieved happiness. So, who needs a Messiah? The only messiahs for whom we pine are those political leaders who can deliver the Dow over 9500, keep inflation below 4%, and liquidate unemployment. We pursue happiness; but authentic joy eludes us.

Jesus was the embodiment of Gods love. He alone is the source of lifes complete joy. The things of this world cannot bring to us such fulfillment. For joy is rooted in the experience of knowing that we are unconditionally loved. Nothing -- sickness, failure, oppression, poverty, even death -- can take away this joy which is rooted in the love of God revealed in Jesus, the Messiah.

For this reason, joy is not the same as happiness. The barometer of happiness is always conditional upon ones state of being. We are reasonably happy when things go our way, when our health does not falter and our financial fortune is favorable. But happiness is vaporous. Because happiness is contingent upon external things, we are vulnerable to the misery of greed. Even when we have enough, we begin to envy those who have more. Thus, happiness evaporates under the sun rays of burning greed.

Advent joy is Gods gift that comes to us even in the worst of circumstances: the loss of a job, the death of a parent or spouse, the blight of cancer, the trauma of disease. When we come into the awareness of the love which the true Messiah brings, we can candidly confess, My grief was the place where I found my joy. Our joyous Advent affirmation will be the paradoxical line, Hallelujah anyhow!

Why is it that two people can be victims of an accident and the tragedy become for one the source of resentment and for the other a source of gratitude? Why do some people grow old in bitterness while others grow old joyfully?

Henri Nouwen tells about a friend who personifies joy at all times. But his friend works among people who endure the most depressing conditions. Every time Henri reminded his friend how corrupt, unfair, and broken is the human race, his friend would reply with a report like this: I saw two children sharing their bread with one another, and I heard a woman say thank you and smile when someone covered her with a blanket. These simple poor people gave me courage to live my life.

Recently I have been reading the journal of a young Jewish victim of the Holocaust from Amsterdam named Etty Hillesum.This remarkable woman, who died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz at age twenty-nine, had aspired to become a writer. When she was confined to the concentration camp of Westerbork, a holding place for victims being sent to Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau; she described intricately what she witnessed. Her notebooks were hidden, carefully preserved, and finally published about a decade ago.

In face of impending death and surrounded by hellish circumstances, Etty bore witness to the inviolable power of Gods love. Even at Westerbork (and especially in this demented place) Etty experienced the joy and meaning of existence. When she was accosted by a friend with the observation that her attitude of loving her enemies seemed to be espousing the doctrine of Christ, she replied, Why ever not? In the midst of incomparable suffering and moral chaos, she believed that the noblest human calling was to preserve in ones heart the spirit of love and forgiveness. In the glow of the lights of Hanukkah in the barracks of Westerbork, she wrote this confession:

I know that those who hate have good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an ever more inhospitable place. And I also believe, childishly perhaps but stubbornly, that the earth will become more habitable again only through the love that the Jew Paul described to the citizens of Corinth in the thirteenth chapter of his first letter.

Etty Hillesum and her family were placed on a train headed for the ovens of Auschwitz. She tossed from the cattle car a card that was retrieved. Her last preserved line simply read, We have left the camp singing.

Joy. Hallelujah anyhow! That is the paradoxical gift that comes to us as we approach a cave in Bethlehem and meet the refugee peasant parents of the Messiah. Is this the form of joy we are looking for, or shall we hold out for a different sort of Messiah -- some slick savior who brings us a quick fix?

Advent is a hard coming for some among us today. Disease, grief, or trouble are your lot. But on this Gaudate Sunday (a day of joy), let us all be comforted by the testimony of the saintly Henri Nouwen when he observed, We should not be surprised when we see human suffering and pain all around us. But we should be surprised by joy every time we see that God, not the Evil One, has the last word.

This is indeed Gods message of hope at Christmas. We need not look for another. He came; He is here among us; and He will come in final victory. This is the Holy One whom we meet in Bethlehems manger.

1. Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Road To Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey (New York: Image Books Doubleday, 1990), p. 95.

2. Ibid., 98.

3. Ibid., 112.

4. Malachi 3:3 NRSV

5. Isaiah 35:5-6 NRSV

6. Matthew 11:4-5 NRSV

7. The title of this sermon was suggested by the volume by Diedra Kriewald, Hallelujah Anyhow! Suffering and the Christian Community of Faith (General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, 1986).

8. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit (New York: Crossroad, 1997), p. 29.

9. Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life, The Diaries, 1941-1943, and Letter from Westerbork (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), p. 256.

10. Op. cit., pp. 32-33.