Sermons

Sun, Dec 25, 2016

The real story of Christmas

Sermon for Christmas Day
Series:Sermons

A skeleton…

dressed in a Santa suit…

and nailed to a cross!

That was one of the Christmas displays erected at a courthouse in Virginia a few years ago.

And, needless to say, it was quite controversial.

Many residents considered it disturbing and offensive—

especially to children––

including the courthouse administrator.

Eventually, one unidentified resident vandalised it by

removing the skeleton.

But the display––

which had obtained all of the appropriate permits––

was submitted by a local high school student––

an avowed atheist––

and it was intended to make a statement…

about how the spirit of the holiday was being killed by commercialism.

 

Now, there’s a certain irony here…

of course.

Those offended by the image are probably good church-going folk––

given this is a town in America––

but they haven’t explained why they find it offensive;

is it because of Santa…

or the cross…

or the mixing of the two?

And it’s ironic because the one making the protest is an atheist…

who’s protesting the death of a holiday that is…

ostensibly…

religious at heart.

But, all irony aside, the display-creator has a valid point.

Christmas has become little more than a commercial marketing campaign.

From almost every side, we’re encouraged to spend money…

and lots of it:

ream upon ream of paper is wasted in producing glossy junk mail catalogues…

encouraging us to buy presents for people––

many of whom already have everything that they really need;

shopping centres extend their trading hours––

with some large department stores interstate resorting to all-night trading;

while every shopping centre has a Santa…

whose lap children can sit on…

and with whom they can have their photo taken for an exorbitant price;

meanwhile, the cost of all the Christmas cards…

stamps…

wrapping paper…

bonbons…

gimmicky decorations and kitsch…

reaches alarming proportions.

And that’s before we even think about how much we spend on food.

Indeed, retail figures for last year show that…

as a nation…

Australians spent forty-seven billion dollars over the Christmas period––

an all-time record!

Apparently, we spent about nineteen billion on food and drink alone.

That’s over seven thousand dollars for every man, woman, and child in this country.

And, even more alarmingly, about thirty percent of that––

or roughly five point five billion dollar’s worth––

ended up in our rubbish bins.

This year, they’re expecting those figures to be even higher!

In almost every respect…

our modern, secular, commercialised celebration has become utterly divorced from its roots.

The original Christmas story has become increasingly marginalised––

if not lost altogether…

and its message seems to be increasingly subjected to rationalisation and reductionism.

And I’m not talking about people writing “Xmas”…

or saying ‘happy holidays’ instead of Christmas…

or schools banning nativity plays…

or shopping centres jettisoning nativity scenes.

Rather…

the Christmas message of “great joy” is reduced to tinsel and tree lights…

the wearing of silly hats…

and the consumption of food and alcohol to excess;

the Christmas message of “goodwill to all” is reduced to sending cards to people we seldom see…

perhaps making a donation to the Christmas Bowl or WorldVision…

or putting a gift for charity under a wishing tree;

the Christmas message of “peace” is reduced to trying to be nice to people we don’t like…

or pretending that we actually get along with our families;

and its announcement of joy, goodwill, and peace are reduced to a temporary sentimentality…

that has no bearing on how we live the rest of the year.

So often, today, the Christmas story––

and the real meaning and purpose of Christmas––

are nowhere to be seen.

 

And yet…

the Christmas story that we know best––

the story found in Luke chapter two––

never happened…

certainly not in the way that Luke composed it.

Rather, it was a story that he came up with at a later date…

infused with symbolism and myth…

and used to convey certain ideas that he wanted to make by way of political and social critique.

So, perhaps, you could say that…

even the Christmas story that we have inherited doesn’t necessarily tell the real story of Christmas.

So…

if we put aside the details of that story and all of the associated traditions…

if we strip away all the symbolism and myth and artistic licence…

then what are we left with?

 

We’re left with something quite simple, but incredibly profound.

We’re left with something that is…

perhaps…

best described in the starkly symbolic and poetic language of the author of John’s Gospel:

“the Word”––

that is, the mind, the logic, the rationality of God––

“became flesh and lived among us”.

In other words…

what the author is trying to say is that…

in the birth of Jesus…

God came among us, God become one of us––

in a special way that hasn’t happened before or since.

In the birth of Jesus…

God didn’t just remain a theory or an abstraction.

In the birth of Jesus…

God became real…

God became concrete…

God lived and breathed…

God experienced what it is to be human.

Now, that’s not just mind-blowingly profound…

it’s also quite scary.

Because it confronts us with a very different sort of God:

a God who is not afraid to become vulnerable, and weak, and dependant…

rather than a God who is all-powerful;

a God who is not afraid to take an enormous gamble…

rather than a God who is fickle and controlling…

and who pulls the strings of our lives and our world like some cosmic puppeteer;

a God who is willing to experience what we do––

all of the struggles and successes…

the joys and the heartaches…

the beauty and the ugliness…

the hard choices and the moral ambiguities––

rather than a God who simply stands at a distance…

shaking a finger and going “tut… tut”…

or zapping us with lightning bolts when we do something wrong.

It confronts us with a God who is not afraid to do the unexpected and the unpredictable.

In the end…

when stripped of all of the tradition and myth and embellishment…

that is what Christmas is about.

It’s about the God who dared to come among us…

to become one of us…

to become concrete and real…

to learn what it is to experience life from our side––

but, who did so in order that we might also learn what God is actually like…

and that we might learn what it would mean for us to live as those whom God loves.

In the end…

the message of Christmas is as simple and as profound as that.

Stripped of all the tradition and myth and embellishment…

stripped of all the commercialism and consumerism…

stripped, even, of Santa…

Christmas is an invitation to us to embrace––

as the author of John’s Gospel describes it––

not only the true nature of God…

but the power and the privilege of being children of God.

Christmas is an invitation to us…

to continue to incarnate the hope, the love, and the peace of God…

for a world that still doesn’t know or understand…

what hope and love and peace might look like;

and a world that’s too busy with tinsel, turkeys, trinkets, and traditions…

to even ask.

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