Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
Psalm 96
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Here’s a story about a Christmas tree, and it’s one you’ve probably never heard because it happened in Wilmington, Delaware—and we don’t hear too many stories about Wilmington, Delaware, in the news much less in church. It just so happened one Christmas morning that a minister was walking along the streets. As he came near a large African American congregation, he saw that the doors were wide open, and a crowd of excited people were pressing to towards the front of the sanctuary. When he got closer, he looked inside, and saw that each person was being handed a present. But he saw something else: in the front where the people we gathering was one of the largest, tallest Christmas trees he had ever laid eyes on. It almost reached the ceiling. On the tree, instead of ornaments, were boxed presents. And immediately in front of the tree was an extremely tall step ladder, and on the ladder was a man with a pole that had a long hook on it. The man would take down a presents, reading off a name on the tag, and the person would come forward to receive the gift. That’s what had created the throng of people.
This story made me think of how special each of those people must have felt when his or her name was called—as they say “in front of God and everybody”—and how special each person much have to felt to receive that special gift just for her or him. It put me in mind of the Christmas tree we have in our house this year and of all the trees I’ve seen in churches and public displays over the years. My favorite have always been trees decorated according to customs from various parts of the world—a Japanese Christmas tree with origami ornaments, a Lithuanian Christmas tree on which every ornament was made of straw, and an early American Moravian tree strung with dried cranberries and lit not with electric light bulbs but beeswax candles.
These trees put me in mind of another tree, one mentioned in the Bible—at the beginning of the Bible and at the very end. Hear its first mention in Genesis: “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden…Out of the ground the Lord made to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden…” Now for mention about this tree at the end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, where God gives to John of Patmos a vision of the heavenly city: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life…On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit….”
I recalled that some theologians in the history of the church—one of the most recent being the great German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer—said that this tree of life is none other than Jesus Christ—indeed the source of life as we hear it in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
All of this made me think. So now, on Christmas Day, I want you to indulge yourself in your imagination. And I think today is an appropriate day for using our imaginations, because today is the day when many of us are our most childlike, from all the excitement of seeing what’s in whose stocking and who got what gift. So, I invite you to free up your imagination and use it.
I want you to imagine right here a tree, much like the tree in that story from Wilmington, Delaware. Imagine an evergreen, one that’s so tall it reaches almost all the way to the ceiling. It has infinitely deep roots that you can’t see, but its source is the deepest source. The tree has full, strong branches, and some of them sag a little because of the presents hanging from them. That’s because there’s a gift on it for everyone—everyone here today, and everyone in the whole wide world.// Now, I’m going to be like that man on the tall stepladder who took the presents off the tree and called the names. But instead of calling names, I’m going to tell you what’s in the present, and I think you’ll know if it’s for you. Bear in mind that it’s quite possible there is more than one gift for you on that tree. After all, the giver is infinitely generous.
Here’s the first present. It’s wrapped in shiny green. This gift hangs on one of the lowest limbs, so low that it almost touches the floor, making it the easiest one to reach. This gift has as a special shine: it shines with the glow of God’s promises. It is the gift of hope. It is for those who are skeptical, anxious, fatigued, and doubting—whether from hurt, over work, lack of work, loneliness, or apathy. This is the deep hope that Jesus gives, the divine hope that keeps you going. Sometimes it comes as a slim, piercing ray; sometimes it seems to well up and push us on; sometimes it comes as a breath of fresh air, or the discovery of new possibility. This gift of hope binds people together in working to make a better for world, here at home and farther afield. This gift of hope is a gift that God gives us when we cannot give it to ourselves. It comes to us in Jesus Christ who became one of us to let us know that God knows what it feels like for hope to wane, for disappointment to dash cold water on dreams; yet for whom even when it looked like hope had died, he overcame death and sin. And in him we see the truth of what the writer of Proverbs meant when he said, “The hope of the righteous ends in gladness.” Here is the gift of hope.
Here’s a second present. It’s wrapped in red…red like a beautiful red wine, red like blood. It’s the costliest present on the tree. This took Jesus to the cross, but it also took him beyond the cross, showing us that harshness, resentment, and hardness of heart cannot overcome God and God’s purposes. The label on this gift reads, “Reconciliation and Forgiveness.” I urge to accept this gift as hard as it might be. Let it seep into you, moving you into the new life that God holds out for you. Let it bring you the truth, honesty, and courage necessary for overcoming the rifts we experience in our relationships—with God, within ourselves, with others, even the rifts among nations. This gift also brings freedom with it, because it frees you so that you can love unhindered, freed from fetters of self-doubt, self-centeredness, and prejudices that pertain to economic status, gender, ethnicity, political allegiance, and sexual orientation. This gift of reconciliation and forgiveness is the gift that heals those ruptured places in our lives. It’s what the old spiritual sung by the slaves called “the balm in Gilead that makes the wounded whole” and “revives my soul again.” To those whom Jesus healed he said, “Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.” Here is the gift of reconciliation and forgiveness.
Here’s another present, it is wrapped in deep blue. On the tag it says, “The peace that passes understanding.” It is the comforting presence of God that comes to your soul in the hustle and bustle of daily life. It is the peace that brings calm in the face turmoil, release in the midst of tension, centeredness in the place of fragmentation. It is the deep peace that the Gaelic poet spoke of when he said, “Deep peace of the running wave to you. Deep peace of the flowing air to you. Deep peace of the quiet earth to you. Deep peace of the shining stars to you. Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.” Let’s remember that Christ said to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Here is the gift of peace.
There’s a fourth present. It’s wrapped in dazzling white. It is the brightest gift. It is so pure that it vibrates with life. The label on it reads, “Joy.” It is the joy that courses through every fiber of our being when we come into the presence of the Lord. It is the joy that humbles and exalts at the same time. It is the abundance, the fullness of life that is so exhilarating it is almost intolerable. It is the vivifying power that comes with new life—what C.S. Lewis referred to in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as the “deeper magic from before the dawn of time.” It is the joy that comes when God meets us in baptism, when God meets in celebrating the Eucharist and receiving the elements of bread and wine, when God meets us even as we witness to Him in word and deed. On the label of this gift is a psalm verse that puts it plainly: “In your presence [, O Lord,] there is fullness of joy.” Here is the gift of joy.
There are other gifts on this tree of life. I believe that you know what the others are and that your name is on them. This is what is at the heart of our Christmas celebration: that God became one of us—God with us in human flesh so that we might have these gifts of life and have them abundantly.
I know that there are people who are not with us this morning who are longing for these gifts as much as you and I are, and I know that they are ready to receive them if they are offered. After you have unwrapped your gifts of hope, peace, forgiveness, and joy, I hope you’ll offer them to others, because there’s more than enough to go around.// It is my hope that in this Christmas season, you and others will receive the love of God who became one of us, who walked among us, and who walks with us still—in hope, forgiveness, peace, and great joy. Amen.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 27 December 2011 12:45
