Sermon for Christmas Eve

December 24, 2007

St. Luke's Episcopal Church

The Rev. Eric Williams

Whatever Happened to Christmas?

Well, here we are on Christmas Eve.

If you are like most Americans,

you have been so inundated with Christmas cheer

for the last two months,

that you are already heartily sick of Christmas.

In fact, as I have spoken to a wide variety of people,

from senior citizens to parents with young kids,

I have heard a troubling refrain repeated again and again:

“I can’t wait until Christmas is over.”

When I wrote in our newsletter recently about how

I was feeling let down by all of the superficial fake Christmas cheer

I got a lot of comments from people who felt the same way.

It would be tempting to preach yet another sermon

about how Christmas has gotten so commercialized, blah blah blah.

We know Christmas is commercialized—

heck our whole national economy depends upon it,

not to mention all those Chinese factories pumping out cheap toys and electronic gadgets.

But I actually think the problem goes deeper than that.

Let me take you back in time for a moment.

Think back to the earliest Christmas you can remember.

Perhaps you were five or six or even ten or twelve.

Do you remember the smell of the fresh pine tree your dad cut

and put up in the house?

Or the wonderful smells that came from the kitchen

as your mom baked cookies or cooked special holiday food?

Perhaps you remember that first great present you got on Christmas—

the one you wanted so desperately—

that doll, or GI Joe or bike or Easy Bake oven.

Or maybe the Christmas pageant—when you dressed up in a bathrobe as a shepherd

or an angel (a bathrobe plus a halo!)

or maybe you got picked to play Mary or Joseph.

I’ll bet that no matter what,

whether you were raised poor or rich,

whether you went to church or not,

whether you had a great family or a rotten family

as a child Christmas meant magic to you.

You see kids have no problem believing.

They believe in magic and mystery,

in heroes and villains

in good versus evil,

in Santa Claus and Jesus and the whole kit and caboodle.

Their lives are full of mystery and wonder

and for them believing is as natural as breathing.

But somewhere along the line things change.

Somewhere along the line we grow up,

and we put away childish things.

We become sophisticated, worldly, wise (or so we think).

We become disillusioned about make believe stuff

and we learn the hard lessons of life.

“Get a job, work hard, save your money.

No one is going to give you anything.

Don’t trust strangers. Look out for number one.”

These are real lessons, important lessons, true lessons,

but over time they drive out our childlike wonder,

our ability to believe.

Our childish faith is tested over and over,

until it gets as dented as an old car

in a demolition derby.

This is the theme of many stories—

from the Polar Express to Puff the Magic Dragon to Peter Pan—

stories about how we yearn to get back to Neverland,

to the world of imagination and belief we left behind.

And Christmas seems to be at the heart of this yearning.

We don’t want to give up on Christmas entirely.

So we keep it going, not for ourselves, but for our kids.

We tell all the stories to them.

We pass on all the traditions.

We try to relive Christmas through them.

And that’s pretty neat, let me tell you.

It’s really fun to see Christmas through the eyes of children.

I’ve been joking with folks that our two daughters

have been almost physically vibrating with anticipation

for the last two weeks.

Oh, sure, it’s mostly about the presents.

Let’s not kid ourselves.

Children can be pretty mercenary.

But it’s actually the whole scene that gets them going—

the magic and the mystery and the dream

that there is more to life than what we can see and understand;

That Santa Claus might just be able to sneak in

and leave some presents and eat a few cookies

without anybody noticing.

And that, my friends, is where kids are smarter than we are.

Because for all of our street smarts, all of our worldly experience,

for all of our job training and book leaning and know how,

we don’t know everything.

There has to be room for faith.

As adults we have written off Christmas,

but that’s not all we have done.

We have written off the whole world of faith as well.

It’s something we think is important,

but it’s something really for the kids, not for us.

How many of us come to church,

not because we really expect to get something out of it for ourselves,

but because it is good for the kids?

We want them to get a good moral foundation, a good Bible education,

just like many of us received in our youth,

because it will help them stay on the straight and narrow,

maybe help them have a better future.

But deep down how many of us see Jesus just like Santa Claus—

a nice story that we want our kids to know—

but something we have grown out of?

And that is our real problem with Christmas.

It’s not that it has become too commercialized,

or too hectic or too stressful,

though all those things are true.

It’s that we stopped believing that Christmas was for us.

What would it look like if this Christmas story was for you?

What would happen to your hard-headed practical realistic world

if the story was not just some charming fable,

but was actually true?

Despite our hard shell, deep down we have never lost that childlike faith.

Remember Jesus told us that it is to children that the kingdom of heaven belongs

and that those who want to enter the kingdom must be like children.

Perhaps this is what he was talking about—

the ability to look beyond what we can see and test and prove

and just believe!

What would it mean to your life if the story was true?

If a woman named Mary really met an angel,

if God really chose her to bear His only Son,

if Jesus really was the Savior of the whole world?

If God had that kind of power to make a miracle,

then God has power to make a miracle in our lives as well.

It means that no matter what problems we have—

emotional, physical, financial, whatever—

God can give you strength, healing, power, victory.

It means that no matter what stuff is going on in the world—

no matter what is happening to the stock market, the economy,

no matter what scandals or dangers or conflicts or wars—

God has power to save us and protect us.

It means that no matter what mistakes we have made in our lives,

no matter what sins we have committed,

no matter what a mess we are in,

God has power to forgive us and redeem us.

Everything, absolutely everything, begins with this central truth—

not a fairy story for kids—

but Good News for all of us—

that on Christmas God loved us enough

to come down from heaven

and become one of us.

Most adults I talk to, after they have finished

with the things they don’t like about Christmas,

mention one thing they do like,

one thing they look forward to every year.

It’s probably one of the reasons you came tonight.

It’s the moment, after communion,

when we dim the lights, and light our candles

and sing “Silent Night.”

In that song something is touched deep within us—

that place in our hearts that still believes

with the passion and openness of a child.

As we sing, the tears flow, and we believe.

We see the baby in the manger,

and we know that he is the Son of God.

This Christmas I invite you to take that feeling with you

when you leave this church.

If that ember of faith was lighted for you tonight,

don’t let it go out. Blow on it.

The very best way to do that is to talk to God in prayer.

Invite him back into your life—

not as an idea, or a morality lesson—but as a real person.

Join us here at church for a class or a retreat.

Let God’s power transform you this year

and let Christmas be once again

God’s gift of love for you.