Meeting Christmas
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2013
Grace, Mankato, MN
Luke 2.1-20
When does it become Christmas for you? At what point do you say, “Here I am, at last?” We have been on this journey, moving toward Christmas, for quite some time. Some of us have been going longer than others. In church time, for 24 days now during Advent, we have been moving through a time of preparation, hope, and expectation. For others it has been since Thanksgiving or Black Friday and still others perhaps several months, maybe even a year ago. So I wonder: when do you know when you have arrived? When will you have you met Christmas?
Christmas is a time of movement and it is so, right from the beginning, as Mary and Joseph made the trip from Nazareth to their ancestral home of Bethlehem. Like them, as for many of us, there is a certain element of “going home” involved in the journey. We tend to sentimentalize their travel (and ours) like a greeting card moment, but it was probably arduous and long. It is even doubtful they had a donkey for Mary to ride. So, some of us may be trudging toward Christmas as they were; others of a younger mindset are running and skipping, and still others may be dragged kicking and screaming, dreading whatever Christmas has meant them or will mean to them this year.
As a pastor, it becomes Christmas late for me because I am so wrapped up in preparing and leading worship. I think it starts to become real as I light my candle and start singing Silent Night. Growing up, it became Christmas when my curmudgeonly bachelor uncle would arrive and there would be a present for him despite his protests. It became Christmas when we could open one present before dinner, and when I was able to confound my insatiably curious sister by ingeniously wrapping her present. Into adulthood, being separated from family meant that it became Christmas far away from “home,” when we formed our own home.
Of course, Mary and Joseph didn’t know they were going to meet Christmas that first one 2,000 years ago. In fact, it makes more sense to acknowledge that Christmas came to meet them rather than the other way around. The same is said for the shepherds in the fields and, quite possibly the heavenly host of angels. Christmas meets them. Isn’t this the way that God always works in our world, that God comes to meet us? Hasn’t that been the message from the very beginning and will be throughout the Jesus story? Doesn’t Christmas meet us more than we meet it?
Going home for Joseph and Mary wasn’t going to be the kind of homecoming we tend to romanticize. We tend to think of homecomings as gathering with family and friends for food and celebration. Yet, as we look deeper into the story of Jesus’ birth, God creates in them a sense of community in a totally unexpected way. Angels and shepherds and animals and who knows what others come together as God meets them. Isn’t that also the message of the Bible from beginning to end? Isn’t that the real story line in all of the Christmas specials you see on TV, at least the good ones, that God creates community in our midst in delightful and unexpected ways?
The last candle lit on the Advent wreath signifies light and not just any light. It signifies the Light of the World, Jesus Christ. Christmas comes to us wherever and whenever the Light pierces the darkness in our lives. Our lives contain pain, fear and messiness, and it also contains joy, hope and beauty. Thankfully, it’s those places God enters, light brightly shining. Are you there yet? Have you seen it? Is it Christmas for you yet? As you continue your journey, may you know that God will come and God’s light will shine, wherever you are. Merry Christmas! Amen.
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