Sermon: Don't Keep Christ is Christmas?

 CHILDREN's TIME

7 pm, Christmas Eve, 2022 - J G White / FBCA

Welcome. Did you take a long journey to get here?

Where did you come from to be here now?

We have been following a young shepherd named Leon, all month. He was here, there, and now got to this little barn. He found Mary and Joseph and their baby, Jesus.

Some of you came a long way to worship Jesus. Some people are still travelling.

Look around... can you see any other people, or animals, on their way to Jesus, who did not get there yet?

Those very wise people are still a ways off. It will take them a while to get close to Jesus.

That’s the way it is for a lot of us in life. We wander and search, we do our work, we try to be smart and wise. Some of us get to Jesus before others. Some will be on their spiritual journey for a long time.

Tonight, you may be like young Leon the shepherd – you feel very close to Jesus.

You might be like those Wise people, the Magi, and their camel – it might take you a couple more years before you meet up with Jesus. But you keep on.

It is more than two thousand years ago this child was born. And still, we can seek and find Jesus – our great way of seeing God as one of us.

Merry Christmas!

SERMON: Don't Keep Christ in Christmas?

(Is 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20)

 Most of you here tonight do not know me. Yet. You might guess that I love Church, and you’d be right. So a service like this one is a real joy for me. And not simply because of the crowd: you, my captive audience. I was thoroughly pleased with the Longest Night Service two evenings ago, next door, at Christ Church Anglican: there were six people there, in total (including minister and organist).

I am simply hooked on singing hymns, pipe organ music, reading from the Bible out loud, speeches about life and the Bible, and the eyes-closed talking we call prayers. When we get to light candles too, that’s great! Taking up an offering: that’s not my favourite part. (This is the first time in at least twenty years, for me, that I host a Xmas Eve service where we take up an offering.)

As I considered the traditional scripture readings for tonight, over the past couple weeks, I started to get excited. Excited because I wanted to celebrate the fact that all this birth of Jesus, Xmas stuff is for our lives, yours & mine, now. It is not for Church only; it ain’t just for Xmas Eve; it’s for day-to-day life, mainly.

What we have read is timeless, be it from 2,800 years ago – The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light – or from 2,025 years ago – to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord – or from 1,950 years ago – For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.

So, I thought, my message for tonight is simply this: the stories of Jesus’ birth, and our service here and now, are not an escape from reality, or the troubles of life. The Christmas story is good being born into our reality, our lives. There is good in this life; Jesus is a bright light of goodness the breaks into our lives. And like the candles we each get to light in a few minutes, the light of goodness from God can shine out from each of our lives, today. I believe this.

It must be twenty years ago that the signs saying, “Keep Christ in Christmas” became popular and started popping up all over the place. Signs on churches and in people’s front yards still carry the message – to remember Jesus, and not make it all about Frosty and Santa and Rudolph and the Grinch. I was given a magnet version to use as a bumper sticker on my car, in December. “Keep Christ in Christmas.”

And then, this past Wednesday, I happened upon something posted online, from a minister in greater Toronto. Fr. Daniel’s annual reminder is called “Don’t Keep Christ in Christmas,” first posted in 2018.

 

Don’t keep Christ in Christmas.

Let him out.

Let him out of the box of decorations stored in the attic

Let him out of prayers you only say at Midnight Mass

Let him out of carols as background to your shopping.

Let him out of a sentimental story cleansed of

violence and pain

Let him out of the creche, where he remains

a helpless infant

… where the only woman present is silent and meek

… where poverty is romanticized with no threat and no smell

… and shepherds are cuddly and everyone is white

… and there is no messiness to obscure the miracle

Let him out of December’s candle-lit coziness

… where his heat melts the wintry ice of our selfishness

… and his buds unfold amidst the mud of injustice

… and his flowers overtake the borders of

manicured gardens

… and his harvest fills barns with fruits we never knew

existed

Don’t keep Christ in Christmas.

Let him out.

And then, when Christmas comes ’round again,

We won’t have to “keep him in it”,

For how could he not be “in Christmas” when he has been here, the whole time,

Keeping us?              (Rev. Daniel Brereton, St. John's Dixie

  Anglican Church, Mississauga, ON)

 

SILENCE

PRAYER: Look upon the candles, & pray with me.

God of light, God of the silence, God who comes near: open our eyes to Your real presence with us, seen in Jesus, known in Spirit. Again, may the light of Christ overwhelm the world. In sadness let there be joy. In war and violence, let there be freedom and peace. In sickness and hurt deep inside, let there be healing and growth. In confusion and fear, let there be courage and guidance. In discouragement and loss let there be new hope and lovingkindness. In isolation and acrimony let there be friendship and reconciliation.

Holy One among us, make us wise in seeking You, give us joy in celebrating Christmas, and lead us clearly into the year of our Lord 2023. In Jesus’ name. AMEN.