Today's Monday (errrr...Tuesday) Morning Sermon covers Christmas weekend and the two services we held. The text were familiar, the Christmas Story from Luke, Chapter 2 on Christmas Eve and the hopeful message from Isaiah 9: 2-7 on Christmas Day. Both sermons had a common theme, stated in different ways: Christmas unites us all.
It may seem obvious that we were meant to be together on one of the holiest, most blessed, and (supposedly) most peaceful events of the year but it's surprising the number of ways we find to separate ourselves from each other. Judging the quality of Christmas by the number and value of gifts given/received is an obvious method. None of us were very old before we figured out than some have more than others in that vein and that Santa tends to favor the children of bankers over those of temp-workers. The example I used in the sermon was the bold sign outside the Genesee Food Center proclaiming proudly that somebody had purchased a winning $200,000 Powerball ticket there. The issue isn't that somebody local won. More power to them, and Merry Christmas!!! The bigger issue is what reading that sign does to the rest of us, namely making us think that some are special and lucky and blessed (the rare winners) while others are not (us). On Christmas we are all blessed with a gift beyond compare, a gift which lifts us all from the prison in which we were previously bound into the heights of heavenly glory which is our destiny. Everybody can look at the Baby Jesus in the manger and say, "This is for me...he came for me." This is reflected in the shouts of poor shepherds and the amazement of wise kings alike.
We found another method of separation on Christmas morning in our service of remembrance. Our modern way of doing Christmas screams "100% Merry, 0% anything else". How many of us have kept inside some kind of grief for fear of "ruining Christmas" for our families or friends? This is just another separation, a not-so-sly way of saying, "If you don't plaster a smile on your face and gut through it, whatever you're feeling, Christmas is not for you!" There are two ironies to this:
First, all of us feel a little melancholy about Christmas after we reach a certain age. At a minimum it's hard to recapture the breathless excitement we had when we were kids. All of the intervening hardship and disappointment come rushing in when we try to make room for that innocence again. Even if it's still good, it's not quite the good we used to know. This reminds us of the passage of time and our own mortality...that nothing good lasts forever. And that's the minimum! The logical extension of that train of thought is missing our loved ones who have actually died, people whom we love and long for but can't touch and hear and exchange presents and hugs with anymore. Those twinges of melancholy we all feel are connected to the pangs of grief of those mourning loved ones...they're the same genre pain and loss, just in different degrees. So here we are all suffering or feeling some kind of sadness but instead of talking about it--coming together to hug and comfort and reassure and welcome--we bottle it up. Everyone suffers in a silence that could be dispelled and in some ways cured if somebody would just speak...would just admit it. Rather than opening up Christmas and experiencing it fully, the happy and the sad, we settle for a plastic half-Christmas that rests on a foundation of trees and a nice lunch instead of the people gathered together for the holiday. By not making room for the suffering of others (or even showing our own) we lose the meaning of the day we're supposedly trying to preserve. Everyone spends it quiet about the grief that we fear will separate us when the silence is the real culprit which creates that isolation.
The second irony is that Jesus came to overcome exactly this! We didn't need a Savior because everything was perfect. We needed a Savior because we were lost, because everybody experiences grief that they can't control, avoid, or completely overcome themselves. Jesus came so that we might have companionship in our grief as we walk this journey. He came in order to take all of that grief and the suffering that accompanies it onto the cross with him. He came in order to replace that grief with boundless joy in our final steps...the key feature of that joy being reunited with our loved ones beyond the bounds of death. When we try to separate Christmas from our losses and griefs, especially the loss and grief occasioned by death, we are also forced to push away the immediate companionship and the news of future joy. How can we experience the Good News that the arrival of Jesus heralds if we're pretending that everything is completely good already??? When we deny our grief--making no room for it or the people experiencing it most--we deny our need for the Savior on the very day he was given to us. Christmas came precisely for the people who had the least hope and the least reason to celebrate! Framing it any other way the promise from Isaiah and the announcement from Luke lose their Spirit.
This weekend we tried to tell the true story of Christmas...the together story of Christmas. We did it through song and candlelight and beauty, transcending materialism and open to all, on Christmas Eve. We did it through shared tears and hugs and cookies and personal stories in an equally important way on Christmas Day. Each of us still experienced presents and lights and shopping and all the usual trappings of Christmas. Telling the whole story gave all those things a safe cradle in which to land and find their enduring meaning instead of falling into obscurity. The full message of Christmas--grief and loss turning into salvation and joy--is not only worth telling, it's the only thing that makes the holiday worth having.
Thanks to all who helped us along our Advent/Christmas journey!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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