Christmas Surprises

I wanted to share a couple moments from the recent Christmas celebration. First of all, I have had a terrible time getting my days and times right. I kept moving Christmas to Wednesday in my mind. It is interesting how one can do that sort of thing, even when you look and see it is not correct... Monday evening we had a pretty full house at 4 and 5:30. It was not crammed like it once was but there were plenty of folks. The early service, with kids dressed up to illustrate the story visually, is rather noisy. Ironically, three different parents sheepishly apologized that their little one had disrupted the service with noise. My angle on things, no one could disrupt what was already a stewing caldron of little voices and noises. I preached, briefly, on Mary treasuring and pondering the events of the day. I looked at the Greek words (the latter, symbalein, is where we get the English word symbol) and came to see that they both conveyed an active choice: to guard from forgetting and to discuss with one's self. I laid down an offer to choose to ponder and guard the memories of this birth and what they mean.

Between the first two and the late service I eat with my family. The past few years we had joined some friends, but for some sad reasons that was not possible this year. So we chose to go out and eat instead. I called and found two places which were open until 8pm, which fit with my need to be back at church by 8:30. To our surprise, the place was packed and we were told it was an hour and a half wait. Then my wife asked what I was thinking, "I thought you closed at eight." Poor folks would serve anyone who got there before eight, no matter how late they stayed. We left because we couldn't be sitting down at 8:30 for dinner. We drove around and found a Japanese resturaunt and ate there. Sort of like in the Christmas movie, though no "Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra" or duck with a head on it! At one point my son heard the music playing (Feliz Navidad) and commented, "Spanish music at a Japanese resturaunt on Christmas." The meal was fine, but not what we expected to be doing.

Which brings me to the biggest surprise of that evening. At 4:00 we read the whole birth narrative and each priest comments briefly on a section and in middle we sing a carol. We both did our task in a brief time. This allows us to focus on Jesus like a  laser which is not easy with a church full of little ones. At the other two services, which are more typical of our regular worship, I preach and the other priest leads the prayer. As I sat listening to the first reading, from Isaiah (which I had prepared my sermon on) I noticed the opening included verses I forgot about. I smiled to myself. The smile disappeared on the second and third verses, which also did not sound familiar. Then I looked more closely, in horror, to see my sermon was based on a text which we were not going to read that night....

What came out instead worked fine. Fortunately I had just done this section of Luke in bible study a few weeks ago. More importantly, I had some clarity on my thoughts about the real meaning of Christmas in general. One thing that came out was this, If the people in Connecticut (or overseas serving, or without families anywhere) cannot sing "Joy to the World" then no one can. If our joy is based on happy family gatherings then it is no joy, it is pleasing circumstances. If we are able to see the joy due to Jesus even if our hearts ares sad, lonely, grieving, suffering then we understand the true meaning of Christmas. The message that night was less theologically developed than my orignal sermon, but it seemed to  have its impact. And so I offer that to you. The real meaning of Christmas (Christ's Mass) is worship before the manger. It is seeing that God has stripped Himself and enterred our world, clothed in our skin and living our life. Embracing all the evil and suffering it Himself, He redeems everything. And the time with family and friend, eating, drinking and celebrating--or--whatever circumstance one finds one's self in, is all taken up into that little tiny body and made one with God!