This Week's Sermon:

       Christmas Eve

                 December 24, 2006:

A six-year old girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he read her a bedtime story.  From time to time, while he read, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to touch his wrinkled cheek.  She was alternately stroking her own cheek, then his again.  Finally, she spoke up, “Grandpa, did God make you?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” he answered, “God made me a long time ago.”

“Oh,” she said.  After a brief pause, she said, “Grandpa, did God make me too?”

“Yes, indeed, honey,” he said, “God made you just a little while ago.”

Touching their respective cheeks again, she said, “God’s getting better at it, isn’t he?”

When we bother to look through faith-eyes and listen with loving ears, God gets better at it all the time.  Of course, those who wish to maintain divisions and barriers and stereotypes and prejudices don’t think so.  Life seems to be easier when they have someone on whom they can look down.  I am particularly aware of those times in my own life when it was easier to know who I was when I could say that I was not like any of them.  God does get if better and asks us to recognize it.

Just before the First Sunday of Advent a family bought a new nativity scene.  When they unpacked it they found two figures of the Baby Jesus.

“Someone must have packed this wrong,” the mother said, counting out the figures.  “We have one Joseph, one Mary, three wise men, three shepherds, two lambs, a donkey, a cow, an angel and two babies.  Oh, dear!  I suppose some set down at the store is missing a Baby Jesus because we have two.”

Turning to her two children, she said, “You two run back down to the store and tell the manager that we have an extra Jesus.  Tell him to put a sign on the remaining boxes saying that if a set is missing a Baby Jesus, call 555-7126.  Put on your coats.  It’s getting cold out.”

The manager of the store copied down mother’s message and the next time they were in the store they saw the cardboard sign that read, “If you’re missing a Baby Jesus, call 555-7126.”

All week long they waited for someone to call.  Surely, they all thought, someone was missing that important figurine.  Each time the phone rang the mother would say, “I’ll bet that’s about Jesus,” but it never was.  Father, using his engineer training, tried to explain there were thousands of these nativity scenes scattered over the country and the figurine could be missing from a set in Florida or Texas or California.  “Those packing mistakes happen all the time.”  He suggested they put the extra Jesus in the box and forget about it.

“Put the Baby Jesus in a box!  What a terrible thing to do,” said the children.

“Surely, someone will call,” mother said.  “We’ll just keep the two of them together in the manger until someone calls.”

When no call had come by 5:00 PM on Christmas Eve, mother insisted that father run down to the store to see if there were any sets left.  “You can see right through the window, over the counter.  If they’re all gone, I’ll know someone is bound to call tonight.”

“Run down to the store?” father bellowed.  “It’s around freezing outside!”

“Oh, Daddy, we’ll go with you,” Tommy and Mary said, as they put on their coats.  Father gave a long sigh, realizing this was not an argument he would win.  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Father muttered.

Tommy and Mary ran ahead as father trudged after them.  Mary got to the store first and pressed her nose up to the store window.  “They’re all gone, Daddy,” she shouted.  “Every set must have been sold.”

“Hooray,” Tommy said.  “The mystery will be solved tonight!”  Father heard the news still a half-block away and immediately turned on his heels and headed back home.  When they got back into the house they noticed that mother was gone and so was the extra Baby Jesus figurine.  “Someone must have called and she went to deliver the figurine,” father reasoned, pulling off his boots.  “You kids get ready for bed.  I’ve got a present or two to wrap for your mother.”

Shortly the phone rang.  Father yelled out to Tommy or Mary, “Answer the phone and tell them we found a home for Jesus.”  But it was Mother on the phone.  “Ray, Tommy, Mary come to 205 Chestnut Street immediately, and bring three blankets, our Christmas cookies and a gallon of milk.”

“Now what’s she gotten us into?” Father groaned, as they bundled up again.  “205 Chestnut Street is way across town and not in the best neighborhood.  Get the milk and cookies and I’ll get the blankets out of the closet.”

When they got to the house at 205 Chestnut Street it was the darkest one on the block.  Only one tiny 40 watt bulb burned in the living room and, the moment they set foot on the porch steps, the mother opened the door and shouted, “They’re here!  Oh, thank God you got here, Ray!  You kids take those blankets into the living room and wrap up the little ones on the couch.  I’ll take the milk and cookies.”

“Would you mind telling me what’s going on, Ethel?” the father asked. 

“We’ve just walked through zero weather with blankets, milk and cookies.”

“Never mind all that now,” the mother said.  “There is no heat in the house and this young mother is so upset she doesn’t know what to do.  Her husband walked out last month and they haven’t heard a word from him.  Those poor children will have a very bleak Christmas, do don’t complain.  I told her you could fix that oil furnace in a jiffy.”

The mother walked toward the kitchen to warm the milk for hot chocolate and the two children wrapped blankets around three shivering younger ones on the couch.  The children’s mother explained to the father that her husband had walked out, taking most of the furniture, bedding, and money and now the furnace had broken down. 

“I’ve been working, doing washing and ironing for some folks and cleaning down at the store,” she said.  “I saw your number every day there on those boxes on the counter.  When the furnace went out, that number kept going through my mind, 555-7126, 555-7126, that is what it said on the box.  If a person is missing Jesus, they should call 555-7126.  That’s how I knew you were good Christian people, willing to help a mother and children down on their luck.  I figured that maybe your would help me, too.  So I stopped at the grocery store and I called your missus.  I’m not missing Jesus, mister, because I sure depend on and love the Lord.  But, I’m missing heat and I don’t have the money to call a repairman.”

“Okay, Okay,” the father said.  “You’ve called the right people.  Now let’s see.  You’ve got a little oil burner over there in the dining room; shouldn’t be too hard to fix, probably just a clogged line.  I’ll look it over, see what it needs.”

In just a few minutes the oil burner was fixed.  The father said he needed to run back home for something and asked his two children to come with him.  He made some phone calls to other church members, located a barrel of oil in the back of a pickup that could be delivered to the Chestnut Street address, and the whole family were pulling clothes out of their closets and toys off the shelves.  It didn’t take long for the presents to be wrapped, the pickup pulled up out front.  On it were chairs, three lamps, blankets, and gifts.  When they arrived back at the house a couple of cars also pulled up and out came baskets of food and groceries of all kinds.  A table-top tree had been set up on a card table and present were placed under it.  A young mother, down on her luck had called a phone number on a box. 

Several folks gathered around the coffee table in the middle of the living room.  Someone led the group in a Christmas carol or two.  Then someone said, “How in the world did all this happen?”  One of the children pointed to the figurine in the middle of the table.  It was the figure of the Baby Jesus.  It was the lone figure from a set that started out with two.  About all they could do then was wish each other a Merry Christmas.

That’s about all I can do now.  Merry Christmas.  God really is getting better at it, isn’t he?  Amen.