All the Days of Christmas

A sermon for Christmas Day preached as St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.
The lectionary readings for Christmas Day are here.

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My sister is an expert gift-wrapper. Under her tree each year are matching presents with pretty paper, bows, and other crafty embellishments, Pinterest perfect. I, however, am not much of a gift-wrapper, my wrapping tends to look more like it came from the butcher shop than Hallmark. I much prefer putting things in bags with a bit of tissue paper and calling it good. Jim doesn’t even worry about the bag, he just puts a bow on the box the item arrived in and puts it under the tree.

Whichever type of ‘wrapper’ you are, I think it’s safe to say we all like to both give and receive things in neat little boxes or bags with pretty bows. During the month of December we like to count down the days until Christmas with the little doors and drawers and boxes of our Advent calendars. We like to consolidate the 12 days of Christmas into a song that we sing faster and faster with each verse until we are laughing so hard we can’t sing any more. We buy special storage containers to hold it all safe until next year. Even our church calendar organized things for us – we do Advent things during Advent, Christmas things during the Christmas season, Easter things at Easter; each year we do the whole of Jesus’ birth, teachings and ministry, death, resurrection and ascension in twelve months, crafting and coordinating all we do with the season.

And yet, I think we are all able to say that God is beyond our human understanding, and organizing what we do in ChurchLand around the life and ministry of Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us is one of the intentional and real ways we are shaped and transformed by God’s love for us. We have no choice in our human capacity to use words too small for God to talk about our relationship with our Creator, our life as we are created to live it. And, hopefully, we do so with the understanding that God is not contained by our countdown calendars, our songs, our boxes and bows, our tidy storage containers, or even our defined seasons and celebrations.

So, over the next couple of weeks as we begin to pack up all of our tinsel, putting our items of anticipation and celebration into their storage containers, I’m going to suggest that you find something to leave up all year long. But not your outside lights or decorations – that will just make your neighbors talk about you unfavorably.

I know of a family among us who leaves their decorated tree up all year and it brings great delight as you enter their home in April or July or September. Pick something that genuinely enlivens your sense of anticipation when you see it and put it somewhere where it will catch your eye from time to time and surprise and delight you. Even as we count down the next 12 days and our calendars continue to move from day to day through the year, keep your sense of anticipation awake. Be alert to God’s presence with you every day, in all of the ups and downs of our life. Let God delight you all year. Let God amaze you all year. Let Love shape and transform you all year.

In his book, the Mood of Christmas, written in 1973, Howard Thurman wrote “I know that the experiences of unity in human relations are more compelling than the concepts, the fears, the prejudices, which divide. Despite the tendency to feel my race superior, my nation the greatest nation, my faith the true faith, I must beat down the boundaries of my exclusiveness until my sense of separateness is completely enveloped in a sense of fellowship. I will light the candle of fellowship this Christmas, a candle that must burn all the year long.”

This is the same book in which he published the poem most of us are familiar with, titled The Work of Christmas:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

God’s gift to us didn’t come neatly wrapped in Pinterest perfect bows and embellishments. Even the best wrappers among us can’t make God’s gift any more beautiful or glorious. Even the most organized among us can’t contain the awe and wonder of God. God’s gift to us is God’s self given “In the beginning,” at creation when God spoke us into being with the Divine Image in each of us. In the gift of Jesus, God chose to come among us and show us in flesh and blood what it is to live into the Image within each of us, showing us how this way of being that is beyond our understanding is the truth of who and Whose we are.

In God’s gift of God’s self, we discover hopeful transformation, the peace that comes with justice, the joy of self-fulfillment in fellowship and community, and the love that empowers us to make our own unique contributions to the Kingdom on Earth.  In Jesus we find light and life, and the courage to be like him, answering his call and following in his footsteps every day of the year.

Through the whole of this year to come, rejoice in God’s presence in our lives, anticipate the coming of Jesus in and through us, in all that we think, say, and do. Don’t try to contain what God chooses to do through us.

Come to us, Lord Jesus. Be born in us this day, in our hearts, our minds, our lives. Lead us in the shining truth of God with us, God for us, God in us. Amen