On the Sunday before Christmas, I went to the Lutheran church in my town for a special occasion. The faith community there was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the ordination of an outstanding leader.

His name is Krister Stendahl, and he has a wide reputation as a scholar and pastor. Formerly professor of New Testament at Harvard Divinity School, he also served as dean there for 11 years.

In the middle 1980s he became bishop of Stockholm in his native Sweden and from that position exercised a strong influence on the church world-wide. His preaching, lecturing, and writing showed his firm commitment to understanding between Jewish and Christian communities, as well as among various Christian churches.

Bishop Stendahl was born in 1921 and is now supposedly retired. However, he continues to draw on his expert knowledge of the New Testament and his wide pastoral experience as he teaches the meaning of the Christian tradition. He is widely esteemed for his insights into sacred scripture; his sympathetic appreciation of traditions not his own have also won for him a considerable following.

At his anniversary celebration, the bishop stepped to the pulpit, looming tall though somewhat slowed by physical disability. Until he smiles, he has an austere look that reminds me of pastors shown in the films of his fellow Swede, Ingmar Bergman. I think especially of “Winter Light” where one such pastor is portrayed as struggling with faith. (Incidentally, Krister Stendahl once told me that Bergman’s grandfather was his Sunday school teacher when he was growing up.)

For his text on the Sunday of his anniversary, Bishop Stendahl drew his material from the Gospel of Matthew. The Christmas story there focuses, not directly on the birth of Jesus, but rather on  Joseph. Though not a single word of Joseph is quoted in the Scriptures, he is presented as what the preacher called “the golden link to David’s royal line.” To the Gospel writer, Joseph has unique importance because of keeping hope alive through the generations since the time of King David.

Christmas, to Stendahl, means “that God becomes most divine.” It also is the time “when God becomes most human.” Thus divinity and humanity touch and we receive back the divinity we lost through the sin of Adam and Eve. This is the root meaning of the Christmas event as understood by the Christian tradition.

Bishop Stendahl remembers seeing, in the south of France, a statue of Joseph carrying Jesus. This serves as a reminder that Joseph is essential to the story of the mending of creation and the hope of the kingdom of heaven.

But, though Joseph is essential, he is not indispensable. God could have done it a different way. In fact, in all things God does not need man, the bishop insists, but nonetheless chooses us for His purposes.

The preacher then broadened the message from Joseph to all people. This is the human condition, he suggested, being essential but not indispensable. That brings great dignity to us human beings as we offer service to God and one another.

Being essential means, in Stendahl’s words, “no one can be me but me.” Each of us has a uniqueness that confers importance on us, an importance particular to my person.

The bishop sees himself in this way “after 60 years in the priesthood, for which I humbly thank God.” He is filled with gratitude for his own gifts: being called to serve during a long life, and being essential though never indispensable.

He regards John the Baptist as the same kind of model as St. Joseph. John was the one who said of Christ: “He must increase and I must decrease.”

I felt joy in seeing a person of my acquaintance revered by the people of his faith community and celebrated for who he is. It was easy to join in the worship of a church not my own for this special occasion and to pray in thanksgiving for God’s blessing on this special man.

Joy was also my emotion as I walked away from church, that morning, reflecting on the status that I share with every other person. I also, like you, am essential to God, despite not ever being indispensable.

Richard Griffin

My friend Frank in Kalamazoo always writes spiritually provocative letters at Christmas. This year he wonders what Jesus would have been like “if he had gotten to be seventy-five like me.”

Frank loves Christmas but complains that it doesn’t tell him much about being old. Of the beginnings of life, this event speaks eloquently. It celebrates important things, he says, like poverty and smallness. And it lifts up important people, not CEOs, but shepherds and the Magi from the East.

But the gospels say precious little about old age, Frank regrets. “There are times,” he writes, “when I think one of the limitations of the gospels is that there is lots of good news for people up to about thirty, but not much for the geezers.”

This generalization may be true by and large; however, one of the most beautiful passages in the gospels is surely St. Luke’s depiction of the old people Simeon and Anna seeing the child Jesus and feeling fulfilled in their lives.    

My friend is sure that all people, even if they die young like Jesus, carry their beginnings and scars with them as they move through life. What he loves about growing old are the new challenges that come along, things that he never would have dreamed of when young.

For example, he has been learning about Chinese religion and Buddhism, only to be amazed at the connections with his own Christian tradition. He now wonders if there were more Messiahs than “my beloved Saviour, more than one person who saw the shallowness of great deeds and the depth of being true to yourself, deeds or no deeds.”

To his satisfaction, he also finds that women play a vital role in Chinese religion, the way they do in the Christian gospels. He takes note of the reality that, from Jesus’ day till ours, many Christians have been embarrassed to acknowledge this role.

When he was 30, Frank admits, he did not know about other great spiritual leaders who “saw some of the same deep things that are at the heart of my own Christianity.” This discovery makes him joyful as he realizes that his own people do not have a corner on holiness. Those others deserve his reverence because they, too, belong to the Kingdom of God that Jesus speaks of so frequently.

Working toward a fine frenzy of a conclusion, Frank speaks from his vantage point of oncoming old age:

“And so, sitting in this old bag of bones, I wish you all a joyful Christmas and I remind you and myself that these Ones who come from the East are part of the mysteries of Christmas, harbingers of later insights on the part of us who, when we were young, thought we were the sole possessors of holiness, salvation, and the Kingdom of God.”

Frank is clearly feeling his age, but he continues to strike me as more alive than a great many of the rest of us. His enthusiasm for the things of the spirit seems rarely to flag. Like everybody else, he has his down moments, but they invariably give way to new hope.

He also displays a remarkably affective relationship with Jesus, his Messiah. His words addressed to the Lord are often familiar and endearing. And Frank, despite his now advanced years, still regards himself as a work in progress. Seeing his life as open-ended, he looks forward toward continued discovery and spiritual adventure.

Reading his letter not only gladdens my heart but encourages me to live in the same spirit that he manifests. I admire the way he allows the mysteries of faith to suffuse his life. Pondering the events of sacred history, he draws from them food for his soul.

Another influence pushing him in the direction of joy is seeing his two sons living “the early years of their married lives, each with an altogether remarkable woman.” They also reside in Kalamazoo, a vicinity that much pleases Frank. And he also welcomes into retirement his own wife who has been a psychotherapist for almost 25 years.

For this old friend of mine, it all makes for a merry Christmas the joy of which he extends to me and all his other friends as well. This is an old fashioned letter that is good for the soul.

Richard Griffin

The neurologist Oliver Sacks, in an essay reprinted in The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004, discusses various experiences of blindness. Some of those who have lost their sight (or who never had it in the first place) have found an amazing increase in the power of their other senses.

Sacks describes what happened to an Australian, John Hull, who became blind in middle age. He lost all visual memories and images, becoming like someone blind from birth.  

But, as if in compensation, Hull came to know, in time, a striking enhancement of other ways of experiencing reality. About this change Sacks says: “He seemed to regard this loss of visual imagery as a prerequisite for the full development, the heightening, of his other senses.”

His blindness came to transform the way he hears various sounds. For him, the impact of rain falling on different surfaces creates all kinds of auditory effects. Raindrops on the roof, for example, sound very different from raindrops  on trees or on pavements.. Before he became blind, John Hull, like most of us, did not notice the difference.

Typically, blind people’s sense of touch differs greatly from that of the ordinary sighted person. They use their hands to explore their environment, and learn a great deal about it

Smell is another sense that can be rendered more powerful by deprivation in one part of the brain. Dr. Sacks mentions another blind man who can recognize people by their smell, even detecting anxiety and tension in those who approach him. It seems as if a system of compensations is at work.

Lose your ability to see, and you may develop ways of making up for this loss. Perhaps this phenomenon renders it easier to understand why some blind people who have had their sight restored do not welcome returning to the world of the sighted.

Reading about these experiences, I came to draw two conclusions.

First, what gifts the five senses are! Being enabled to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is a precious gift of God. Taking these powers for granted, as most of us do most of the time, is to underestimate the glory of being human.

Secondly, each one of these powers has much greater potential than we commonly realize.  Becoming more aware of the beauty of what we see, or the form, or the shape, or the color, is to increase appreciation of the world around us.

Empowered by this realization, I sometimes leave my house, resolved to see things anew. For a time, at least, the world takes on a splendor that is usually lost on dull old me. No one, of course, can keep this up for long; to try it would be to flirt with madness.

Too easily do we become dull to the sights and sounds of our environment To some extent, this is understandable: it is to protect ourselves from sensory overload. But ignoring the songs of the birds that perch in our trees and the beauty of the night sky exacts its price.

And surface often leads the way to depth. Creating one of my favorite poetic lines, Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”

These reflections, in my mind, have a vital connection with Christmas. I see the birth of the Christ child as prompting a celebration of the senses.

It is a feast that calls contemplators to appreciate the light more deeply. This is the light that enlightens every person who comes into the world, as the beginning of John’s Gospel asserts. At Christmas, one can allow that light to suffuse one’s soul.

Paradoxically, the Christian tradition shows this Christmas light in the midst of darkness: the glory breaking on the shepherds’ night watch, the star shining in the east. It inspires attention and wonder.

In a season when commerce assails our senses with holiday sights and sounds, we can still recover the gift of perception, by appreciating darkness and silence. We can then recover the celebration of the light of Christmas, as well as the wonderful evocative odors of pine and balsam, the sounds of childrens’ voices, and the touch of a friend’s hand.

As Oliver Sachs learned, each sense is a gift in itself.

Richard Griffin

On a brilliant June morning, I departed from the cemetery along with a crowd of other mourners, leaving behind the body of my friend Bob. Since then, I have been thinking about Bob, his life and his death. That he died only a few weeks after discovering a fatal disease still shocks me and his many other friends. We had thought ourselves to have more time with him than that.

Understand that Bob and I were friends for 61 years, ever since we entered high school together. We had stayed in touch all during that time, bound as we were by ties of respect and affection. Also we shared spiritual values that became even more important as we aged.

I feel Bob to be still present to me despite his death, but I continually revolve in my mind and heart how that is true. In this contemplation, I have found help from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor who was executed by the Nazis in 1945.

In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer wrote the following words to his wife: “Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through.

Bonhoeffer continues: “That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; God doesn’t fill it, but on the contrary, keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.”

For me, the words carried a vital message as I thought about Bob.

I find at least two important ideas in this passage from the German theologian’s letters. First, that God does not fill the gap that is left in our hearts when a loved one dies. Asserting that God does so is a mistake; it would be bad theology and a misrepresentation of human life.

And, secondly, that God does us a favor in keeping that place empty. It’s God’s way of helping us preserve the bond with the one we love. At the cost of allowing us to feel pain, God lets us experience a vital absence.

This approach goes against conventional wisdom and the way we think and feel about death. Bonhoeffer’s message could make us think differently about people who have lost a friend to death. Of course, their feelings of loss will normally diminish in intensity over time, but these emotions can still serve as signs of spiritual value.

In this way, the absence turns into a kind of presence. We are continually reminded of our loved one, of that person’s place in our life. So long as the gap remains, we feel him or her to belong to us.

That is the way I am now feeling about my friend Bob. Though his bodily presence has disappeared, he remains present to me spiritually. Bonhoeffer is right: the gap abides and God is not taking it away.

Does Bob still feel that way about me?  This question brings us further into the realm of mystery. The very act of asking it plunges the questioner deeper into reality than we can handle.

Yes, I believe that my friend can still hold me in affection. Yet, I have no evidence for this nor do I want such proof. Rather, I leave it to the realm of hope rather than science. That is the way Bob would have approached the question, had I been the one to die first.

To me, Bob’s life was worth so much, was so precious that I cannot imagine it lost. The gap that I feel serves for me as testimony of my friend’s ongoing life. The convergence of faith, hope, and love that we shared suggests a communion of friendship that abides.

Richard Griffin