Year B, Christmas Day I (9 a.m.)

          Psalm 96; Isaiah 9: 2-4, 6-7; Titus 2: 11-14; Luke 2: 15-20

 

Mr. Steve Polston

St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church

Christmas Day, 2005, Morning Prayer

 

“Keeping Christmas:

a retrospective and a yearning”

 

          Well, here we are again, in a season of light.

A couple of days ago, in the middle of the afternoon, the sun arced across the sky and did not stop. But some of us noted that for a moment, there was a solstice, and the sun reached its southernmost point on our celestial sphere.

          This last month could have been our time of bleak midwinter, weather-wise, except we know that even as the ground and water are hard as iron, there still remain January and February. But we look forward to the resurrection of the ground, the tender shoots of hyacinth, tulips and crocuses that will remind us that time will march on and on and on … for the expectant and foreseeable future, anyway. Isn’t it amazing that the bulbs of the garden prepare for living the next season without regard or fear?

          I, however, cannot help but cast a wary eye toward the world and think about the last days, as told about in our Book of Revelation. It really is a miracle that by now we humans have not discovered a complete understanding of the origin of the Universe, that vast expanse of interstellar space or its relation to the Earth, our island home. Nor is it any less a miracle that we have not brought about the end of the world. Maybe both are equal part miracle and blessing.

          Was there an Intelligent Designer, or did things happen at a moment of boom and pop? When will it all finish in days of peace and plenty? Our Bible tells us that we cannot know.

          And you will see in a moment, as I deliver two homilies for your Christmas Day enjoyment, that I am torn between examples of blessing and doom.

          Later today Hanukkah will begin, and a sizeable portion of the Earth’s inhabitants will begin to recall the dedication of the second temple in Jerusalem, when Jews gathered with enough lamp oil for one night. But the miracle was that there was enough for eight days.

          About 20 years ago, when my parents and sister were living in a mobile home in Bloomington, my Dad was waiting to be paid for some carpentry work he’d done. It was cold and snowy. There wasn’t enough heating oil in the tank, and Christmas was coming and it was the time of Hanukkah … not that my family are observant Jews, nor especially religious Christians.

          The paycheck wasn’t coming, but the heating oil deliveryman decided that, on his way home for Christmas, that he had enough to deliver a tankful to my parents’ house. The bill would be mailed. Merry Christmas!

          For two decades my mother recalled that story for my family each Christmas and said to always look for a Jewish miracle — it will happen!

          I want you to know that every Christmas something happens in my family to recall that miracle, and for me it has happened seven-fold this holiday season.

          Our Church’s Advent Season helps us to look forward with expectation that the miracle of Jesus Christ’s Salvation and God’s salvific work have occurred for all humans, and will continue on until the end of all days.

          That’s the end of the Jewish homily for today.

          Now, here’s the Christian homily.

          It can be with some irony that we read and hear the appointed lessons for today. Fortunately, the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, gives hope in the Gospel.

          What I mean to say — with less pith — is that the shepherds beheld in their hearts and took great hope that what was revealed to them could be made True. That lesson in Isaiah, as usual, is a hard thing to swallow. The Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace that the prophet tells us about has established his authority.

          Yet we look with sadness on the world about us.

In the United States, our nation is divided almost in half on many important issues — especially in how we elect presidents, wage war, and provide healthcare and welfare for our indigent elderly and uneducated poor. Even Canada, a nation we seldom pay attention to, has divisions that will lead to early elections for Prime Minister. France has a horrible cognitive dissonance about freedom and wealth.

          I only am hitting some selected highlights, of course, but you get the idea: my view is rather dark and dim.

          But on Christmas Day, in the morning, we gather to worship our Lord, Jesus Christ, told about in the Church’s book, the Bible, and sang about in the Church through our hymns and prayers.

          Personally, we gather in a state of yearning for the days past of homes full of laughter, parents and grandparents gathered, and a cloud of Love encircling us like wreathes of joy. Children giggle and shyly smile at the modern myth of Santa Claus, icing-glazed treats roll from the kitchen, and silly arguments ensue about how best to glaze the ham, cook the goose, sweeten the pot, win the ball game.

          Fortunately, the elders have left us with a sense of the value of togetherness and an understanding of the benefit of gathering in peace and familial harmony. So we create new traditions based on the old ones and time marches on in a day of bliss that surely is a foretaste of Heaven.

          We can keep Christmas in our hearts, but we probably ought to give it away and welcome it when it returns.

          My own mother told me — once I questioned her about the existence of Santa Claus: “As long as I live, Santa will be alive.” And she kept Santa alive for me by filling a stocking for me at Christmas for 40 years. That amount of love cannot but be cherished. With Mom’s passing, my father promised that he would fill the stocking again with all the things I enjoy on this day: an orange, an apple, lots of chocolate and some peanuts. And he will do this for my sister, too. Together we are the two youngest children of good parents. The older brothers do this for their children, so our family’s love does encircle us with wreathes of joy.

          And I expect that when Easter comes again Dad will find our Easter baskets and fill them with fake grass and real, dark chocolate. Eggs, bunnies and too many calories.

          The Easter basket, like the red stocking, is a touchstone in my life. Together they recall the love of my parents and my siblings and the tradition that binds us.

          And together the lessons of Morning Prayer are icons of the expectation, promise and seriousness with which we view our spiritual heritage. Our birthright is somehow mysteriously tied up with the birthright of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The prophet foretold and the Gospel explained that Jesus was the one for whom the world eagerly awaited.

          Come, Lord Jesus, be our guide, in this next hour and in our lives.

          A dear friend of mine, a professor at Franklin College, told our Old Testament literature class one day that before the Hebrews were collected as a nation, human societies looked at life as a wheel, a circle that came around with the seasons and the turning of the planets. What goes around comes around, turning, turning, and turning. But God interjected himself into our affairs to make our lives new.

          That’s as good an explanation as I can find for the mystery of being. My faith is based on my hope, and my hope is based on the expectation that what is True, according to the prophet and the Gospel, can be made real.

          This is a merry and bright day, after all. May the joy of your tradition and faith encircle you with fragrant boughs of smoky joy, prayers ascending to Heaven for its hope and deliverance.

          That’s the end of the Christian homily.

 

Amen.