Reverend Ref +

SERMON
CHRISTMAS EVE

The time of waiting is over. Advent has come to a close and the 12 Days of Christmas are upon us. The world will tell you that Christmas is over on Monday; but we know better. We know that Christmas is just beginning and we have the next 12 days to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.

If you want to throw someone for a loop, request a Christmas song on your favorite radio station sometime next week. Or go caroling. Or throw an Epiphany party and exchange gifts. The world builds up to Christmas seemingly the day after Halloween, and then dispenses with it by the 27th.

When we lived in the city, we could take a drive and see abandoned Christmas trees ready for the garbage truck on the curb in front of almost every house in the day or two after Christmas. It was kind of sad, actually. All of that build up, all of that anticipation, all of that eagerness, gone in a flash. Decorations put away, lights taken down, and the Christmas cheer tossed out curbside along with the tree. Another holiday done and it's time to get back to business as usual.

But it shouldn't be business as usual for us. As all of us with children know, there's no such thing as "business as usual" after the birth. Our lives have been changed forever, beginning with the announcement that a baby is on the way.

Our announcement came on the First Sunday of Advent with Jesus talking about the sound and the fury of the Second Coming and urging us to stay awake. Our anticipation began to build with John the Baptist announcing the coming of the Messiah. And as we heard the story of the Annunciation of this holy birth to Mary, we were almost ready to scream, "How much longer??" I can't tell you how many times I've been asked, "When are you going to put out baby Jesus, the shepherd and the Wisemen?"

My standard answer is always, "When it's time."

Getting back to Jesus and his second coming, there's an anticipation, eagerness and fear associated with that event. We anticipate the day when Jesus will come again in power and glory. We need to be careful about anticipating that day though, because if we aren't careful, we may end up anticipating an end-time scenario that is just as fictitious as the Left Behind series of books.

We also have an eagerness about that day, especially if things aren't going our way. We want Jesus to come and rescue us from the evils of this world -- SOON. Especially if we have been pouring over the prophecies of the bible and think we have that time nailed down as next July. We look around at all of the evils in the world and the corruption and the intolerance and we want to scream, "How much longer??"

And there's also a fear associated with it. We hear about the sun darkening, the moon not giving light, stars falling and the winds of the earth carrying the angels to gather the elect. It seems like it will be loud and scary and terrifying and we wonder if we'll survive.

You know what? The first coming of Jesus is like his second coming in alot of ways. In first century Palestine, the people of God anticipated the arrival of the Messiah. They looked forward to the day when that Messiah would come in power and glory and rescue his elect from the worldly powers that dominated and oppressed them.

There was an eagerness to that waiting brought on by their reading of the scriptures that foretold of this great Messiah. They had been under foreign rule and oppressed for so long that they seemed to be at the end of their rope. They were ready to scream, "How much longer??"

And the sound and the fury that Jesus tells us will accompany his second coming also accompained his first coming. The arrival of the Messiah came through the pregnancy of a young girl. Sometime in the night, amidst the noises of a stable, she went into labor. There were no pain meds, no epidurals. But there were screams of pain, ragged breathing, a husband trying to focus his wife, animals noisily braying, maybe some curses directed towards God and Joseph (ala Bill Cosby, "YOU did this to me!!"), and then the screams and cries of an angry baby, the relief of the mother and the tears of the father. This was the sound and fury of the Messiah's first coming.

The other way these two events are similar is that nobody knew then or knows now when it would or will happen. Mary was expecting her child, the Son of God. We are expecting his coming again. In her pregnancy, Mary prepared herself for the coming of her baby. In Advent, we prepared ourselves for the coming of the Messiah. In neither event, however, did anyone or will anyone know the date.

Furthermore, we have to remember that, regardless of her acquired status, Mary wasn't perfect, and neither was Joseph. They were human with human foibles and frailties. They weren't perfect, they weren't even perfectly prepared, yet God worked through them as one more piece to the puzzle of salvation.

As I look around I see alot of religious groups who are demanding that others live up to their own interpretations of perfection. But nobody is perfect, not them, not us, not you or me, not Joseph and not Mary. Only God is perfect. Throughout Advent we were asked to get ready, to prepare, for the coming of the Messiah.

Advent is over and the Messiah has arrived in the form of a baby in a manger. This is a good thing. All the world celebrates tonight and into tomorrow; and then, come Monday morning, it will be back to business as usual. But it isn't business as usual for us, because we know that Christmas is just beginning.

We have a new person in our lives. As after any birth, we now have a new member of our family. We need to spend time with him, talk with him, grow with him, and, yes, eventually die with him.

This Christmas, let us remember that God isn't asking us to be perfect, or even perfectly prepared. This Christmas, let us remember what God is asking of us: that is to be daily present with him, just as we are daily present in the lives of our own children.

That presence, by the way, begins with the birth of the child.