"The Work of Christmas" [Christmas Meditation]

It was many years ago that the African American preacher and prophet Howard Thurman wrote these memorable words: 

“The Seven Works of Mercy" by Caravaggio

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and the princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flocks

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among people,

To make music in the heart.

I first learned the words to Howard Thurman’s poem from songwriter Jim Strathdee who set them to music. We had met briefly during a summer in the late 1960s when we worked together on a project in the heart of Los Angeles. Ever since then the words and the song have become a Christmas tradition for family and friends.

The words are a timeless reminder that beyond the wonder and mystery of this holy season, there is work that Christmas beckons us to do. Christmas is more than a baby in a manager wrapped in swaddling clothes. Christmas is a profound invitation into a way of living. This is what is meant by the work of Christmas.

No single image brings together more powerfully some of the varied tasks of this work of Christmas than “The Seven Works of Mercy” by Caravaggio (1571-1610), a troubled genius whose paintings across the years have helped to shape the visual vocabulary of my faith.

In this one painting all of the works of mercy from the Gospel of Matthew (25:35-36) are to be found, adding a seventh (the burial of the dead).

Caravaggio manages to set this Gospel invitation in a street in seventeenth century Naples, the city where the painting was to reside.

So too it is that we must find a way to bring the Gospel work of Christmas to life on the streets of the cities where we live.

May the love that came to birth at Christmas inspire you to do the work that God has given you to do during this Christmastide and in the New Year.