When I was single, I designed and illustrated my own Christmas cards.

 

 

That was over 39 years ago. Sometimes I would copy drawings in pen and ink from others. I had learned to do some calligraphy and can still sloppily write in an Old English style. One of my favorite of these cards had two pen and ink drawings I copied from Pauline Baynes who illustrated C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia books.

 

The illustrations I used were of a snow-covered lamppost and a stable door. These were from the first book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the last book of the series, The Last Battle.

 

 

 

The first illustration was part of a story that spoke of an evil White Witch who controlled Narnia, this parallel world where the great Christ figure is a Lion named Aslan. Children from England had “accidentally” found their way into Narnia through a wardrobe. Their first remembrance of Narnia was of a lamppost in a snowy wood. It’s how they kept track of where they had entered this strange land and kept it as a landmark.

 

In Narnia, they discovered that the White Witch had kept the land in a constant winter. Not a winter wonderland, but a land where it was “always winter and never Christmas.” For those of you who migrated to California from colder climates it would be like it having always winter and never spring.

 

 

Can you imagine this kind of world? Every time I read that description, always winter and never Christmas, it seems too much to even consider. It is a world I would reject.

 

I look forward to Christmas each year. I probably hang too many expectations on it to ever have it fully satisfy my longings and hopes and dreams. It has hints of being magical for me. And surprisingly, it sometimes gets close to being so. One of the things I have learned is that it always comes on December 25th, ready or not!

 

That the remembrance and rehearsal and recreating of that moment when Jesus breaks into our world happens with or without decorations or presents or even family. It is the infusion of eternal life and purpose and meaning into a cold and frosty world. It is the Kingdom of God at hand.

 

Over the years, I have learned that “Bidden or not, God is present.” (This is a sign in my spiritual director’s office.) The lamppost is symbolic of the “light breaking into the darkness” at it says in the prologue of John’s Gospel. I included it in my Christmas card that one year, to mark the light that dawns every Christmas in Jesus.

 

I am glad for this reality.

 

The Stable Door, is an illustration from the end of time in Narnia. It represents the transition from temporal to eternal, from earth to heaven, from not yet to fulfillment. It is through the Stable Door in the Last Battle that characters from all the books find their way into a world that is bigger and stronger and brighter and better than all that they could and had imagined. More than they could “ask or think” as Paul writes in Ephesians.

 

At Christmastime, I think of the Stable Door in Narnia as we talk of stables in our Nativity scenes. One only has to go through the door to enter into the Kingdom God has prepared for us. The Kingdom of God is present in the baby Jesus and we are invited to walk through the door and into his presence. Not just each Christmas but each day.

 

What I wrote on the card was this: “…through the Stable Door, where everything became a You and nothing was an It. Merry Christmas!” A little cryptic perhaps, but the sentiment is this. That in the presence of Jesus, we become real people – persons before God. “You”, as Martin Buber the great Jewish philosopher and theologian would say, are a seen and loved completely for yourself by God. “…and nothing was an It.”

 

We are not objects to be neglected or dismissed. We are not after-thoughts or things to be toyed with. We are real, respected, honored and loved by the God who made us and sends us Jesus to show us the way. “The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world” through a stable door. All we have to do is walk in and meet him.

 

When you see a lamppost of any kind, be reminded of Jesus, light of the world and a light for the way.

 

When you open a door, or cross a threshold, remember that Jesus himself is the door to the Kingdom, the door of the sheepfold.

 

Enter in to his presence. Even through the doors of a church you may find God’s Kingdom breaking in!

 

I love Christmas because in it I am loved completely as are You.

 

Happy Christmas!