LAKE JAMES

NORTH CAROLINA

Christmas Eve + 2005 + Saint Paul’s, Morganton, NC

It is Christmas! A wonderful and precious festival bursting with all sorts of meanings! Christmas is the Baby in the stable looking up at the adoring eyes of His Holy Mother with Saint Joseph standing at her side, watched by awe-struck shepherds and placid animals. Christmas is those especially lovely and beloved songs we call “carols.” It is trees adorned with lights and other decorations, wreaths on doors and greeting cards piled high. It is Christmas and we have come to this parish church to celebrate, to worship the newborn king, and to enjoy the many facets of the holiday. But let me offer a very different picture. In 1670, the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued this decree: It is ordered by this court, and the authority thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing labor, feasting, or any other way, every such person so offending shall pay for each offense five shillings as a fine.” What a shock to realize that, not so many years ago, in our own country, it was against the law to celebrate Christmas! That seems unreal, doesn’t it? Something we might expect from some foreign, militantly anti-Christian power, but not here in what were then “the Colonies.”

For most of us, Christmas is such a part, such an important part of our culture, we would find it hard to imagine being without it.

Let me offer still other contrasts, not from the past, but from our own day. During the past few months, advertising has intensified as merchants have sought to stimulate Christmas buying. Most of us have seen television and newspaper ads featuring smiling faces as models imitate people delighting in the gifts they are receiving. Often, the scenes include affectionate members of intact families comfortably enjoying themselves in lovely homes, beautifully decorated for the season. Compare that, if you will, with the reality of those who are not surrounded by loving families and who are not only alone, but lonely. Compare the image of a beautiful home with being homeless. Finally, consider that, in some homes, Christmas will be a time of overeating and drinking too much while in other places, men, women, and little children will quietly die of starvation.

Those contrasts, stark as they are, are not new. It was to that strange kind of world, a world of those same contrasts, that God sent His only Son to be Savior and Redeemer. It is in that setting, not in a sanitized, germ-free, everyone smiling and happy kind of world, that the message of God’s love and salvation is to be found. An ancient and hauntingly beautiful Christmas antiphon proclaims “Hodie, Christus natus est! – or, in English, “Today Christ is born!” So what? asks the cynic. What possible difference can it make to a starving person that Jesus was born some 2100 years ago? What difference does it make to those who are lonely or sick, or to those who are happy and well? What difference does it make to anyone?

To which I would add a fourth question: What difference does it make to you, or to me?

Jesus was born, lived, and died. He rose from the dead and ascended back to the Father. That’s the Christian claim. It’s nice, and it happens to be true. But the Christian faith is not just that Jesus was – it’s that He is! So, again, that last question: what difference does it make to us?

Turning to what is perhaps a strange source at Christmas (or any other time) I share with you words uttered by Pontius Pilate who, when faced with his dilemma, cried out “What shall I do with Jesus who is called “The Christ?” The question for us is the very same! What shall we do with Jesus? Not, “what do we think about Jesus” or “how do we feel about Him, but what shall we do about Him? It is Jesus Himself who provides an answer. If we listen, we can hear His words “a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

At the risk of being monotonous, I ask the question again. What difference does Jesus make to us? Does He make enough of a difference to change our self-centered concerns into consideration of the needs of others, even those people with whom we disagree, or folks we may not like? Does Jesus make enough of a difference to us that we might risk rejection by reaching out to others seeking reconciliation where there has been anger, suspicion, or estrangement? Does Jesus make enough of a difference to us that we might try to help someone who is lonely, depressed, feeling unwanted and unloved? Consider this: there isn’t anyone here this evening who can’t give something to someone who is in need. That gift might be money, but even more, it might simply be time. It might be kind words of caring, or perhaps just a smile. Whatever it is, it might make all the difference in the world to the one who needs it.

One of the saddest and most familiar statements about the town of Bethlehem is that the Son of God had to be born in a stable because there was no room in the local inn for the Holy Family in their time of need. Knowing who Joseph and Mary were, knowing who the about-to-be-born Infant was, we (you and I) would have done anything we could to see to it that better quarters were found for that birth (at least, that’s what we tell ourselves). The fact, however, is that while there is no way we can alter what happened then, we can provide a place for Him to be born again and again in us, now and in the days and years to come. The mystery of Bethlehem transcends time and becomes a present reality in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The very flesh and blood with which the Savior was clothed on that first Holy Night is what, in a spiritual and supernatural manner we receive in Holy Communion under the veils of bread and wine. When we are given that unassuming wafer of bread and sip of wine, we welcome the Sacred Infant, our King and Redeemer into the manger of our inmost selves, saying that unlike that hotel in Bethlehem, there is room for Him in our hearts. That Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist is an awesome reality, but let us remember that He comes to us not just for our sakes, but to strengthen us so that we, in turn, can and will reach out to others in His Name. May we answer Pontius Pilate’s question by what we do about Jesus, showing that not only does He make a difference, but that He makes the difference, to us!

It’s nice that here in the United States we no longer have a law against the celebration of Christmas. It’s nice that we can gather in this lovely parish church to share in that celebration. But brothers and sisters in Christ, may we not only in words but in our deeds truly adore and obey Him, Jesus the Lord.

May these twelve days of Christmas be very blessed and wonderful for you and yours.

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

This page last modified on Friday, April 11, 2008 09:39 PM