Keep Telling the Story

Written by Pastor Ed

To listen to the sermon click on the link below:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46934662/Dec%2025%202011%20Ser.mp3

Keep Telling the Story

Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2011

Luke 2:1-20

For most people, by now, Christmas is over.  For the stores, Christmas items went on sale already last week, and I would suspect that at least Wal-Mart has an aisle full of Valentine’s candy and cards already in place.  And while there might be dinners to go to yet, the presents have all been opened, a few toys already broken, and generally everyone is just glad to have all the hustle and bustle done. 

Yes, there is a day or two off of work, and the kids are home from school for the week, but life returns to its daily routine for the most part.  It’s a bit like all births; after the joy of welcoming the new baby, comes the reality of messy diapers, sleepless nights, and seemingly constant feedings. 

And so for many people, Christmas is already over and we are ready to move on to the next thing, or perhaps to what was interrupted by the holidays.  And if Christmas is all about the presents and the trees and the glitter, then yes, Christmas is, indeed, over.

And for many people, that’s what Christmas is all about. Oh, there’s lots of talk about keeping Christ in Christmas, and people raise a fuss over trivialities like whether we say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, but in reality most people couldn’t care less about all of that.  Such a view of Christmas only leads to frustration on the part of those who truly understand the significance of this event.  Perhaps Charlie Brown expressed that frustration best.

(Video clip from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”)

 

And Linus gets it right, for he simply tells the story.  Sometimes the most profound way to make a point is simply to tell and retell the story. 

There are all kinds of theological debates one can have about the birth of Jesus, and believe me all those debates have gone on for years.  We could discuss the role of Mary; we could try and figure out exactly who the magi were and what the star was that they were following.  We could get into major arguments about all kinds of things – but those arguments have been going on for years, and really don’t get us anywhere – because those aren’t what Christmas is all about either.

Christmas is about telling the story of God acting in unexpected ways to break into human history as an infant, in a small town in Judea, to unlikely parents.  And the best we can do is to keep on telling that story, in Scripture and song, and all the other ways we tell it.  For as we tell the story, we come to understand God’s way of working in the world.

It is the story of Jesus coming among us that tells us of God’s love for us.  And the story doesn’t end with the birth.  If we know the story, we know that it’s not over by now – but only beginning.  If we know the story, we know that it begins with Christmas, but goes on through a life, to a death and resurrection, and on to our own history and beyond.

The American poet of the 60s and 70s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti captured something of this in his poem of 1958 entitled “Christ Climbed Down”

 

Christ climbed down

From his bare Tree

this year

and ran away to where

there were no rootless Christmas trees

hung with candy canes and breakable stars

 

Christ climbed down

from his bare Tree

this year

and ran away to where

there were no gilded Christmas trees

and no tinsel Christmas trees

and no tinfoil Christmas trees

and no pink plastic Christmas trees

and no gold Christmas trees

and no black Christmas trees

and no powderblue Christmas trees

hung with electric candles

and encircled by tin electric trains

and clever cornball relatives

 

Christ climbed down

from his bare Tree

this year

and ran away to where

no intrepid Bible salesmen

covered the territory

in two-tone cadillacs

and where no sears Roebuck crèches

complete with plastic babe in manger

arrived by parcel post

the babe by special delivery

and where no televised Wise Men

praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down

from his bare Tree

this year

and ran to where

no fat handshaking stranger

in a red flannel suit

and a fake white beard

went around passing himself off

as some sort of North Pole saint

crossing the desert to Bethlehem

Pennsylvania

in a Volkswagen sled

drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer

with German names

and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts

from Saks Fifth Avenue

for everybody’s imagined Christ child

 

Christ climbed down

from his bare Tree

this year

and ran away to where

no Bing Crosby carolers

groaned of a tight Christmas

and where no Radio City angels

iceskated wingless

thru a winter wonderland

into a jinglebell heaven

daily at 8:30

with Midnight Mass matinees

 

Christ climbed down

from his bare Tree

this year

and softly stole away into

some anonymous soul

He waits again

an unimaginable

and impossibly

Immaculate Reconception

the very craziest

of Second Comings

(From An Advent Sourcebook  Liturgy Training Publications, 1988, pg. 149)

For those who don’t know the story, Christmas is over and they can move on to the next best thing.  For those of us who do know the story, we know that Christmas is only the beginning of the tale, and our task is to keep telling the story until everyone around us knows the story as well as we do.  A story of God acting in unexpected ways, in unexpected places, not only in the birth of Jesus but even today. 

 

God among us, Immanuel.  Let’s keep telling the story.