DO YOU STILL REMEMBER CHRISTMAS?
Galatians 4: 4-7
LUKE 2: 22-40
December 31, 2023 NEW YEAR’s EVE
Well, today’s the end of ‘THAT YEAR!’ Today is officially the date we can discern as 123123 … uh sort of Lawerence Welkish … because it seems time all starts over again with the stroke of the midnight hour; a new opportunity to create history amidst our adventures.
I often have wondered where the New Year officially begins. Is it when Greenwich Mean Time notes the changing of the hour or do we have to wait until the fabulous crystal ball created in Ireland’s Waterford Crystal factory with its 32,256 LED lights slowly moves down the SONY Tower with that famous countdown 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 … have you ever noticed by the way that sometimes your countdown is different than your friends’ depending on the cable system or streaming system or channel they are watching so when is it really midnight? When does the new year arrive?
Anyhow, are we supposed to wait until the television hosts give us approval to shout HAPPY NEW YEAR? By the way, who gives bandleaders in dance halls the power to declare it is Happy New Year time? I have also always wondered how my friends in Chicago, Denver, and LA really feel when we here on the East Coast are shouting HAPPY NEW YEAR, tooting horns, releasing confetti, raising our glasses, and banging pots and pans to declare a new year when yet in their homes it is still only 11pm, 10pm or 9 in the evening because those friends usually respond to my midnight texts with a “Happy New Year” even if it is not past midnight according to their clocks and they have not entered into their 2024 signifying the right to shout HAPPY NEW YEAR where they live. And, what about those folks in Hawaii … oh the heck with them they get to live in Hawaii where it seems like a new year every day!
Friends … do any of us remember Christmas amidst the fuss and partying and Twilight Zone binging, which is the New Year’s Eve habit that makes me happy. You do remember Christmas …”Away in the Manger no crib” stuff or is the manger so far away now that you have dismantled your tree and packed away your plastic Jesus for another year?
That is the frightening reality of the calendar when it comes to life. We move from one focus to the next … from attending a church service with a standing room only focus to leaving behind … well do you remember Christmas when you are not present to worship God? Do you wake with a whispered or silent prayer enunciating the words ‘Thank You God for your Christmas gift to humanity?” When friends or family or co-workers or neighbors ask what you received this year on Christmas Day do you remember to share “God gave all of us Jesus … my best Christmas gift of all?” Do you send God a thank you note or thank you prayer or a thank you change in life for this Christmas’s gift to you?
Ok, I am sure that most of us don’t mention Jesus amongst our Christmas gifts. The shirt I am wearing was not a Christmas gift but, in a way, it was a gift to our family from Colleen who suggested we join the collective of folks who have their families wear the same PJs on Christmas Day. It makes for a great photo op, and it also brings a sense of togetherness in families but when I first saw these pj tops’ message LOVE … PEACE … and JOY … I felt Christmas. Because friends if you are looking for the ongoing, everlasting gift from this Christmas season that can actually impact your life … it is Jesus who through God gives us LOVE … PEACE … and JOY!
Plus, Colleen’s gift gives me the opportunity to wear my PJ’s to church today … at least my PJ shirt … what a gift!
We heard in today’s Scripture a small snippet from Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, which today is part of central Turkey, … a reminder of the gift of Christmas, “God sent His Son, born through a woman so that WE COULD BE ADOPTED!”
Friends, consider this awesome truth … if you still hold Christmas to be meaningful and if beyond Christmas you have continually held the Easter truths as remarkable life vests for your eternity and actually choose to follow what Jesus taught and regularly in the year 2023 have chosen to reject the calls of human leaders to divide us when God calls us to be one … if that is you then the annual CHRISTMAS gift of Jesus we need to remember is that God sent Jesus so we can be adopted into God’s immediate family. As Paul would state it, “No longer a slave to our sinfulness but a son … or a DAUGHTER … and by being one of God’s children an heir to a heavenly eternity through God!” Pretty darn awesome and again a reminder as Paul notes elsewhere … ALL of humanity is welcome to be EQUAL partners in God’s gift of love not just men who look like each other but ALL of HUMANITY!
That is important to note as we move into 2024 because just as in Jesus’s days … just as in Paul’s days … there are amongst us religious leaders or leaders feigning to be religious who claim to have the power to discern who is worthy of God and who isn’t. There have been clergy who want to use their bias to deny Holy Communion to some and marriage to others because somehow these religious or civil power brokers claim they get to judge more than God does. But through today’s Scripture we are reminded … that through God’s Christmas gift of His Son …. We can be adopted into God’s family no longer a slave to sin IF … IF … IF we accept the gift as meaningful, and personal and open to each of us no matter what we look like, where we come, what our family realities are … ALL were gifted on that Christmas Day.
So, that’s the LOVE part of my Christmas shirt … God’s love and of course we are called if we choose to be God’s children to return the love both to God and then to all of our neighbors.
But another element of the shirt PEACE also comes through faith. Actually, in that same letter to the Galatians Paul notes what we get when we take on Jesus as our Rabbi, our Lord and our Savior rather than as a Christmas ornament. When we actually receive the gift of God from Christmas and focus in on what it means to love God daily, to worship God and to BELIEVE we get what Paul calls the “fruit of the Spirit.” Not new cars or fancy packages tied up in string but the essential elements to have peace in our lives, which allows us to become peacemakers in our small circles of life. “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Seems like a listing of things that counter the headlines and the agenda’s from our 21st century world. But, I think we are called in this 21st century world to consider our faith walks with regularly. I find that the so-called holidays of the Christian calendar are rarely treated as the holy days of reflection that frankly we all need. And, that brings us to today’s Gospel lesson.
I could go on and on reflecting on the intent of Luke in second chapter of his history of Jesus but it should be noteworthy that he follows the story of the birth of Jesus with the faithfulness of Anna and Simeon. They knew that there was something … someone … a gift of God that was needed in their lives. They did not align with the Pharisees nor the Romans … their eyes as is said were on the prize of Jesus Christ.
Wouldn’t you have loved to witness that scene at the Temple of God? A moment of recognition of a child who would become the Savior of the World. A celebration of faith through simple actions of joy.
Simeon taking that young child Jesus into his arms … “Let me go in peace because I have seen your salvation in the presence of ALL peoples. It’s a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the people of Israel.” God’s love not just for the people of Israel but Jesus brought change and love for all people. THE LIGHT of REVELATION and as Simeon would note of PEACE … once connected with Jesus Simeon found the PEACE the goes beyond human understanding. God’s love …
And, Anna … 84 years old. You see folks sharing the truth of God’s love. Distributing God’s peace and living in God’s joy is not restricted to those of college age or middle age. The lesson of Anna is that at 84 years young she was sharing … she was inviting … she was celebrating the gift of Christmas! She worshiped God night and day. And, once she saw Jesus that 84 year old woman’s joy could not be contained nor restrained. She spoke about Jesus to everyone …EVERYONE!!!
There’s a song going around in my mind these last couple of days. It’s from my youth and was written by Al Stewart. His words are focused on our journey through time … “It was late in December, the sky turned to snow … all around the day was going down slow. I felt the beat of my mind go. Drifting into time passages. Years go falling in the fading light. Time passages. Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight.”
Tonight we change our calendars … we declare a new year and 2023 will slowly slip into the fading light. Time passages but the ticket we need for the last train we will take is the gift of God’s on Christmas Day.
Paul declares REJOICE in the LORD always … we will sing JOY to the world. But we cannot allow time, history, and what we regret or wish to change from the past disturb the truth that we must move forward. And, I am here to declare that you, and I and all people of faith need to hold tightly onto the gift God shared through love at Christmas giving us PEACE that others can’t understand until they have Jesus and then allowing us in both are dark moments and our happy ones to know the joy that God’s love can provide.
I want to wish all of you a HAPPY NEW YEAR and encourage you to join us tomorrow at noon for Holy Communion. Starting the new year with a brief sacrifice of your time to spend in worship with God. Ask yourself …. Should God be more a part of your life and are you willing to share God, Christ and the Holy Spirit in joy with peace and love in 2024. I sure hope so … you will all be in my prayers! AMEN