What’s Left?
Your clergy have a confession to make:
it’s Christmas Eve,
and I still have no Christmas Tree with which to celebrate the season,
Hal has no lights decorating the exterior of his home,
and our respective Nativity sets have never been
removed from their boxes.
We’ve failed in our annual preparations to celebrate the season.
Does that sound at all familiar to some of you?
Have you ever had a Christmas when you’ve seemed to
lack the time
or energy
or perhaps even the desire to
take out the tinsel or bake the requisite cookies?
Is it still Christmas?
What is it that “makes the season bright,” as it were?
How does the Christmas spirit finally enter in?
Is it still Christmas for you if you’re a student who
doesn’t have the funds to fly home to your family?
Is it still Christmas if you’re 9 years old and
don’t get the Xbox accessories that you were SURE
Santa would bring?
Is it still Christmas if you and your mom have
the same old religious or political standoff
over the glazed ham;
if you and your brother fall into the same
painful pattern of trying to one-up each other;
if you and your offspring sit in different rooms—which may as well be different worlds!—frustrated with each other’s stubbornness?
Is it Christmas?
We put so many expectations onto this holiday—
we want our parties to be perfectly planned,
our sermons to be fresh and inspiring,
our presents to be wonderful surprises…
there’s so much pressure to make Christmas great;
we’re often disappointed before the day has even come.
What’s left after all the heaped-on hopes for the holiday have been stripped away and, like a manger,
laid with only straw?
What if, somehow, we just let go of Christmas?
What if we took away the twinkling lights? What’s left?
What if we took away…
the candles? (walk to Advent wreath)
What if—in this season of supposed joy—you felt no joy? (blow out pink candle)
What if—with continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and possibly soon in North & South Korea—you could sense no peace? (blow)
What if the love in your life has been lost? (blow)
What if—when everyone is talking about it most; when Christmas carols and church prayers are steeped in it—you could find no hope? (blow)
What’s left?
Every Christmas Eve we come to worship,
to hear lessons and sing carols;
to retell the story of a baby being born in a manger.
What if even these were taken from us? (blow out Christ candle)
Sometimes this season is simply too much for us
to put up a tree,
pull out the Nativity set
or gather with friends.
What if you just decided not to?
And when all of the expectations and symbols are gone—
when you let go of even Christmas itself—
what’s left
is Christ.
~~~
You’ll remember that the Gospels of Mark and John
give us no descriptions of Jesus’ birth:
no stars for signs or angel-messengers or shepherds or magi.
Mark and John tell of no virgin, no census and no stable.
They speak of this wonder we celebrate—Christ—
without Christmas.
And what of Matthew and Luke’s versions of the Gospel?
These stories we have of Jesus being born
into the most humble beginnings
belie all the trappings we’ve surrounded it with.
Parties and wrapping paper seem extreme
when we remember that the Messiah came to the world
in vulnerability and poverty.
You have probably heard the cliché or seen the billboards demanding,
“put Christ back in Christmas!”
But why not do just the opposite ?—
strip away all that we call Christmas;
simplify it so we can better see that manger laid with only straw.
Let go of all the expectations
and reveal only what is already there and
most essential: Christ.
The one we call the Light
shining in the darkness (relight the Christ candle).
The one we call the Way… through life;
the Way to hope (light candle)…
and love (light)…
and joy (light pink)…
and peace (light).
The one we call the Word:
in the beginning and for all time:
in this season and beyond.
That is what’s left.
It’s why we’re here sitting in a pew on this night.
Not for the songs or the candles or the season or the story itself
(although they’re lovely! and can point us toward the One).
They are lovely… but we’re here because Christ is what’s left—
what we need in our lives—
the Light,
the Way,
the Word.
Is it still Christmas?
Christ is present with us in this world—
even when we can’t be home for the holidays,
even when family gatherings are full of strife,
even when there’s no tree or nativity.
Christ is with us.
May that blessing carry you throughout this season
and every season.
Amen.
