Christmas 1C, 12/27/09
John 1:1-14
Before I begin, I must make a note to the bulletin. Due to having to run the bulletins early this week, I came up with a title for my yet-unwritten sermon. After writing it, I realized it needed a different title. This sermon is entitled, "Celebrate Love." After all, the power of the Word is love, and it is that Love of God we celebrate today!
Yesterday I walked into a CVS, and watched as the lady was taking down the Christmas Cards from the display, and was replacing them with Valentine's Day cards. The signage she put up said, "Celebrate Love." It struck me as bothersome that Valentine's Day, according to the card company, is only when we are to celebrate love. Everything in me wanted to yell out, "What about Christmas?" I felt like Charlie in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" when he says, "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"[1] But where was Linus when I needed him? The music on the radio has already changed back to the regular stations, and Christmas music, like the decorations in the store, has been packed away for another year. I was struck standing there thinking, "If all of this has changed back to 'normal' so quickly, then what difference does Christmas make after all? Why do we celebrate it and what does it mean?" Maybe I'm somewhat cynical, or my tiredness from Christmas Eve was still clouding my mind. But it did make me really stop and think--Isn't Christmas about Celebrating Love?--Celebrating the love of God found in a baby and that love found in the world all these years later--Celebrating a love that physically came down from the heavens and was there for everyone to see.
Christmas Eve, in the Church's understanding, is the beginning of the celebration, not the culmination of the festivities.[2] Christmas lasts 12 days, and ends on January 6th when we mark the Epiphany. We gather in celebration of the birth that starts the story --our story--over again. Advent is preparation for the big event, and then it's here and the Christmas Eve Lovefeasts start the Birthday Party for our King--complete with food, drink, and candles! I came across this quote that I thought was so fitting for this season. The author said, "Remember also that for Christians, this is the birthday party of all birthday parties, one that should spin us into a different place, not simply into exhaustion: 'Christmas is a time for enormous celebration, but also a time for pondering, for reverence, for awe at our sheer good fortune that God sent his only child into our midst.'”[3]
If we look at Scripture, we get 4 different views of Christmas. Luke, the one most commonly read for Christmas, presents Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem with nowhere to stay and thus they end up in a barn with the animal's manger for a crib for the new baby. Shepherds and Angels appear and sing God's praise over the birth of this special child. We see how God's love came in the unlikely places and was presented to the poor, meek, and lowly. If we look at Matthew, we see no manger, no shepherds, no chorus of angels. Instead we hear of an undocumented number of wise men and three gifts brought to a home where the holy family is now living. God's love in Matthew is for everyone, even those from distant lands. Mark, on the other hand, skips the event entirely, and instead rushing ahead to tell of the adult Jesus. God's love is powerful and immediate. And then we have today's reading from John that uses metaphors and philosophy to describe the incarnation of God. God's love in the logos, the Word, has been present since the beginning. Often we hear the story of Christmas with all of these stories lumped together into an indistinguishable tangle of shepherds and wise men arriving together at the manger. In many ways there isn't real harm in combining the stories, as they do help us see a fuller picture of Jesus' birth from various viewpoints. But I do find it interesting to look at them individually. Today's Scripture reading let's us focus on John's version of Christmas, though it noticeably leaves out the birth all together. John focuses more on the incarnation and how God has come into the world to bring love through life and light. For John, it's ultimately about God's love for the world as we hear later in Chapter 3. "16For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (John 3:16-17, NRSV) The Gospel of John calls us to look for the love of God in the world and to celebrate that love whenever and wherever we see it.
Though love is the focus of Christmas, it's sometimes hard to focus on that love. I ran across a list the other day about the Top 10 Things WRONG with Christmas. With all of the craziness associated with the holiday and my frustration at CVS about the holiday already having come and gone, I could resonate with many of these. I have also heard many of you naming these things. Here's the list. Do any of these things sound familiar?
10. A loss of the sense of the miraculous
9. Not enough peace and joy
8. Feeling like you have to give something or you’re a bad person
7. Credit card bills through next Christmas
6. Insane travel schedules
5. Conflicts with the family
4. Feeling alone or alienated
3. Having to decorate to keep up with the neighbors
2. Hours spent searching for the present for kids or grandkids (etc.)
1. Feeling disappointed—again—by the season
During the Congregational Lovefeast last Sunday evening, I told a story about a man who, though tired from Christmas Eve's craziness, went to feed his neighbor's sheep. He paused for a moment, during his actions, when he realized that he was in the manger where it all started. He was standing by the manger on Christmas Eve. I invited everyone to pause sometime during the holiday to reflect on the meaning of Christmas. So on Christmas day, I took a few minutes to pause and reflecte. With nods to David Letterman and Rogers and Hammerstein, I've written my own "Top 10 Favorite Things About Christmas" to help me name where I celebrate love during Christmas. Before I read my own, I invite you to pause for a minute, take out a pencil or pen, and jot down a few of your own Favorite Things where you Celebrate love this Christmas. [I invite you to include your list in the comments section of this blog. See "Comments" below!]
My Top 10 Favorite Things About Christmas
10. Receiving Christmas Cards and photos from family and friends
9. Phone Calls to hear "Merry Christmas" from a distance, especially when you can't be together on Christmas Day
8. Hearing "Morning Star" and remembering back 20 years to when I was the soloist up front.
7. Spending time with loved ones laughing around the dinner table.
6. Watching the Dieners and Choirs' faces as the lovefeast is served
5. The sight of spam, squirty cheese, beef jerky, and other treats inside my Lovefeast bun.
4. Eating together as a church family during the Workers Potluck.
3. The smiles on the faces of the children when it was FINALLY time to put Baby Jesus in the Manger.
2. The smells of beeswax and coffee and the sight of the candles raised in the air at the end of Lovefeast.
1. The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. (John 1:14) [This is how The Message translates the verse, and it's my favorite translation.]
At Christmas we celebrate the Love of God that has now taken on human form in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because God loves us, we can love one another. And I believe that the more we look for examples of God's love, we find them, even in the unexpected places. By now many of you know about the ongoing gift that the dieners bestow on the pastors in their Christmas Eve Lovefeast Buns. If you haven't seen the pictures, I've posted them on my blog and they are worth checking out.[5] This year at the 7:30pm Lovefeast, our Bun came complete with icing that said, "Love You" in the form of a heart and the letter "U". Thought it was meant as a good-hearted joke, I laughed and then took it much more symbolically. God loves me, and sent his son for me. God sent Jesus for each and every person that was celebrating lovefeast that evening together. God sent Jesus for each of us. This bun spoke volumes to me about how God's love spread out from that first Christmas to share that love with each other. God moved into our neighborhood here on Ridge Road, and we saw it tangibly in the celebration of love that took place. As the candles spread the light and none were diminished by the sharing, so is God's love spread by the sharing and is not diminished. It began tangibly in Christ's birth through the incarnation, and continues to spread. May we continue to Celebrate Love throughout these 12 days of Christmas, and proclaim through buns and candles, through cards and hugs, through all the ways God can speak through us, that God's love has moved into the neighborhood. Amen.[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZw06AbW6Vw
[2] Michael Bennett, "Pastoral Perspective of John 1:1-14" in Feasting on the Word, Volume 2, Number 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) 140.
[3] [Bill McKibben, Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998) 68-69] quoted in Greg Garrett, Reclaiming Christmas: Seeking an Alternative from (www.thethoughtfulchristian.org, 2007) 2.
[4] Greg Garrett, Reclaiming Christmas: Seeking an Alternative from (www.thethoughtfulchristian.org, 2007) 2.
[5] livingonemmausave.blogspot.com (Post for "RMC Christmas 2009: Part 2" dated 12/26/09.)
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