Christmas Eve 2014
It’s so good to pause here together
tonight. We really need to recover from
the push … the push from the retail world that birthed all kinds of pressure
for us to purchase “perfect” Christmas gifts.
Since September (perhaps even sooner!) we’ve gone into stores and been encouraged
to buy back-to-school binders, decorative black cats and bats, fake cornucopias
for Thanksgiving tables, and then whatever high-ticket items our loved ones
have apparently wanted their whole lives long.
Three plus months of it. And, of course, now we’re already seeing
heart shaped boxes of chocolate and shamrock chotskies!
Are you as utterly exhausted by it all as I am?
Are you as utterly exhausted by it all as I am?
All the more reason, actually, to check in with ourselves about what we believe is the true purpose of giving and receiving gifts. At its core, Christmas gift giving is about joyfully acknowledging, appreciating and celebrating our most caring relationships. And above all, it’s about honoring the very greatest gift and the most caring relationship of all -- the gift of God’s intimate, tangible love in the flesh of Jesus, the whole and holy world changer whose birth we are gathered here to honor tonight. How do we exchange gifts and keep our focus foremost on glorifying Emmanuel, on God with us?
When an Illinois pastor by the name of Bryan was a boy, he was taught how to use a crosscut saw by his father. He recalls one time sawing through a log that had a rotten core. It was mostly worthless wood. Yet after one of the log pieces fell to the ground, this fledgling preacher saw something new. He decided it looked just like a horse head. So he took it home. And then, in celebration of the close relationship he had with his dad, he decided to make a gift of it. He did so by taking a solid two-by-four and attaching it to the horse head. Then he added a rope tail as well as sticks to act as legs. Having created a brand new body, Bryan next hammered a dozen or so nails down the length of the “horse.” He then wrapped it in butcher paper, put a bow on it, and presented it to his father. The dad, of course, wore a big smile while unwrapping it and as he said, “Thank you, it’s wonderful. But, um, what is it?”
“Dad,” came the reply from Bryan, “it’s a tie rack! See, you can put your ties on those nails going down the side of the horse’s body.” The father kept smiling and saying thank you as he leaned it against his bedroom closet wall. The rather ugly yet endearing gift hadn’t faired too well on its stick legs. For many years, it was used for the purpose it was gifted.
Bryan reports how in his childish mind he thought he’d created something worthy of displaying at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As he matured, however, he came to realize his work was not very good at all. The more he realized this, the more he came to deeply appreciate that ultimately, his dad had used the gift not because of its goodness but “out of his goodness.” Its value was measured by the love of and for his son.[i]
Whatever gifts you exchange this Christmas, I pray their worth is measured by such unconditional, relationship affirming love ...
Love that sees something special deep inside despite any rotten character flaws.
Love that imaginatively recreates something that’s been cut and cast off.
Love that leans for support when just one person can’t quite make it stand up.
Love that exists to beautifully display life’s most precious ties.
Love that reminds us of the goodness we all do have within us, the goodness God calls us to actively abide in all year long.
The goodness of which I speak is not naturally engrained in us. It was at the beginning of all Creation, back when humankind ever so briefly lived in pure, perfect harmony with everything holy. But the gift of free will that was given at that time of Genesis was rebelliously abused. The God-breathed lives of Adam and Eve (as the sacred old story goes) decided glorifying themselves was the most eternally important thing. Any peek deep inside -- down in the soul -- of any and all of God’s children ever since then has revealed the decomposing work of sin. We’ve been plagued throughout the ages by rotten, God-defying thoughts, words and actions.
Which is what’s so very remarkable about the great gift of Jesus given to us so long ago and afresh in our hearts tonight. God the Father didn’t give up on us, did not abandon us. God the Father instead came to us as the Son, bearing our frail human flesh.
Not as a newborn cradled by human prestige and power, but as a newborn nestled in a dirty cattle trough made from cut tree.
Not as a newborn heralded by world rulers, but as a newborn glorified by outcast shepherds and bleating lambs.
Not
as a newborn breathing in the air of privileged spaces and practices, but as a
newborn crying out in a barn for his poverty and scandal stricken parents.
And crying for -- on behalf -- of us all.
For the grinding grief that cries for God to heal our hurt.
For the steadfast fear that cries for God to counter all that terrorizes and causes tragedies.
For the lamentable loneliness that cries for God to build compassionate and just community within and around all humanity.
Following the crying of the infant Messiah came the innocent, comforting cooing. The gurgling and the grinning. The soft and blessed look of true love beaming from tiny eyes like stars piercing the most saturating darkness. The incomparable joy of holding your own flesh and blood while being held by tremendous hope in return.
None of us is the person who has everything. So God had no worries about what to give us that very first Christmas. God gave us what we truly need. There is no greater, no more perfect gift than our Emmanuel, glory be to God!
We glorify this greatest gift each time we humble instead of exalt ourselves.
We glorify this greatest gift each time we love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind and soul.
We glorify this greatest gift each time we love all of our neighbors as we ourselves desire to be loved; each time we come as the faithful to softly sing of a sacred, silent night as well as to loudly proclaim joy to this whole deeply wounded world; each time we hark and herald like angels as well as each time we confess just how human we are.
O holy night, we, like sacred stars, are brightly shining by the light of our Savior! Amen.
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