PARTS OF A HOLE: Dappled Things’ sermon for Christmas. Describing that feeling of insufficiency, of thirst in a salt sea, that is one of the greatest motive forces in history.

…The problem seen by the Jews and pagans is not a long-gone problem of the distant past. As long as humanity exists, there will also exist the problem of the emptiness of the human heart. What can possibly fill it? It is a problem that confronts us all.

…From the poorest peasant to the Queen upon her throne, everyone, when he sits alone and thinks about his life and ponders his place in the world, realizes that his existence is a very fragile thing and that his little joys are easily lost in an ocean of solitude and shadows. In these moments of introspection, he sees that he himself shares the problem of the ancients, that he himself can feel that same empty hole within his own heart, and this emptiness smells of death.

The meaning of Christmas is that God has understood all of this and has come into the midst of our existence — not as some abstract presence hovering up above us all, not as some ethical rules that will produce a happier life, not as a few pretty thoughts and swollen words — He has come in flesh and bone, this same flesh and bone that you and I share. He knows our condition because He has lived it Himself. This is Christmas. This Child that lies today upon the manger of wood, one day upon a Cross of wood will die. He was born for us, and for us He will be sacrificed.

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