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Christmas Eve Message 2006
It is a family tradition of mine since my childhood to hear the story of the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. When I was a young child, my grandfather would read it to us each Christmas Eve day, When I was a teenager, it was played on a record and as an adult we have watched the a movie on television to this very day. And last year we saw it for the first time at the Hartford Stage.
In many ways it tells us of the real meaning of Christmas. As we visit Scrooge’s past, we see a very lonely child, a child whose father held a grudge against him all of his life because his mother died birthing him. We see a young man who looses his way, giving up human love for the idolatry of gold. The more inward he turns, the more cold, hard, alone and blind he becomes. He is the symbol of human separation from God and from God’s people. He lived in a world of me and mine, a world of darkness and indifference.
The most powerful moment for me in his story is as he visits the home of the Bob Cratchet, his only employee. There he sees crippled Tiny Tim for the first time and tenderness of the family’s love manifested in the midst of financial struggles and the faith that gave them strength. Dad and Tim are late getting home from church and as the children carry Tim off to play and get ready for Christmas, Bob tells his wife that Tim had said that he hoped the people at church saw him as one who is crippled and remembered that on this day we celebrate one who came to make the lame walk and the blind see. As Scrooge watches this scene his eyes are opened and his heart is touched, for the first time in many years.
At the table where they barely have food enough to feed their family they give thanks to God with all their hearts and Tiny Tim ends by saying God bless us every one. But the visit of Scrooge does not end there. He wants to leave. He has seen enough and it obviously pains him. The ghost of Christmas present will not let him leave just yet. Mr. Cratchet lifts his drink to toast scrooge reminding everyone of that which is at the heart of Christmas, and as difficult as it is, his wife joins in and one by one his children join in toasting Scrooge that he too may know life and health and have a merry Christmas.
Of course the journey Scrooge takes through his dark past, the horrible choices he made, the present loneliness he lives and impact on others of his coldness and hardness of heart and the similar indifference the world feels at his death in the future, breaks his heart, opens his eyes and transforms his life. In the end, he cannot love enough, he cannot give enough, he cannot dance and laugh and sing with family and friends enough. His life had been lost, it had been taken from him by the way he chose to deal with his own pain. He ran from love, he fled from relationships and commitments, turning his life inward . In the end though, love touched him and melted his hardened heart and life was returned to him by the grace of God.
This is our story too. Ebenezer Scrooge is every man and woman. We are the ones whose lives are blind to the impact of our past, the consequences for ourselves and many others both family and strangers in the choices we make, in how we spend our time, and use our resources our gifts and talents. We too have the Spirit of our Christmas past, present and future calling us into a new life in Christ. We can open our eyes to the greatest of Kings born into the most humble of places. We can see the one in our midst who lifts up the lowly, gives sight to the blind, brings liberation to the oppressed and life to the spiritually dead. He is the Prince of Shalom, of wholeness and of healing. He is God with us.
The story of Christmas is not Santa Claus, not Christmas trees or stuffing ourselves with all the food we can eat. The story of Christmas is about the one who came among us to bring us out of our blindness, to lift us out of our brokeness, and disabilities, to open our hearts, to heal our wounds past and present. It is about God’s divinity taking on human flesh in order to make the humanity in each of us divine.
I received a very wonderful Christmas story from several people via email in the past few weeks about believing in Santa Claus. And we, as Christian, talk a lot more with our children about Santa Claus than we do Jesus at Christmas and yet the real meaning of Christmas is in the manager. I want to tell this same story replacing Santa Claus with Jesus and ask you to consider whether it doesn’t carry far more power for us on this holy night.
BELIEVE IN Jesus The story of a young boy
I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Jesus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"
My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth. Grandma was home and while we ate her cinnamon buns, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Jesus?" she snorted...."Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and
let's go." "Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. "Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she opened the door and walked out of Kerby's. I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he didn't have a good coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.
"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. "Yes, ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby." The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas. That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote, "To Bobby, From Jesus" on it.
Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Jesus’ helpers.
Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Jesus," she whispered, "get going."
I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.
Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby. Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent
shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Jesus being just a cute story were just what Grandma said they were ridiculous. Jesus was alive and well, and we were on his team.
I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95.
May you always have LOVE to share, HEALTH to spare and FRIENDS that
care...
And may you always believe in the magic of God‘s Word becoming flesh, Christ being born for us and living in us!
God’s love was made incarnate on this night. God’s love became flesh in Jesus. God came among us as one of us that we might not only know his love, but embrace it and share it with others. When the prince of peace rules in our hearts, then we can live in peace, we can join with the Cratchets in a toast to the life and health of even Scrooges around us and we can lift our hearts in thanks with tiny Tim as we say, God bless us, everyone.
May you find yourselves at the manger this Christmas Eve with Jesus. May you see God’s humanity manifest in Him and may you see God’s divinity manifested in your own life and the lives of those around you. May God’s word not only be born to us this night, but live in us forever.
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