"What Is Christmas All About?"
Luke 2:1-20
December 24,2008
St. Paul United Methodist Church
Rev. John A. Fleming
I would like to start our sermon tonight with a question. I want you to answer it in your soul while I try to do the same by painting a few scenes using words. Here's the question, "What is Christmas all about for you?"
For some of us it's all about the presents! There is a great scene in Charles M. Schultz's classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas. In it Charlie Brown is trying his best to figure out what Christmas really is all about. Sally, his little sister, asks Charlie Brown to write her letter to Santa Claus as she dictates it. Sally begins, "Dear Santa Claus. How are you? I have a long list of presents that I want. Please note the size and color of each item and send as many as possible. If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself and just send money. How about tens and twenties?" Charlie Brown screams out, "Oh brother" and Sally says, "All I want is what is coming to me. All I want is my fair share!"
Is your fair share under the Christmas tree at home? Does the number of presents under it with your name on it equal those of your brother or sister? Have you lifted them ever so carefully and shaken them ever so gently in hopes of figuring out what lies beneath the wrapping paper? Have you figured out what the big present is the one that is too large to fit under the tree and so is propped up in the corner? For some, I guess, Christmas is all about getting presents.
For others, Christmas isn't about getting presents, it's about giving them. If you are among them then you know that you take great care in picking out gifts and find great joy in watching those you love open them on Christmas morning. Down deep you hope that the present they open will be one they talk about on Christmas morning for years and years.
What is Christmas all about for you? For some the season just isn't the season unless the house looks nearly perfect. For them, stockings are hung on the chimney with care. Little Santa Clauses fill the spaces vacated by books on the shelves. The tree is full of sparkling lights. If this is what Christmas is about for you, then many nights you have sat in the dark den with the only lights on in the house shining from the tree. It's a powerful moment! If this is what Christmas is like for you, then the smell of gingerbread and baked cookies and pine fills your house. Can you smell that tonight? Is that what Christmas is all about?
For many I know, Christmas is about the family. Christmas for these is waking up in a house where all the beds are full again with children and grandchildren who are home for the holidays and for you it is the best and only present you really need.
For some, the family is a little larger this year than it was last. You've gained a son-in-law in the last year. Or better than that, a baby has been born this year and so on Christmas morning you will be waking up to your own manger scene.
For some the family is a little smaller. Someone you loved dearly died this year. It hardly seems possible that they will not be at their place at the Christmas Eve table. Believe me, I know this feeling. I have felt it myself the past few years. And yet you are thankful that you have so much time with them. You will miss the pictures with them and the joy that filled their souls. For some of you Christmas is all about the family.
I would like to think that for some of us Christmas is all about a worship service like this one. There is something mystical and magical and powerful about this worship service. I can tell you that when we stand and sing, "O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come, ye, O come, ye, to Bethlehem" that there are shivers going up and down my spine! This night is electric. Can you feel it? There's a hum in the air. Can you hear it? All of our preparations are done and all we are really waiting for now is the sound of the baby's cry. I would not trade anything for Christmas Eve's worship. I feel like the boy who was attending his first Christmas Eve worship service. The organist started playing, the choir and the pastors started processing, the congregation began to sing "O Come All Ye Faithful" and he whispered in his mother's ear, "Momma, I think something great is about to happen!" He is right. He is right!
Barbara Brown Taylor, the great preacher and now teacher of preachers may be right when she says that for good or for ill Christmas Eve functions like a kind of time machine, taking us back to every other Christmas Eve we have spent on this earth. I know it takes me back. It reminds me of the hustle and bustle in my mom's kitchen on December the twenty-fourth. It sends me to dining room table. It's special. We never ate in there! From where I sit, I can see the Christmas tree. I know all the gifts under it and whose names are on them. From where I sit, I see my granddaddy and Aunt Julie, and Emily. From where I am I know that a sleepless night is ahead of me. And just after dessert, I'll be able to open one present, a tradition in my family, a Christmas Eve gift. I told you a sermon or two ago that my mom was famous for picking a gift by mistake so one year I opened film. I knew what was coming the next day! In the morning, no earlier than five, my dad would stand in front of the living room doors, peek inside, and say, "I believe Santa Claus has been here!" Traditions. For many of us that is what Christmas is all about. What is Christmas all about for you?
Charles Shultz has given us a great gift in Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. His spiritual side can be seen in his Christmas special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. I've already mentioned it in our sermon. I have watched it twice this season and it has spoken to me both times. In it, you will recall, Charlie Brown is having a hard time figuring out what Christmas is really about. He knows he should be in the Christmas spirit. He says that he likes things like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating the Christmas tree, but there's something missing. He tells Linus, who represents Schultz's spiritual side, that he doesn't understand Christmas.
Lucy tries to help him by giving him what she calls involvement which consists of his directing a Christmas play. Charlie Brown isn't too good at that and so Lucy sends him off to buy a Christmas tree for the play. She wants him to get a pink, aluminum tree, but Charlie Brown picks a small twig really, whose needs soon fall off of it. When he returns with the tree everyone is upset with him. Charlie Brown is disappointed and he screams out, " Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"
With blanket in hand Linus says, "Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about." And with that he walks into the auditorium, calls for the lights to come down and shine on him and he says, "There were in the same country shepherds abiding in their field keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone all about them and they were sore afraid (I love that line!) And the angel of the Lord said unto them, "Fear not, for behold I bring you tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign unto you. You will find the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and goodwill to men."
Linus looks over at Charlie Brown and says, "That's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown." He is right. He is exactly right. Jesus coming down to live with us is what Christmas is all about. For unto us, to all of us who have hauled all our hopes and fears of all our years to the manger scene, it is what Christmas is all about." For unto us, to all of us who give our very best wishes to those we love this season and our own hopes and dreams and what we pray our lives will be like once Jesus has been born into them again, it is what Christmas is all about. For unto us, who are sore afraid, who don't know what to do, this little baby comes and gives us hope. Jesus comes. Jesus comes. That is what Christmas is all about, friends. Let us pray.