"Christmas is for the Birds"

Christmas Eve, Year A (12-24-13)

Sermon Texts: Isaiah 9:2-7; Luke 2:1-20

Christmas is for the Birds

For each one of us, there’s usually some tradition, some marker, some specific event that makes it feel like it’s “really Christmas” - even though we’ve been listening to Bing Crosby ask us if we hear what he hears since mid-October, it just isn't Christmas for us until we have that one moment, that one tradition that assures us personally that Christmas time is here at last.  For some, it’s a certain movie, like A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, or the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.  For others, it’s the yearly family journey to acquire the perfect family Christmas tree. For one of my oldest and closest friends, it wasn’t truly Christmas until he and his family had kept their yearly tradition of seeing Trans-Siberian Orchestra live in concert.

One significant Christmas tradition that developed over the years until it became an absolute staple in people’s homes on Christmas day comes from the famous radio personality Paul Harvey.  As he came on the radio with his trademark, “Hello Americans,” he’d share his thoughts on the news of the time, peppered of course with seamless transitions to ads for Amway and other sponsors.  He shared his passion for the Christmas season, for the story of the savior that inspires our celebration, and his belief in the spirit of Christmas that can never be quelled despite the best efforts of our culture to suppress it.  Though it started with humble beginnings, Paul Harvey’s Christmas Day broadcast eventually began its own tradition - his close friend, Louis Cassels, had published a story that he’d come upon, which Paul then incorporated as a “modern parable” into his Christmas broadcast for many years running.  Many of you here tonight may even have fond memories of turning on the radio after the Christmas presents had all been opened to listen to him tell this story:

I have to confess that before a seminary colleague of mine had shared this story and commented on how it was one of his favorite stories that gets told around the Christmas season, I’d never heard it told.  But it’s an amazingly simple, yet piercing story, isn’t it?

Somehow, in the simplest of circumstances, the most common of events that can happen, something profound happens at Christmastime.  In the simple birth of a baby boy, the greatest event of human history somehow happens at the same time as God becomes human in Jesus Christ.  And it suddenly all makes sense - that in order to redeem us, to lead us to that place of light, warmth, and comfort, God needed a way to relate to us that we could understand and appreciate.  This is the greatest miracle of Christmas - not the choirs of angels that proclaimed the savior’s birth, not the shepherds filled with so much joy that they ran out into the world shouting the coming of the messiah, not even the coming of people from another part of the world because they followed a star to meet their king: but the fact that in this one holy and sacred moment, God did something unheard of, something that had never been done before and never would be done again - God became one of us.  God gave us God’s self that we might see, hear, know, and understand.

Tonight, we’ll join together to celebrate the sacrament of Communion as a part of our worship service.  As we come before that table, we’re reminded not just that God became one of us, but that God also gave everything for us in Jesus Christ..  Jesus isn’t just the “reason for the season,” as the slogan goes on church signs and bumper stickers;  he’s our reason.  He was born so that we might live.  He gave up his life so that we would not die to our own sins.  And he has promised that he will return to reign in glory so that we can enjoy life everlasting.  In the bread we break and the cup that we drink tonight, we remember the full miracle of Christ, in both life, death, and resurrection - we remember that the wood of the manger leads to the wood of the cross.  That the baby’s cry at Christmas is the savior’s cry at Calvary.  And that the message of the angels to the shepherds, “to you is born this day a savior,” will later be the message to the women at the empty tomb - “He is not here.  He is risen!”  This, too, is the good news of Christmas.  This, too, is the reason for the season.  So as we come together to celebrate the birth of Christ, let us also remember that we are called to be the body of Christ.  As we look forward to opening our gifts, let us also open our hearts to the Lord, remembering the ultimate gift which we have been given.  And as we hear the pronouncement that a people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, as we look at the familiar nativity scenes and remember the babe in swaddling clothes, let us be the stable and manger into which our Lord comes, swaddling him in our own yearning and broken hearts, and letting his light shine into our own places of darkness. And now, to the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace - to Jesus Christ, the Messiah be all glory and honor.  Merry Christmas!  Amen.