First Sunday after Christmas, 2004: 

In a Peanuts cartoon strip that appeared around Christmas time some years back, Charles Schulz has Lucy going around wishing ‘Merry Christmas’ to everyone.  Then she comes to Charlie Brown.

“Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.  Since it’s this time of the season, I think we ought to bury past differences and try to be kind.”Charlie Brown asks, “Why does it just have to be this time of the season?  Why can’t it be all year long?”

Lucy furrows her brow and says, “What are you, some kind of fanatic?”

Well, Christmas is over.  Only the fanatical would think that anything about Christmas might be carried throughout the year.  Trees are coming down, lights are removed from houses, the crèche is put away (assuming that one was put out), and life returns to normal.  The debate over “Happy Holidays” versus “Merry Christmas” can be put on the shelf until next year.

I am always in awe that a boy child born in an obscure little village two thousand years ago can engender such rancorous debate.  I am equally in awe that the most precious gift of the season is the one that did not cost us a penny.  I don’t know.  Maybe if we had to pay hard-earned money to accept this gift we would place a greater value on it.  Free things are sometimes treated with disrespect.

The Prologue to the Gospel of John, called by most New Testament scholars as the best Greek prose in scripture, strives to lay out exactly what this gift is to do and how it is to be valued.  Here we find the most brilliant theological statement about God’s desired relationship with the world and all of us creatures that dwell herein.

This gift is God’s way of saying, “This is what I look like.”  We are given a new visibility.  John says that if we wish to see the Father we must look at the Son, for the Son has made known the Father.  The Incarnation moves God from wholly transcendent to wholly imminent.  God has entered the fray in a new way.  We no longer fight alone.  When Jesus talked about his relationship with God he said that he and the Father were one.  He said to Philip, when Philip asked him to show him the Father, “have I been with you so long, Philip, and you still do not know me?  Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”  This amazing gift of God allows us to see God.

The second thing this gift shows us is a new way to live.  We are given a new possibility that is intended to lead us to new life.  Through faith, by God’s grace, we have the possibility of becoming children of God.  And, as St. Paul said, “If we are children of God we are also heirs of God and joint heir with Christ.”  This gift, handed down from generation to generation, allows us to inherit the Kingdom.  Try finding that in the mall in an after-Christmas sale.  God’s gift to us in the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us lifts not just our eyes but our hearts.  We say it every Sunday.  “Lift up your hearts.”  Life takes on new possibilities.  We have been given the opportunity to change our focus from being strictly earthbound creatures looking at our next step to gazing at and living for heaven.

This gift not only shows us a new way to live, it provides a new power for living.  We have received grace upon grace to help us meet every need we may ever have.  I cannot imagine facing the randomness of life without the grace of God.  I cannot imagine dealing with the fears of the post-9/11 world without the grace of God.  That was what the angel reminded the shepherds.  From the moment of the announcement, “don’t be afraid,” and for the remainder of their lives they had access to a new power for living.  So do we.  We do not have to live in fear.  Not in the ultimate sense anyway.  We know who God is, we have read the book, we have heard the story, and we know whose world this is.  We know that ultimately love conquers all and love alone endures.  This gift is pure love and lives beyond the grave.

Christmas is about gift-giving and gift-receiving.  We have been given the greatest gift ever given and we can only receive it thankfully.  In receiving this gift we are reminded that we have gifts to give.  Since God has given us a new way to see, a new visibility, and has given us a new way to live, a new possibility, and a new power for that living, a new capability we are to share that with others.  It is one of the most amazing paradoxes in history that this gift grows the more we are willing to give it away.

So, no doubt some gifts have to be returned during the days after Christmas.  Some are the wrong shade, some are the wrong size, and some may have arrived broken.  But the gift of God in the Incarnation come for all shades, and fits all sizes, and will not be broken for some time and only then for us.  Only the foolish would turn down such a unique gift.  Some are foolish because they see this gift as something to be realized in the future.  Some are foolish because they see this gift as a relic from the past.  If we linger around the manger long enough we will see that God is present, that a bridge has been built back to the Father.  The truly wise will hold this baby long enough to see how truly personal this gift really is.  This is the Light of the world.  That Light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out.  That’s what Christmas is about.  Amen.