Dr. David D. Young
December 24, 2006
Isaiah 11: 6-9
Luke 2: 1-20
"Heaven’s Happening"

"Christmas is coming! And it’s the time of children again, wide-eyed wonders and whispered secrets, greens and wreaths, crèches and candles, cards at the door, carols in the air, snowflakes on hot chimneys, and questions parents can’t answer: ‘Why can’t dogs laugh? Why is snow cold? Why is Jesus’ birthday?’ O, let us old ones be like children again." So wrote the theologian Robert Raines in the last segment of his poem: "Christmas Is Coming."

A few years ago a friend of mine was asked by her three-year-old daughter "How many more naps ‘til Christmas?" For those of you with young children or young grandchildren – or those of you who still need naps – there is potentially only one more nap ‘til Christmas.

The anticipation and excitement for young children in moving toward Christmas are tremendous. And for us, to put it more crassly, there is one more shopping day before Christmas – today!

Why is it that for many – and especially children – Christmas is a time for asking "What’s in it for me?" And why is it that many parents feel pressed from over worrying, overworking, and overspending to make Christmas a single perfect day for their children? The media and our culture blitz our senses during this holiday season. I suspect the cruelest and loudest message of the season found in newspapers and on television sets is:

"To spend more is to love more…and to be more dearly loved."

There was an article awhile back titled: "The Me Christmas." The subtitle read: "This holiday, retailers want you to put someone special at the top of your gift list: you." That’s just too good a target to pass up.

Call to mind Jesus teaching that we love the neighbor as we love ourselves. There is an appropriate self-love that rescues us from a whole array of unpleasant experiences. But there is something about a "me" Christmas that flies in the face of what Bethlehem is all about. If Joseph and Mary had been in the “me” mode, they might have shaped a different Jesus. If Paul had been in the "me" mode, he could have been a shade obscuring the light of Jesus instead of a window through which we see that light.

The Jesus who said we should love ourselves is the same Jesus who said that we find ourselves in the service of others. That’s the balance we seek and need.

The "our" Christmas – that sounds a bit more on target to me! You may recall from one of my previous messages that I mentioned having Jesus at the top of our Christmas list – not ourselves.

In one more day the big day will be here. As the old expression goes: "It will be here before we know it." And then it will be gone as fast as it came. So Christmas will come and go once again this year. Packages will be torn thru - toys played with – all in one big flurry of Christmas happening and then that will be it. Or will it? What is the real meaning of Christmas anyway?

Fred Craddock one of the greatest preachers of our time tells this story:

"I’ve never been to the greyhound races, but I’ve seen them on TV…When those dogs get to where they can’t race, the owners put a little ad in the paper, and if anybody wants one for a pet, they can have it, otherwise they’re going to be destroyed. I have a niece in Arizona who can’t stand that ad. She goes and gets them. Big old dogs in the house; she loves them.

I was in a home not long ago where they’d adopted a dog that had been a racer. It was a big old greyhound, spotted hound, lying there in the den. One of the kids in the family, just a toddler, was pulling on its tail, and a little older kid had his head over on that old dog’s stomach, used it for a pillow. That dog just seemed so happy, and I said to the dog, ‘Uh, are you still racing any?’

‘No, no, no, I don’t race any more.’

I said, ‘Do you miss the glitter and excitement of the track?’ He said, ‘No, no.’

I said, ‘Well, what’s the matter? You got too old?’

‘No, no, I still had some race in me.’

‘Well did you not win?’ He said, ‘I won over a million dollars for my owner.’

‘Then what was it, bad treatment?’

‘Oh, no, they treated us royally when we were racing.’ I said, ‘Then what? Did you get crippled?’ He said, ‘No, no, no.’

I said, ‘Then what?’ And he said, ‘I quit.’

Yeah, that’s what he said. ‘I quit.’ And he said, ‘I discovered that what I was chasing was not really a rabbit. And I quit.’

He looked at me and said, ‘All that running, running, running, running, and what I was chasing, not even real.’

"What I was chasing, not even real." You ever feel that way?

Christmas is coming, you know. It’s real."

Coming back from Minnesota on vacation we stopped at a restaurant for an evening meal. We were in one of those places where the booths are back to back and I happened to overhear two young adult age couples behind me who were out on a date. It’s what’s called public eavesdropping or for preachers it’s wonderful sermon material.

Anyway, one of the young women was talking about church and asked her date if he went to church. He said the last time was on Christmas Eve. And he was plastered drunk. Then the other woman asked, "What do they call those things up there in the front of the church?" One of the guys answered, "A podium." "No," she said, "those little figures at Christmas." There was dead silence… No one could say crèche figures! How sad that no one could identify the manger scene. How even more sad are those who recognize and know what a crèche scene is but know not that Jesus was born for them.

So what is the meaning of Christmas – if it’s more than tinsel, candles, packages and lights – and knowing that a bunch of cows, sheep, camels, shepherds, wise men, Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus in a manger are called a crèche?

In these twenty verses of Luke we are given a vivid sense of what it’s all about. I can sense that most of you are already ahead of me. What does Christmas mean? Why, the birth of Jesus, of course. And of course you’re right! But Christmas is coming and it keeps coming year after year. It’s easy for someone to respond with the rote response of the birth of Christ without really absorbing what it means for us here and now!

What does it take for you to unwrap the parts and layers of yourself to catch the real meaning of Christmas amidst all the distractions you have going on in your life today? For I would like us to see with fresh eyes and an open-heart on this singular day before Christmas - so that we might be touched at new depths by the drama of "Heaven’s Happening."

Let’s begin with the birth itself as found in verse 7,

"And she (Mary) gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."

That’s it! That’s all we get of the actual description of Christ’s birth. Such a simple and humble birth for God’s own son - for God’s own self.

"Heaven’s Happening" is the incredible drama of God’s becoming fully human. Poetess Elva McAllister gives a graphic description of Heaven’s Happening in a piece called "On Fragrant Hay".

"Sweet infant", trills the smiling choir. "He sleeps on fragrant hay." And Christmas card Madonnas smirk all thoughts of pain away. How was it really when He came? Did Mary moan and scream and grind her teeth and retch (Poor wretch!) Before His star could gleam its gleam above that inn yard barn? He slept on fragrant hay? Perhaps. But sheep and cows were not made then of plastic, nor of Styrofoam and paint. Half-rotten straws and stinking wet manure were surely winter odors Joseph smelled, not sweet new hay, nor clover blossoms.

No dainty crèche had been prepared and kept detached from stench of urine-mingled mud where ox feet stood, where ox teeth chewed or dribbled fodder. God did not come to antiseptic scented neatness, but to a winter barnyard’s muck and filth. God always comes; to things as they are and not to wished-for rearrangements of the facts.”

The beauty of Heaven’s Happening – of Jesus’ birth – can never be pictured on sentimental or gorgeous Christmas cards. The beauty is that he came as a common person, without wealth or rank possessing.

It is precisely in times of pain and tragedy that the promise of God’s coming into the world means so much to us. Christmas is not about what’s in it for me at least not in a materialistic way.

During Christmas we who have truly sensed Heaven’s Happening cannot be controlled by our culture and consumerism. Births always mean change just ask any young parent. This larger birth means change for all of us for it is the ever present offer of new life!

Christmas is not about sentimentality and sadness and wanting to go back to Christmases past, though admittedly the season can produce that. No, Christmas is about the incredible drama of God’s presence, love and light coming into a very dark world. For you see, as Christians, our values, our treatment of those around us, our quality of living, indeed our whole attitude towards life and death ultimately came from what happened in the stable of an obscure inn. That is why with reverent imagination and with humble hearts we year by year look back to the birth of Christ - so that his spirit and the drama of Heaven’s Happening might be born anew in the unfolding drama of our lives.

What else do we see when we look back on that first Christmas? We see shepherds keeping watch in the darkness when suddenly the splendor of the Lord blazed around them like a flood of spotlights filling the dark theatres of our lives. Those shepherds heard a message of great joy and glad tidings. The clue of the shepherds is to wait, watch and listen.

Carl Michalson, a Methodist minister and professor at Drew University, who was killed in a plane crash on the way to a speaking engagement in Cincinnati, once shared an experience which is a wonderful Christmas illustration. Actually, it has nothing to do with Christmas and yet strangely, it has everything to do with Christmas. Here’s what he shared in one of his books,

I discovered how important listening is when I was at a pastors’ school in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. My whole family had been invited and we were together in one little hotel room. In the shuffle of things, I lost my watch, an old analogue watch. Now, I have to have my watch to tell me when I am through speaking. It was buried under all the debris. It was mayhem! One room; whole family; two quite active children. But I needed my watch. The more we looked, the harder it was to find. At last I had what was one of the few brilliant ideas of my career. I said, "Stop. Don’t look; listen." In a matter of instants our son found my watch. Or should I say, the watch found him. That is the importance of listening. We never know what is there that will find us.

That really is the meaning of Christmas for when we look for Christ it is Christ who finds us, Heaven’s Happening when Christ is born in us. Hopefully, we all long for the drama of God’s presence and light in our lives.

The greatest present of all is simply there for the receiving to all who are open and accepting. The birth of Christ, so long ago and even now, produces light and that light leads to inexpressible joy! Yet this morning there is a practical sense for many of us - that after one more nap or this last shopping day – Christmas will be here and then quickly pass away. But, our faith draws us to a deeper realization that Christmas is where all true life begins.

A friend of mine once told me he couldn’t wait for Christmas to be over. What I think he meant was he couldn’t wait for all the commotion and commercialism of the Christmas crunch to be over. For Christmas is never really over. It’s always just beginning.

Christ’s presence, love and light- heaven’s happening – is always being born in the drama of our lives. Christmas is coming and we can’t stop it. Nor would we want to. Yes, a little child shall lead us. In the words of poet, Lodene Brown Hathaway,

Which path should I follow on this dark night?
That which is right. That which is right.
What should I wear? The distance is far.
Go as you are. Go as you are.
What shall I say, my rank to attest?
Silence is best. Silence is best.
But who will be there? – riffraff or kings?
Those whom love brings. Those whom love brings.
I don’t understand. Are no guards standing by?
For a baby’s cry? For a baby’s cry?
Then I shall not go; it is no great affair.
God will be there. God will be there.

It’s all around us! It’s within us. Don’t you sense it? Don’t you see it? “Heaven’s Happening!”

Amen!