“Where are you Christmas / Why can't I find you / Why have you gone away / Where is the laughter / You used to bring me / Why can't I hear music play / My world is changing / I'm rearranging / Does that mean Christmas changes too”
Cindy-Lou Who, with her big sad eyes and her elfin face, looks up at the Grinch packing up Christmas in her house and says “Santy Claus, why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?”
It feels as though someone has come into our homes and stolen away Christmas. We heard from our daughter and her boy friend in Boston that the month-long trip to parents in North Carolina and Nashville was off. They didn’t want to take the risk of traveling and gathering with people with the surge of cases and infections. Our son in Indianapolis told us that if he came to visit us for Christmas he would then be required to quarantine himself from his workplace and would miss out on over two more weeks of pay. We said it made sense not to come. So, just like Thanksgiving, La Donna and I will be here with an aging dog and grumpy and attention deficit cats for Christmas. All we want is for them to come home for Christmas. Or to go home, or open the home. To be at home. We seem lost without a place to gather and to celebrate and to be. To just be.
Blame the virus, blame the government, blame the fears or the unwillingness of people obsessed with “rights” and unwilling to take precautions, blame a fantasy green furred intruder and his dog with a deer antler tied to his head. Blame whoever you want, but Christmas is lost and it just won’t be the same.
Luke 1:26-38 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." 34 Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" 35 The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God." 38 Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
Luke reminds us that God has different ideas about home than the rest of us do. Solomon’s temple was quite a structure, and God apparently liked it well enough. Well enough to visit, but it was never really God’s home, or so it seems. For one thing it was always called Solomon’s temple. God says to David “Your son will build my home” when he said in the Hebrew scripture text for the fourth Sunday of Advent,. We all assumed God meant Solomon, the son who built the temple.
But, God had a different son in mind. God was thinking of the one that Gabriel would call, “the Son of the Most High,” the one that would “reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there would be no end.” That’s the son who would build God’s home. No one quite got that. David didn’t really understand what God meant. Solomon didn’t really understand either, but he got the construction crew out anyway. No one knew what God really meant— no one, but Mary.
But then the indications are that Mary didn’t really understand either. How could she? Just imagine, this young, unmarried, soon-to-be married girl, gets a message from God. And the message is, God’s coming home. Taking up residence. In her. Excuse me?
This nothing special, backwoods, teenager was going be God’s home for a few months. And talk about your troubling house guests! Feet on the furniture are nothing compared to this. Those who are mothers, who have experienced the joy of pregnancy and birth know better than the rest of us the hard realities of this little event. Here we are a few days before Christmas talking about Mary finding out she’s going to be pregnant, and then Wednesday night, she gives birth. Pretty amazing, really. But not real. She carried this load just like everyone else; she hurt and she sweated and she paced and she groaned and she struggled and she wondered and she worried and she bled and she gave birth in a barn because no one was willing to give her a bed. “Greetings favored one, the Lord is with you.” The Lord has a different idea of favoritism than we do. The Lord has a different idea of blessing than we do. The Lord has a different idea of home than we do.
“Come home,” says the Lord to us at Christmas time. “Come home.” David wanted to build a house for God on the tallest hill in Jerusalem, where God could be removed and distant and overlook all the people who would have to go out of their way to give obedience to God. But God wanted to build his home a little closer to the deep realities of living in this world so that we would be surprised by God where we live. God wanted to build his home where we sweat and labor, where we work and play, where we laugh and cry, where our hearts are lifted up and often broken and sometimes healed.
David wanted God’s home on a mountain, but God wanted his home in the womb of a virgin, in the feed box behind an inn in the little town of Bethlehem. God wanted his home in the backwoods region of Galilee, on the roads of the countryside, in the grassy place where five thousand sat and ate their fill. God wanted his home in the birthing units and wedding celebrations and the dinner parties. God wanted his home in the tear-filled bedrooms and sick beds and the graveyards of his children. God wanted his home in the court rooms and prison cells and then on the streets of sorrow of Jerusalem and the dark hill called Calvary.
The point is you can’t lose Christmas. It comes to you. Wherever you are. Christmas isn’t found in the traditions and the practices, in the customs and the patterns of our celebrations. But neither is it found in the sharing and the connections of family and friends who gather, who come home for the season or the celebration. It is something deeper, something inside. It is a part of you. Born in you and from you. And yes, it does find a more joyful expression when we connect with others, with loved ones and strangers alike. But that joy transcends distance, transcends disappointment, overcomes fear and hesitation. You can’t lose Christmas.
God wants his home in your home, in the living rooms and kitchens and playrooms and bedrooms of your life. God calls to us at Christmas and says, “Greetings, favored ones! I’m coming home, coming home for Christmas. And like any baby born in our midst, he says, “I won’t take up much room, just all that you have. Is there room for me? I’m coming home.” And off to the side, almost out of our vision, an angel waits for our answer.
Shalom, Derek
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