Christmas means many things to many people.  It seems that Christmas, being such an emotionally expectant time, a time when we hope for so much, also becomes a kind of magnifying glass that enlarges our experiences or focuses them in ways we hadn't thought of before.  Tonight, I want to offer some Christmas memories for our reflection.  These are not my memories, but the memories of someone whose children and grandchild are among us in this community.  They are memories of a Christmas experienced in a far away place under harsh circumstances -- a little like that first Christmas 2000 years ago, when the tyrants Caesar Augustus and Herod the Great forced Mary and Joseph to undergo hardship and to have their baby in a stable, maybe even a cave, instead of in their own home.

   The year was 1947, two years after the end of World War II.   William Lyon Mackenzie King was still prime minister of Canada; Winston Churchill still held forth in Britain; Harry Truman was giving ?em hell in the United States; Germany lay in rubble; and Europe struggled to recover from the horrors of war.  It was a time when Josef Stalin, the all-powerful and paranoid ruler of the Soviet Union, held millions of his enemies, both real and imagined, in forced labour camps in Siberia.

   In 1947, many of those enemies who found themselves in the frozen taiga of Siberia were German prisoners of war.  In the northeastern Ural mountains, there was a particular region - the region of Vorkuta - which was notorious for the large number of forced labour camps for German prisoners of war.  In one of these camps, called Rshev, was a young German soldier named Edwin.  Edwin wrote about this time in his life, and it is from his brief account that I take this story.

   As Christmas was approaching in 1947, wild rumours had begun to circulate around the camp that the stridently atheist regime of Josef Stalin might actually allow the prisoners to celebrate Christmas that year.  Some of the prisoners, the ones who had been captured early on in Hitler's offensive against the Soviet Union, had not been able to celebrate the feast of Christ's birth for six years now.  Edwin, who was captured on the eastern front in 1944, had been in the camps for three years; he had not had Christmas or anything like a day off since his capture.

   Edwin recalls the end of the work day in those December weeks.  He and the other exhausted prisoners were marched back to the camp as always at 6:00 p.m. from their long day of backbreaking labour, building something or other for Stalin and his schemes.  They marched through the darkness and cold of the Siberian winter, a darkness that was lit only by the eerie glow from the endless shroud of snow.  They could barely keep themselves from stumbling and falling after the long day in the bone numbing cold.  Their hollow stomachs gnawed at them for some food.  When they finally reached the camp, the prisoners would struggle back to their barracks.  Once in the barracks, they would quickly devour the bowl of bad smelling watery soup and the tiny piece of sticky black bread that awaited them.  Then they would gather around the wood stove, sitting on the bare floor boards, and, in hushed tones, begin to discuss the latest rumours.

   One would begin, "Have you noticed how the soup has gotten thinner these past weeks?"

   "Yes! And there hasn't been any sugar now for a long time either!" another would add.

   "They seem to be cutting back on a lot of things, even that lousy Russian tobacco they hand out to us," a third would observe.

   "Well, I heard that the head cook said that they were saving up for Christmas."

   The thought of Christmas made all the men become dreamy and expectant like little children.

   "Maybe they'll give us a day off," one of them wondered.  There were no days off in these camps.  The men worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week.  How they all longed for a day to sleep in, to finally feel rested.

   "Maybe they'll let us visit the other barracks in the camp, and even sing Christmas songs to celebrate Christmas," another imagined.

   "Hey, if they're saving all that sugar, maybe the cook will make a cake for us!" It had been so long since any of them had had anything like a cake that it was hard to imagine what it would taste like.

   "Do you think we'll get some mail from home?" one of them asked no one in particular.  For years now, they had heard nothing from their loved ones back home.  They didn't even know if any of them were alive or what had become of them.  They felt like orphans, abandoned by the world.  How wonderful it would be to get word from a mother or wife or fiancée, maybe even written on a real Christmas card.

   "Hey," someone would pipe up, "maybe we'll get parcels with chocolate and cigarettes!  The Red Cross must be able to pull that off -- you know, get mail and care packages through to us."

   "Well," another inmate offered, "the camp commander told our ranking officer that things were going to change around here.  Stalin said that there would be changes.  Stalin is sending a Commission."

   Edwin fell into thought.  Changes.  A Commission.  Maybe they would be released.  No more forced labour.  No more lice.  No more biting cold.  At last, getting to eat his fill.  A hot bath.  A soft white bed.  Would he ever have these things again?  Did they ever really exist, or were they just dreams from some past he was only imagining?

   Christmas Eve was getting closer.  The intensity of the expectation increased.  Then, on a day not long before December 24th, as the work gangs marched through the camp gates at 6:00 p.m., Edwin remembers being greeted with the news: "The Commission is here!  All prisoners are to appear immediately for inspection by the Commission."  Even though he was hungry, cold, and exhausted, all that would have to wait, at least until the inspection was over.

     This was not the first time such an inspection had taken place, so Edwin knew what to do.  He lined up with his company.  When his group's turn came, they marched into the barracks that had been cleared out and prepared for the inspection.  Once inside the vestibule of the barracks, he and his comrades stripped naked.  Without their bulky clothes on, the overworked and underfed prisoners looked like skeletons in tight skin wrapping.

   Then, each man appeared individually in his birthday suit before the Commission.  When Edwin's turn came he followed protocol: he marched into the space where the Commission members sat with stoney faces behind a table covered with a red table cloth.  He stood at attention, with his hands placed purposefully in front of his private parts.  He saw that the Commission was made up of three high ranking officers accompanied by two civilians, one a man and the other a woman.  The inspection consisted of a very quick physical examination. As Edwin puts it, "each rib was accounted for," and then you had to turn around and a hand would reach out from the Commission and give you a firm pinch in the behind to determine how much muscle was still on the bones.  Then you marched out and the next prisoner came in.

   By 11:00 p.m. the Commission had finished its work.  As the men stood in their ranks and files waiting in the cold, the battalion leaders appeared with new company lists for the prisoners.  The lists were read aloud, and the ranks and files of prisoners dissolved and reformed themselves according to the new order of things.  As Edwin lined up with his new group, it was announced that certain companies of prisoners, including the one he was now in, were to prepare themselves for immediate departure.  The other companies were sent back to the barracks.

   Around 2:00 a.m., Edwin remembers, he and the others who were standing in order, waiting to leave, were marched out of the camp and into the uncertainty of the night.  No one explained what was happening.  No one said where they were going. Edwin and his comrades could only go where they were told to go and hope for the best.  I imagine it was an unnerving time, marching into the dark Siberian forest.

   For 30 minutes they marched in the cold night.  At last they came to a rail depot.  There, in front of them they saw a snow covered freight train made up of cattle cars.  The guards split the men into groups of thirty.  Each group of thirty was assigned to a cattle car.  As Edwin climbed in through the open doors of the cattle car with his 29 car mates, he saw to his relief that the car was outfitted with a metal stove and an ample supply of wood.  Within a short time, he recalls, his group had the little stove roaring.  Oh, how good it was after hours in the cold to feel the wood stove's life-giving warmth and to see its flickering firelight dancing on their faces.  The light from the fire also revealed some of the details of their situation, most notably the rough bare wood of the cattle car's construction, and the ice that encrusted the walls of the car.

   After a while the door of the car was pulled open.  Two guards lifted a white tarp into the car.  On the tarp were 30 loaves of bread and 30 salted herring.  Edwin was amazed!  A whole loaf of bread and a nice fat fish too!  Would there be Christmas after all?  He and his companions were so hungry now, not having eaten anything for nearly 24 hours, that they could only think of eating.  But the bread and the fish were frozen solid.  So Edwin and the others each began hold their loaf up against the hot wood stove to thaw it; and then the same with the fish.  As soon as the food was eatable, Edwin and his companions ate and ate and ate as though they had been given miraculous loaves and fishes that would never run out.

   As his hunger was slowly stilled and he could start thinking again, Edwin wondered:  Is this how Stalin will send us home?  Like this?  In cattle cars with dirty work clothes and infested with lice?  And why the hurry?  Why on Christmas Eve?  Soon enough the men in the cattle car began to whisper these sorts of questions to each other.

   Then one of the prisoners, a man who had been captured near Moscow in 1941, who had already experienced similar scenes too many times to have any hope left, interjected into the mumbled questions: "Send us home?  They're going to let us rot here... slowly rot..."  He broke into a disconcerting cackling laughter that was so brittle that it seemed to shatter against the icy walls of the cattle car.  A kind of naked despair began to claw at the hearts of these shunned men, these orphans of a defeated nation, these debtors of a lost cause.

   Then the unexpected happened: from a dark corner of the cattle car came a quiet humming.  At first, it sounded like it could have been the beginning of a moaning or a crying, but then it emerged as a melody: "Silent Night, Holy Night."  Soon the song was taken up by other voices: first one, then two, and then four, then almost the whole car.  Edwin remembers tears coming, not only to his eyes, but to the eyes of all these hard-bitten men, men who knew all too well how to curse in their own and their captor's language, but who had long ago forgotten how to pray, how to speak the language of heaven.  The naked despair experienced just moments ago was washed away by the tears, and something extraordinary happened.

   In Edwin's words, "Invisibly, the Eternal stood in the room and smoothed the ruffled souls."  Yes, Christmas had come.  It had come in a cattle car, sitting in the middle of the frozen Siberian taiga, in the dead of night, among the outcasts of the world.  There were no decorations.  There was no jollity or merry making.  There were no presents.  There was only the mysterious sense of heavenly peace, of something transcendent in the midst of the harshness of this world.

   Of course, Christmas is never the end of the story.  No, it is really just the beginning.  And, just as for Jesus and his family, the events of that first Christmas were followed by the brutal massacre of innocents by Herod's soldiers, exile in Egypt, and of course ultimately crucifixion, so here, too, the struggles of life went on.

   The train didn't move for the rest of that night and the whole next day.  Listening through the openings in the cattle car, Edwin remembers hearing only the crackling of the frost from the taiga, and the cursing that came from the occasional passing guard.  On the second night, the train began to move and rattle.  But where were they going?

   They had each been given a loaf of bread and a salted fish, but there was no water in the cars.  Edwin remembers the thirst begin to claw at him.  For two whole days there was not a mouthful of water.  The prisoners pounded at the door with their fists and feet.  "Voda, poshalujsta, emnogo vody... Water, please water, just a little water!"  From outside the responses were only curses and gunshots.

   Edwin and the others began scraping the ice from the walls, but the little bit of water they could extract from this only caused even greater thirst pangs.  After two days, Edwin remembers being delirious, dropping off into a half sleep in which he imagined himself drinking streams of bubbly sparkling wine, barrels of frothy beer, the finest fruit juices, and water -- again and again water, hot water and cold water.

   Finally, in the early morning hours of the third day, the rhythmic rattling of the train died down.  The doors of the cattle car flew open and Edwin and the others fell out of the car, one clambering over the other, to throw themselves into the meter high snow.  With their parched, shriveled mouths they began to devour the snow as they had devoured the bread and fish three days earlier.  It was a kind of odd resurrection, a resurrection to frozen water and back into the world of work and struggle.

   The guards used the butts of their rifles to force the prisoners to their feet and into line.  They were marched to a new camp, to more hunger, more freezing cold, and more numbing forced labour.  But Edwin would always remember that night when, in his words, "the Holy had brushed up against our hearts and our desperate longing was turned into unquenchable hope."

   Edwin was released from his captivity in 1948, after four years as a prisoner of Josef Stalin.  His exile was ended.

   Perhaps on this Christmas, each of us may be able to stop for a moment from all that troubles us and allow the Holy to brush up against our hearts, and allow the Eternal to stand in our midst and smooth our ruffled souls.  Maybe we can know for a moment the true gift that Christmas brings: God with us.  Amen.

      Weihnachten bedeutet für jeden etwas anderes.  Da die Weihnachtszeit voller emotionellen Erwartungen ist; da wir von ihr so viel erwarten, wirkt sie wie eine Art Lupe, welche unsere Erlebnisse uns groß vor Augen hält, oder sie auf ungedachte Weisen scharf stellt.  Heute möchte ich einige Weihnachtserinnerungen bringen.  Diese sind nicht meine Erinnerungen, sondern sind die Erinnerungen von jemanden, dessen Kinder und Enkel unter uns in dieser Umgebung wohnen.  Sie sind die Erinnerungen von einer Weihnachtszeit, die in einem fernen Lande, unter harten Zuständen erlebt wurde -- nicht all zu anders von der 1. Weihnacht vor 2000 Jahren, als die Tyrannen Caesar Augustus und Herodes der Große die Maria und den Joseph zwangen, in schwierigen Umständen zu geraten, und das Kind in einem Stall, ja womöglich in einer Höhle auf die Welt zu bringen.

   Das Jahr war 1947, zwei Jahre nach Ende des 2. Weltkriegs.  In Kanada regierte noch William Lyon Mackenzie King; in Groß Britannien waltete noch Winston Churchill; der U.S. Präsident war Harry Truman; Deutschland lag in Trümmern; Europa war vom Horror des Kriegs erschöpft.  In der Sowjet Union regierte mit absoluter Macht und mit großer Paranoia der Josef Stalin, und hielt in den Arbeitslagern Sibiriens millionen seiner Feinde, wirkliche Feinde sowie jene die er in seiner Fantasie zu Feinden gemacht hat.

   Im Jahre 1947 waren natürlich viele dieser Feinde Stalins in der gefrorenen Taiga Sibiriens die deutschen Kreigsgefangenen.  Im nordöstlichen Uralgebirge gab es im Bezirk Workuta, eine große Zahl an Arbeitslagern für Kriegsgefangenen.  In einer dieser Lager, das Lager Rschew, befand sich ein junger deutscher Soldat mit Namen Edwin.  Der Edwin schrieb später in seinem Leben über diese Zeit in der Gefangenschaft.  Meine Erzählung beruht sich auf Seine.

   Als sich im Jahre 1947 Weihnachten näherte, schwirrten die wildesten Gerüchte im Lager herum.  Man sagte, die streng atheistische herrshaft Stalins ließ es vielleicht zu, daß die Lagerinsaßen dieses Jahr Weihnachten feiern dürften.  Manche der Gefangenen, jene die früh beim Angriff Hitlers gegen die Sowjet Union gefangen genommen wurden, durften schon seit 6 Jahren kein Weihnachten feiern.  Der Edwin, der 1944 in die russische Gefangenschaft kam, war jetzt schon 3 Jahre lang in Haft.  Seit seiner Gefangennahme hatte er nicht einmal so etwas wie einen freien Tag gehabt.

   Der Edwin erinnnert sich an das Tagesende in jenen Dezemberwochen.  Er und die anderen erschöpften Gefangenen, nach dem sie den ganzen Tag in der Kälte die ermürbende Arbeit an irgend einem Wahnsinn Stalins geleistet hatten, marschierten sie in ihren Arbeitskolonnen, wie üblich, um 18 Uhr durch das Lagertor wieder in das Lager hinein.  Sie marschierten durch die Finsternis und die Kälte des sibirischen Winters, eine Finsternis die nur durch den unheimlichen Schein von dem endlosen Leichentuch des Schnees beleuchtet war.  Sie konnten sich vor lauter Müdigkeit kaum aufrecht halten.  Ihre ausgehohlten Magen sehnte sich nach Essen.  Kamen sie dann endlich ins Lager und endlich in die relative Wärme der Baracken, dann verzehrten sie rasch die stinkende Wassersuppe und das winzige Stück klebrigen Schwarzbrots, welche auf sie warteten.  Die Männer versammelten sich um den Holzofen wo sie auf kahle Bretter sich setzten, und fingen an leise die neuesten Gerüchte weiterzuerzählen.

   Einer begann, "Habt ihr gemerkt, wie die Suppe in den letzten Wochen noch wassriger geworden ist?"

   "Ja!  Und kein Zucker gibt¹s auch nicht mehr!" fügte ein anderer zu.

   "Man scheint an vielem einzusparen," meinte ein Dritter, "sogar am Machorka spart man."  Machorka hieß der schlecht schmeckende Tabak, der im Lager ausgeteilt wurde.

   "Ich hab¹ gehört, daß der Haupt Koch selber gesagt hätte, daß sie auf Weihnachten zu sparen."

   Das Erwähnen von Weihnachten brachte alle Männer zum Nachdenken und Sehnen.  Sie wurden wie kleine Kinder in ihren Gedanken und in ihrer Hoffnung.

   "Vielleicht kriegen wir einen freien Tag," meinte einer.  Es gab keine freie Tage in diesen Lagern.  Die Männer arbeiteten 12 Stunden am Tag, 7 Tage der Woche.  Wie sie sich doch alle um einen freien Tag sehnten, um endlich mal auszuschalfen.

   "Vielleicht lassen die uns bei den anderen Baracken Besuche machen, und womöglich noch Weihnachtslieder singen," fantasierte ein anderer.

   "Wißt ihr, wenn die den ganzen Zucker sparen, gibt¹s vielleicht einen Kuchen!"  Es war schon so lange seit der Edwin einen Kuchen gegessen hat, daß er sich den Geschmack kaum noch vorstellen konnte.

   "Meint ihr, wir bekommen Post aus der Heimat?" frug einer.  Seit Jahren hatten die Männer nichts von Zuhause gehört.  Sie wußten gar nicht ob die daheim überhaupt noch lebten, oder was aus ihnen geworden ist.  Sie fühlten sich wie, von der Welt verlassenen Waisen.  Wie schön wäre es, Post von der Mutter oder der Frau oder der Braut zu bekommen, vielleicht sogar auf einer echten Weihnachtskarte.

   "Jungs, vielleicht bekommen wir Päckchen mit Schokolade und Zigaretten!" schlug jemand vor.  "Das Rote Kreuz kann das doch, oder?"

   Noch ein anderer Gefangene behauptete, der Natschalnik hätte dem Lagerführer gesagt, daß sich hier demnächst etwas ändern wird.  Der Stalin hätte gesagt, es kämmen Veränderungen auf sie zu.  Der Stalin schicke scheinbar eine Kommission.

   Der Edwin geriet in Gedanken.  Veränderungen.  Eine Kommission.  Vielleicht würde man sie entlassen.  Keinen Arbeitsnorm mehr.  Keine Läuse mehr.  Keine beißende Kälte mehr.  Endlich sat essen.  Ein heißes Bad.  Ein weiches weißes Bett.  Gäbe es diese Dinge je wieder?  Existierten sie je, oder waren diese Dinge nur ein Traum von einer Vergangenheit, die er sich nur einbildete?

   Der Heiligabend rückte näher.  Die Erwartung steigerte sich.  Dann, an einem Tag nahe dem 24. Dezember, als die Arbeitskolonnen um 18 Uhr einrückten, begrüßte die Männer die Nachricht, "Die Kommission ist da!  Alle Gefangenen sollen sich sofort zur Inspektion bereit machen!"  Essen, Wärme, und Schlaf müßten eben warten bis die Inspektion vorbei war.

   Solche Inspektionen gab es immer wieder, so wußte der Edwin was er zu tun hatte.  Er reihte sich mit seiner Kompanie auf.  Als sie dran kamen, marschierten sie in eine Baracke, die für die Inspektion ausgeräumt war.  Im Vorraum der Baracke zog er sich mit den anderen aus.  Die nakte Leiber der unterernährten und überangestrengten Männer sahen wie gehäutete Skeletten aus.

   Jeder mußte nakt vor der Kommission antreten.  Der Edwin folgte das Protokol: er marschierte in den Raum wo die Kommission mit verschlossenen Gesichtern hinter einem Tisch mit rotem Tischtuch saßen.  Er stand da, mit beiden Händen wo die Hosennaht gewesen wäre.  Er sah, daß die Kommission aus 3 hohe Offiziere und 2 Zivilisten bestand: eine der Zivilisten war eine Frau.  Die Inspektion bestand aus einer schnellen körperlichen Untersuchung.  Wie der Edwin schreibt, "Jedes Gerippe wurde eingehend gemustert, mußte sich dann umdrehen und in die Hinterbacke kneifen lassen, um festzustellen, wieviel an Muskeln noch auf den Knochen war."

   Um 23 Uhr war die Inspektion zu Ende.  Die Männer warteten in ihren Kompanien und Zügen in der Kälte.  Dann kamen die Battaillonsführer mit ihren neuen Listen.  Als die Listen heruntergelesen wurden, zerissen sich die Kompanien und Züge und formten sich neu.  Als sich der Edwin mit seiner neuen Gruppe aufreihte, hieß es, daß bestimmte Kompanien, darunter die seine, sich für den sofortigen Abmarsch bereiten sollen.  Die anderen Kompanien schickte man zurück in die Baracken.

   Um 2 Uhr in der Nacht, erinnert sich der Edwin, stand er mit seiner Kompanie.  Der Abmarsch ging los.  Hinaus in das Unbekannte der sibirischen Nacht.  Keiner erklärte was los war.  Keiner sagte wo sie hin marschierten.  Der Edwin und seine Kameraden konnten nur um das Beste hoffen.  Ich stelle mir vor, das war eine entnervende Zeit.

   30 Minuten lang marschierten sie in der kalten Nacht.  Endlich gelangen sie an einen Bahnhof. Da stand vor ihnen ein schneebedeckter, aus Viehwaggons zusammengestellter Güterzug.  Die Wachposten teilten die Männer in Gruppen von 30 auf.  Jede 30ger Mannschaft wurde einem Viehwaggon zugewiesen.  Als der Edwin mit seinen 29 Waggongenossen einstieg, sah er beglückt einen Holzofen mit einem ziemlichen Vorrat an Holz.  Nicht lange, und seine Gruppe hat den Ofen zum bullern gebracht.  Ach wie gut war es, nach so vielen Stunden in der Kälte, die lebenspendende Wärme des Ofens zu spüren, und das Licht des Feuers auf den Gesichtern tanzen zu sehen.  Das Licht des Feuers enthüllte auch einige Einzelheiten ihrer Unterkunft, nämlich, die kahle raue Planken, und die vereiste Wände des Waggons.

   Nach einer Weile wurde die Türe aufgerissen, und 2 Wachposten hieben eine weiße Plane mit 30 hartgefronenen Brote und 30 hartgefronen Salzherringe.  Der Edwin konnte seinen Augen nicht glauben!  Einen ganzen Brotleib, und einen dicken Fisch dazu!?  Gäbe es doch noch Weihnachten?!  Der Edwin und seine Kameraden hatten nun einen so großen Hunger, nachdem sie fast einen ganzen Tag lang nichts zu essen bekommen hatten, daß sie nur an das Essen denken konnten.  Man hielt die gefrorenen Brote und Fische and den Ofen, und sobald man sie essen konnte, wurden sie verschlungen.  Es war, als ob man den Männern die Wunderbrote, und -fische der Speißung der 5000 gegeben hatte, und sie keinem künftigen Mangel fürchten brauchten.

   Als der hunger langsam gestillt wurde, und die Männer wieder denken konnten, wunderte sich Edwin:  Schickt uns der Stalin so nach Hause?  In Viehwaggons?  Mit dreckigen Arbeitskleider und voller Läuse?  Und warum die Eile?  Warum am Heiligabend?  Bald fingen die Männer im Waggon an, diese Fragen zu einander zu flüstern.

   Dann brach einer der Gefangen ein, einer der schon 1941 vor Moskau gefangen genommen war, der genug ähnliche Szenen erlebte hatte, daß er keine Hoffnung mehr hatte, und sagte, "In die Heimat?... Verrecken läßt man uns hier, langsam verrecken!"  und sein heiseres Gelächter brach sich an den eisigen Wänden des Waggons.  Nackte Verzweiflung umkrallte mit Geierfängen die Herzen dieser ausgestoßenen Männer, dieser Waisen eines besiegten Volks, dieser Schuldner einer verlorenen Sache.

   Dann passierte das Unerwartete:  aus einer dunklen Ecke des Waggons began ein leises Summen.  Zuerst hätte es der Begin eines Wehklangens oder eines Weinens sein können, doch dann entwickelte es sich zur Melodie: "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht."  Bald wurde das Lied von anderen Stimmen aufgenommen: zuerst eine, dann 2, dann 4, dann fast alle im Waggon.  Der Edwin erinnert sich, wie die Tränen kamen, nicht nur ihm, sondern allen.  Die nackte Verzweiflung dieser hartgesottenen Männer, die das Fluchen verstanden, aber das Beten schon längst vergessen hatten, wurde mit den Tränen hinweggespült.  So beschreibt der Edwin diesen Moment: "Unsichtbar stand das Ewige im Raum und glättete die zerwühlten Seelen."

   Ja, Weihnachten war gekommen.  Weihnachten kam in einem Viehwaggon, mitten in der gefrorenen sibirischen Taiga, in der Finsternis der Nacht, unter den Ausgestoßenen der Welt.  Es gab keine Verzierungen im Raum.  Es gab kein Festmahl mit Wein und Bier.  Es gab keine Geschenke.  Es gab nur das schwer zu beschreibende Gefühl des himmlischen Friedens, das überschreitende Irgend-Etwas in Mitten einer unfreundlichen Welt.

   Natürlich ist Weihnachten nie das Ende der Geschichte.  Ganz im Gegenteil, ist Weihnachten immer der Anfang der Geschichte.  Wie auch für Jesus und seine Familie, nach den Ereignissen der 1. heiligen Nacht, der Angrif des Herodes, die Flucht nach Ägypten, und eventuell die Kreuzigung folgten, so auch hier ging das Leben weiter.

   Einen ganzen Tag lang stand der Zug da, ohne irgend welche Bewegung.  Draußen hörte man nur das Krachen des Frosts und gelegentlich das Fluchen eines vorbeischreitenden Wachpostens.  Erst in der 2. Nacht setzte sich der Zug rüttelnd in Bewegung.  Doch wohin?

   Jeder hat ein Brot und einen Fisch bekommen, doch in den Waggons war kein Wasser.  Der Edwin beschreibt wie der Durst seine fürchterliche Herrschaft antrat.  2 Tage lang gab es keinen ganzen Schluck Wasser.  Die Gefangenen trommelten mit Händen und Fäusten an die Tür.  "Woda, poschalujsta woda, emnogo wody... Wasser, bitte Wasser, nur ein wenig Wasser!"  Flüche und Schüsse waren die Antwort.

   Edwin und die anderen kratzten das Eis von den Wänden, doch das bischen Wasser, das man von dem Eis entziehen konnte reizte den Durst nur noch mehr.  Nach 2 Tagen, so errinert sich der Edwin, war er im Delirium.  Im Halbschlaf meinte er, er trinke Ströme schäumenden Sekts, Fässer würzigem Biers, die erlesensten Fruchtsäfte, und Wasser -- immer wieder Wasser, heißes und kaltes.

   Endlich, am Morgen des 3. Tags stillte sich das rhytmische Rütteln des Zugs.  Die Türen des Waggons wurden aufgerissen, und the Männer stürtzten sich in den Meter tiefen Schnee.  Mit ihren ausgetrockneten Mäulern, verzehrten sie den Schnee wie vor 3 Tagen das Brot und die Fische.  Es war eine Art Auferstehung, eine Auferstehung nach 3 Tagen zu gefronenem Wasser und die Welt der Arbeitsnorm.

   Die Wachposten hieben an mit ihren Gewehrkolben um die Gefangenen zu Fuß und in Ordnung zu bringen.  Edwin und die Anderen wurden in ein neues Lager getrieben.  Man sollte also weiter hungern, weiter frieren, und weiter als Sklave arbeiten.  Doch der Edwin würde sich immer an die Nacht erinnern, als, wie er es beschreibt, "das Heilige unsere Herzen gestreift und die verzweifelnde Sehnsucht in eine unauslöschliche Hoffnung verwandelt."

   Der Edwin wurde 1948 aus der Gefangenschaft entlassen, nach 4 Jahren unter dem Daumen Stalins.  Sein Exil war beendet.

   Vielleicht können wir zu dieser Weihnachtszeit eine Weile zum Stillstand kommen, alle unsere Sorgen kurz lassen, das Unsichtbare in unsere Mitte kommen lassen, und das Ewige unsere zerwühlten Seelen glätten lassen.  Vielleicht können wir dann einen Moment lang das wahre Geschenk der Weihnachtszeit erkennen: Gott mit uns.  Amen.

      According to Luke's account, Mary and Joseph went up to Jerusalem every year with their son Jesus, to celebrate the Passover.  Reading between the lines we also learn that they went with their friends and relatives, probably from Nazareth and neighbouring villages, travelling in a group.  This would make sense and also reflect the pilgrimage practices of the day: that pilgrims would travel in larger groups for safety, mutual support, and encouragement.

   We learn from today's reading that in the year when Jesus was 12, an incident took place which merited special mention, namely, that while the rest of the group headed back, Jesus, who was of an age when he would soon begin his apprenticeship to take up his father's trade, stayed behind in Jerusalem and inserted himself in among the scribes and teachers of the Law who would have been in the Temple precincts discussing the Law of Moses and the finer points of keeping the Law.  We learn that Jesus listened to the discussions of the scribes and teachers ("Rabbis"), asked them questions, but also answered their questions with a surprising level of understanding for his age.

   We also learn from today's reading that Jesus caused his parents great grief by disappearing without saying a word.  When his parents finally found him and scolded him, his response was not to say, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."  Rather, his response was, "You had to search for me?  Haven't you figured it out yet, that I have to be in my Father's house?"

   That's an interesting response, and for our modern western sensibilities, seems a bit rude and disrespectful.  It raises some questions for me.  Does one commandment trump another?   Does, for example,  "You will have no other gods before me," trump "Honour your father and mother"?

   At first it seems troubling that Jesus should respond so nonchalantly to having caused such worry for his parents.  On the other hand, I remember from my own youth that I was sometimes baffled by the amount of worry that my mother and grandmother seemed to carry about my safety.  I knew I was safe.  What was the problem?  Certainly, if we are to understand Jesus in his humanness, then his response just in those simple preadolescent terms is completely understandable.

   For for those of us who understand Jesus as the one without sin, there does remain that little niggling bit about the commandment that says, "Honour your father and mother."  Later in his ministry, Jesus would reassert and emphasize several times the very principle which he was touching on here in this Temple incident.

   The most notable one was where Mary and her other children came to fetch Jesus, and Jesus said to those listening, "My mother and brothers and sisters are those who hear the word of God and do it" (Luke 8:21 // Matthew 12:50 // Mark 3:35).  Jesus expressed a similar sort of relationship over against biological or legal family ties in such passages as, "I tell you (that I came to bring) division.  For from now on five in one household will be divided... father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law" (Luke 12:51-53 // Matthew 10:34-36); and, when a would-be follower said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father," and Jesus answered, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead" (Luke 9:59-60 // Matthew 8:21-22).

   At the same time, Jesus criticized the Pharisees for using the commandments on tithing to get out of their responsibilities to their parents  (Mark 7:8-13).

   I think that Jesus implies a hierarchy of commandments, even if he does not declare so out rightly.  Jesus was not a legalist in the sense of one who picked around at the finer points of observance, but he does seem to have an overriding sense of the preeminence of the first commandment.  It seems that for everything that Jesus does and says, there is one great underlying impulse: the commandment which says, "You will have no other gods before me."  Nothing in your life, no mater how potentially emotionally dear, will become God in your life.  Only God will be God.

   Luther, in his treatment of the first commandment in his Large Catechism, has a good intuitive sense of where Jesus is coming from.  He writes, "A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need.  To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in him with our whole heart...the trust and faith of the heart  alone make both God and an idol."  Later in the same section he writes, "Idolatry does not consist merely of erecting an image and praying to it.  It is primarily in the heart, which pursues other things and seeks help and consolation from creatures..."  Then he goes further, especially in relation to our topic today, when he writes, "Although much good comes to us from humans, we receive it all from God... Creatures are only the hands, channels, means, through which God bestows all blessings.  For example, God gives to the mother breasts and milk for her infant, and god gives grain and all kinds of fruits from the earth for our nourishment-- things which no creature could produce of itself" (Large Catechism, "The First Commandment").

   For Jesus, I think, there is a kind of implied hierarchy.  Although God commands us to love and honour the people around us, when the demands or expectations of the people come into conflict with God's call, the choice is clear: God's call to service overrides any general commandment to do good.  The reason is, that were it to be the other way around, then anyone with any claim on us would instantly become our God.

   Now think about this in terms of highly needy or manipulative people.  Were we simply beholden to any human request or perceived need, then the neediest and most manipulative would become our gods.  But God calls us to a service which is sometimes unpopular, sometimes countercultural, sometimes even subversive and politically suspect.  When this happens, the commandment to have no other gods than God overrides any intermediate or ordinary commandment to be nice or helpful.  Our ultimate obedience is to God.

   Think about this also in political terms.  Although under ordinary circumstances we are to be obedient to those who have political power, when that power comes into conflict with God's call to service, then there is no question where our loyalty lies.  God must always be God.  Kings, emperors, elected governments, no matter how good, must always take a back seat to God's call to serve.

   Consider also what this means for parents and children.  It means that when God calls someone's child to service, the parents' dreams of success or acceptability or affluence will just have to be abandoned.  All these other concerns are ultimately rival gods to the One God who made heaven and earth.

   Jesus understood all too well that his parents would have to accept or simply endure his special and unique calling in the world.  So we too must realize that when God calls us to follow and serve, sometimes ordinary hopes and dreams must get set aside for God's extraordinary purpose to be accomplished.  God help us to discern the difference.  Amen.

      For the last 500 years -- by which I mean, since the Reformation -- Baptism has been the source of much debate.  Is it right to baptize infants?  Do you have to decide to be baptized for it to be legitimate?  These are the sorts of questions and debates that have raged between various Protestant groups, and have been thrown at the more traditional churches.  Today I do not want to get into those debates as such, but would like to have you begin to think of Baptism, not as a thing, but as a spirituality, as an attitude of your spirit.

   There is a particular spirituality connected to the ancient understanding of Baptism, just as there is a spirituality connected to the ancient understanding of Communion.  The spirituality of Baptism is a spirituality of dying and being reborn.  To be baptized is to drown an old life in the water that means both death and life, and then to come out of that water into a new life.  Baptismal spirituality is the leaving behind of a former self, and the embracing of a new self.

   Luther was always careful to say of himself, "I am baptized," as opposed to "I was baptized."  In the spirituality of the sacrament of Baptism, the act of baptism is never just a one time act, for when it degenerates into one chronological moment in a person's life, it has become a mere formality.  Baptism lived as spirituality is the reaching out of God through the people of the Church to draw you forward into eternal newness.  As the cliché goes, "God meets you where you are, but does not leave you there."

   Luther talked about "walking wet."  By that he meant, reminding yourself every day that you ARE baptized, renewing your baptism every day.  Our nightly sleep is a kind of image of the dying and being reborn embodied in the spirituality of baptism.  Every night, we lay ourselves down in darkness, leaving behind the old day.  Every morning we awake to a new day.  Every day is a new beginning.  Every day is a new opportunity, or many new opportunities to be an embodiment of Christ on earth.  Every day, it is possible for us to be born anew.

   The spirituality of Baptism is the spirituality of utter grace, complete gift.  God acts and chooses you, before you ever have the chance to do anything.  Some Christian denominations since the time of the Reformation have made Baptism into something earned, something for which one must work, a kind of seal of approval at the end of a process of choosing and deciding.  But the Baptism handed down from the earliest centuries of the Church is a baptism of grace and inclusion.  For those who have no familiarity with Christianity, of course there has to be some instruction so that they know what it is that they are getting themselves into.  But it would be a mistake to think of this as a process of becoming worthy or acceptable in order to be baptized.  It is rather for the benefit of the one who did not grow up in a Christian household to learn about God's self-revelation in Christ.

   The Baptism which Jesus instituted is not the baptism carried out by John the Baptist.  John's baptism was a baptism of preparation for the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah through Isaac and Jacob, to prepare them to receive the Messiah.  Christian Baptism is a baptism of incorporation into the body of Christ, a baptism of grace and reception, in which the Messiah receives us.  Christian Baptism is a baptism of adoption, in which God adopts us into God's household, even though we are not of the same nature as God, and makes us part of a great family of people to whom we do not necessarily have any blood or kin relationship.

   Christian Baptism is a baptism of grace, and when you internalize Baptism until it becomes a source of personal spirituality, you become deeply aware of the grace, the mercy, the abundant goodness which flows every second from God.  When you begin to think and perceive through Baptism, you realize that before you were, God made all things good so that you could be: air, water, light, soil, plants, animals, people.  They all come to you as unearned gift.

      On the other hand, when you carry in you the spirituality of Baptism, you also know that God's good gifts can be and sometimes are abused and misused.  What was meant for life becomes a source of hurt and death; what was meant for good, gets used for evil.  When we live in Baptism, we know that we have our part in all this as much as anyone, and that you, that I, the we are in need of letting go of those parts of ourselves that do the misusing and abusing and twisting of God's good gifts, dying to those parts of ourselves, and being reborn whole and new to embrace God's good gifts for goodness and life and healing.

   If you have been baptized, then know that you ARE baptized.  Leave the chaff of yourself daily, and present each day the good grain for the loaf of Christ's body.  If you have not been baptized, then what is to prevent you from dying to your old self in the waters of baptism, so that you may rise a new creation in Christ's body?  Either way, God's powerful death-and-life water is ready to seep into your soul, flood your consciousness, and bring about a resurrection of you.  Amen.