Chrismons are ornaments portraying Scripture for a Christmas tree. They were begun in a Lutheran Church in Virginia. Chrismon means “Christ monogram”. Using the Chrismons from the tree at Ben Salem Presbyterian Church, this meditation has illustrations…
This Chrismon illustrates St. Matthew 3 “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” My Grandfather Kintzi was a farmer in southern Minnesota, born in 1900. Before I was 10, my family lived in Westchester County outside of New York City. Dad and Mom thought it would be good if a spent three or four weeks in the summer with my Grandparents. I learned so much. One day, I was maybe around 8 years old or so, Grandpa and I were talking about fathers punishing their sons. Grandpa told me how his Father did so. When Grandpa did something wrong, his Father would go the grove and make a switch, to hit Grandpa’s behind. Now Great grandfather would not immediately hit his son’s behind. Instead, he would put the switch in Grandpa’s bedroom and leave it there for the night, then the next day take the switch to his son’s behind…sometimes, though, Grandpa said, his Father would come into the bedroom in the morning and take the switch, talk with him about what he did wrong, and not use it, and Grandpa said to me: “Just seeing the switch laying there, Mark, keeping me awake thinking about what would happen because of what I did was punishment enough.”
Laid, past tense of “to lay down” …like Grandpa’s switch lying in his bedroom. The ax of God’s just judgment of sin is laid at the root of the unfruitful trees, of the unrepentant as John preached to the Pharisees and Sadducees. Grandpa saw the dreadful terror of the impending judgment and sought His father’s forgiveness, not simply to escape his punishment, but knowing his father’s judgment was just and my Grandpa needed forgiveness. Forgive me, for I have sinned.
Advent means to draw near and is the root word of Adventure. John drew near as the Lord called him as His prophet in the womb, to draw near with the God’s judgment of sin, of the darkness…still today as we celebrate the birth of Christ, and all births, as the dark world celebrates the death of birth in the womb. John preached not that we could free ourselves, but One is coming, he said, mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie frees us in His forgiveness. I have baptized you with water for repentance, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. John preached our repentance and the Christ our redemption in His blood, born in Bethlehem. God’s Law shows us ever our sin, His Gospel shows us His Son forever.
This Chrismon illustrates the Lord’s parable of the five foolish and five wise virgins, as they await at ANY time the coming, the Advent of the Bridegroom for the marriage feast of the Lamb. The five wise virgins had oil to fill their lamps. Christ means literally anointed with oil, Hebrew, Messiah. He is the Word made flesh, the light shining in the darkness which the world has not put out. It cannot, even when the darkness seems to be winning. His Word is the oil of Christ to fill our lamps, shining in the darkness as Christ is “love’s pure light”.
My wife Natalie was a chemist, a scientist. One year she pointed out that physically you bring light into a dark room but you cannot physically bring darkness into a lit room. My hands cupped, its dark in there, now I will release the darkness, no one can…but spiritually we can bring darkness of wrong, and anger, and spite, and greed, and lust into the light of our families, church and nation. In His Advent, born December 25th, the true light of mercy has entered our dark world, the adventure of Immanuel, God with us. Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle. It has been lit. We are living in dark times. In these dark times, it makes no sense not to use the flashlights, the light we have been given in and through love’s pure light.
This Chrismon illustrates our Lord’s Parable of the Good Samaritan. In well known parable a Levite and a Priest walk by on the other side, not stooping down to help the man left dead, a fellow Jew, member of the covenant. Let’s update our Lord’s parable a bit…a government official sees the man beaten but can’t stop because he’s late for City Task Force meeting, discussing making the road to Jericho safe. Then a person comes busy texting on her smart phone, sees the man, and takes a picture: This will make a great meme to heighten awareness of oppression, gotta make the meme and post it. But a heretic and Samaritans were heretics, despised by the majority bound the man’s wounds, put him on his own donkey (bottom of the Chrismon), and on his own dime put him up at a inn, promising to come back and pay the balance.
When Facebook first began in draw in the masses, a comedian said, so I can have a friend on this website? But can I call up that facebook friend and will that friend help me move into my new apartment Saturday? Of course not. A friend’s face is to be seen, not a picture of a friend I have never seen nor met. We don’t need virtual friends, but actual ones, as we all well know: a hand to help, an ear to listen, a mouth to speak truth in love, a shoulder to cry on, a face showing joy or sorrow. The Lord first showed His face in His Son’s birth, for it is God “…who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Jesus is the Good Samaritan, cast out by our sin, to be our Savior, and stoop down to forgive us. Jesus is the man beaten and robbed, and not half-dead, but dead, and is risen, and will come again, showing us again the face of love’s pure light.
This Chrismon illustrates the parable of the Prodigal Son…the Father who runs out to his son in the far country, the son who squandered his inheritance, his life in a far country. Jesus by His grace for sinners welcoming us home. This is Christ’s call of the Church to put out the welcoming mat of His Word, but even more, these two chrismons …
The top, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet: Alpha and Omega. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Rev. 1: 12 He is the bookends of the Church’s mission, our lives and His first Advent and the Second Advent when He comes to judge the quick and the dead.
Peter called fisherman of men and women, ready to be caught, brought out of the depths of darkness, of the water that God used to destroy the earth in its sin, now saves us through those waters in Holy Baptism. Our God-given mission as His Church is to proclaim the good news of salvation as the messenger of God told the shepherds: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The “you” is important in this verse and so many others. It is the second person plural which English has lost, but not in the South: y’all. For y’all, everyone we know and meet. Let us not only love to tell the story of Jesus and His love but tell it! And as if they have never heard it as to it’s meaning: Jesus: God saves. Not because of our works, otherwise we boast, but born and laid in a feeding trough to feed us His Word, day by day. As He was born in Bethlehem, literally in Hebrew, “House of Bread” and as He would teach: “I am the Bread of Life.”
For the Chrismons seen here which are the best, go to Ad Crucem
Concordia and Koinonia 
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