Sermon preached by Fr. Tom
at St. Thomas Episcopal – Plymouth
December 24, 2014
Christmas Eve
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be an acceptable offering in your sight, Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”
I want you to think of the traditions you have associated with Christmas. Every family has their own, and I was amused by a thread on Facebook. One person said that her mother had a rule. If you touched anything under the tree, it was put aside and you did not get to open it until the following Christmas. It seems this policy was only exercised one time. The poster’s brother picked up a present and was caught. The experience was branded in her memory, and she will be mumbling about this on her deathbed I suspect. It was one of those experiences where you are able to learn from another person’s experience for sure.
Some friends have a tradition of regifting. There will be something like a Billy Bass or a picture of Elvis for the desk. Whoever got the present, will give it to another member of the group. I have heard that this what the story is with fruitcakes. There are supposedly only a dozen of them or so in the world, and they just regifted every year. I can personally attest to the fact that this one is false. I eat the ones people give me, and so that would take them out of circulation.
At my house one of our traditions growing up was that my father would place the TV on a shelf in the living room at Thanksgiving. You are thinking he must have been a body builder or something, but he was just an ordinary guy really in terms of fitness. We also had a 19 in diagonal B&W TV, so this was not such a superhuman feat of strength anyway. My parents did not care much for TV anyway and we never watched televised sports. They did not like all the ads for things on TV, and so this was the way we were sheltered I guess.
As a concession to popular culture or something, we asked to see just a couple of shows. We were allowed exactly a couple – two of them. We would watch some combination of Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer, The Grinch that Stole Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman. It seems as if we watched the Charlie Brown Christmas a time or two in there.
Traditions instruct us, delight us, and remind us of our values. But Christmas trees and Rudolph don’t have anything to do with the birth of Jesus. What is the Gospel Reading we heard just a few minutes ago trying to tell us? What are we to get out of it?
I would like to imagine the morning after Jesus is born. I am going to call this the ghost of Christmas past.
The stable is full of animals. The cow is loudly asking to be milked. The straw smells um… like a barn. Stunned and exhausted new parents wake up to an entirely different reality from yesterday: there’s a baby in their lives now. They rub their eyes and try to grasp the whole situation. There were angels. There were shepherds – they found the dim little stable because, they said, a host of angels showed them the way. The new life lying in the straw between them is somehow the cause of all the commotion. True, every baby is a miracle, but this baby – Mary and Joseph can’t stop staring at him, touching him, holding him, like any new parents – they know that God has plans for this baby, and they’re a little afraid.
We often regard this sweet scene through a Hallmark-special fuzzy lens, as though it were only about another sweet baby. But this nativity scene, the morning after the dazzling holy night, isn’t just the end of Mary’s pregnancy and the start of a new family. The baby in the manger is none other than Emmanuel, God with us. The people who walked in darkness have, indeed, seen a great light – and we’re not just talking about the shepherds and the star. The light emanating from this sleepy domestic scene is the light of God, come to be with us, come to dwell in us, come to transform us.
The response of faithful people to this new reality is to learn from Jesus, to emulate Jesus, to become bringers of God’s light ourselves. We celebrate the gift that God has given to us in Jesus when we subvert oppression, especially in the life-affirming ways that Jesus employed – by teaching, healing, giving voice and vision to those who have been in darkness. The work of Christmas begins, but does not end, tonight.
One of the best-loved of all Christmas hymns is “Joy to the world.” Listen to the first verse, where we sing “the Lord is come” – very much like the memorial acclamation in the Eucharist, when we say “Christ is risen.” “The Lord is come” says that Jesus comes to us here and now, not only on that first Christmas 2,000 years ago. The universe shifted the moment that Jesus was born, shifted toward the reality of God’s presence in and with and for God’s creation. We are faced with the task as Christians of making real that revolutionary love, here and now, in the time and place we belong to. Christmas present should look different and better than Christmas past.
The other part of the first verse of “Joy to the world” that challenges us is this: “let every heart prepare him room.” How have you made room for the living Christ amid the busy shopping days and decorating and parties? The only way for us to “prepare him room” that matters to the world is when we make room for Jesus to challenge us and change us, to develop us and transform us into Christ’s own hands and feet and strength and love for this time and place. To “prepare him room” means giving up some of our attachment to having a “perfect Christmas,” one that touches all our personal buttons and fulfills every tradition and wish. To prepare him room means, perhaps, less retail and more giving; less concern about having a perfect dinner table and more feeding the hungry; less decorating and more real celebration of who Jesus is, the one who is always being born in our hearts and who desires always to be with us.
Christmas doesn’t end tomorrow. Christmas doesn’t end with Epiphany, or Lent, or Easter; Christmas is God’s continuing gift of God’s presence with us, and Christmas is our challenge to prepare room in our hearts, and in our lives.
So what about Christmas future? Here is the takeaway.
As we pack up our ornaments for another year, fill the basement with boxes labeled “Christmas,” think about how your life in January and February can continue the work of Christmas. As you pull the tinsel off the tree and put away the Frosty the Snowman videos, imagine who is lost, who is hungry, who needs peace in March and April. When the shepherds are back with their flock in the box, remember their surprise and joy, and find someplace to offer the song of the angels to someone who needs it in June.
Think of this if you will as regifting.
I have said these words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen