Christmas Eve
Isaiah 9:2-7;
Luke 2:1-20
December 24, 2009

Just in Time for Christmas

When I arrived to be pastor of this church 24 Christmases ago, I was a little taken aback to learn that I was expected to preside at a midnight service on Christmas Eve. My father, who was a pastor, never had a service like this. If he had tried to introduce such a thing, my mother would have nipped it in the bud. Ever tried to find a babysitter for three small children on Christmas Eve? I don’t think she would have approved.

So far as I can remember, Dad had a carol service on the last Sunday of Advent. That was it. If his parishioners wanted a service on Christmas Eve, they’d have to visit the Episcopalians, who went in for that kind of thing.

Because of this liturgically deprived childhood, I figured it was unpresbyterian to gather for worship on Christmas Eve. Imagine my surprise to find out that Presbyterians in Tallahassee not only worshipped on Christmas Eve, they also celebrated Communion on Christmas Eve. I had no idea North Florida would be so exotic.

Now, of course, I look forward to this service in the way a child anticipates Santa, but for rather different reasons. This is the service nobody drags you to, the one that you have permission to skip (unless you’re in the choir). It’s not Easter, that holy day of obligation, when the church is filled with people who keep glancing at their watches. It’s not a wedding, were three-quarters of the congregation refuses even to pick up a hymnbook and pretend to join in. And it’s not the 5:30 afternoon candlelight service on Christmas Eve, which is wonderful in its way, but fraught with complications involving crowd control, candle wax, and eight-year-olds with pyromaniac propensities.

This is the service I truly love. I figure, if you came tonight, you’re here because you want to be, and you’ve come to worship the incarnate Word. Elves don’t come to this service. Neither do reindeer. Grinches are conspicuous by their absence, and if there’s anyone here named Rudolph, he’s a regular guy with a regular nose whose friends call him Rudy.

By this inning of the game, the secular Christmas machine has pretty much run out of gas. The shops are closed. The malls are empty. The hawkers and pitchmen have unplugged their amplifiers and left the stage. And now, at last, you and I can bring out our Book, our Font, and our Table to celebrate the Feast of the Incarnation.

Unlike some brothers and sisters, I don’t mind sharing this season with Hanukkah or Kwanzaa -- or with the Druids and Zoroastrians, for that matter. So far as I’m concerned, the County can put a Menorah beside its Christmas tree if it wants to, since a Christmas tree has about as much to do with Christianity as a Jew’s harp has to do with Judaism. I surrender the field. The culture can have its Christmas. The way I see it, Christ hasn’t been in that Christmas for quite some time.

But he is present tonight. He’s over on Pennlyn Drive, where every house was built by people building toward his kingdom. We used to call them "Habitat Houses." Now we call them Sarah’s house and John’s house and Lakisha’s house. Christ is there tonight where grateful hearts have prepared him room.

He’s present, too, over at the Shelter on Tennessee Street. He feels quite at home there, amongst those who have nowhere else to lay their heads.

And he’s here, too, just as he promised. "When two or three of you get together in my name," he told us, "I’ll be right there, in the midst of you." He’s here alright. Not because we deserve to have him as our guest, but because he has invited us to be his guests.

The customary Christmas fervor is a bit muted this year. More than the housing bubble has burst. Our expectations for what might be under the tree have also diminished. I tend to think that’s a good thing. Now that our sights are set a bit lower, we’re more likely to find our way to a stable in Bethlehem, and to a table on the corner of Park and Adams.

"Come," Jesus says. "I can see you’re tired from trying so hard to "do" Christmas. That would wear anybody out. You’re weary and heavy laden for all sorts of reasons. Come, let me share that load with you. Take my yoke upon you and lean on me."

"Come, he says. "I can see you’re hungry. All that junk food. You’re running on empty tonight aren’t you? Here’s bread that satisfies. Here’s the bread of life."

There was no room for him in the inn, remember? But there’s room tonight for us at his table.

"Come," he says. "Take a peek at my kingdom, the one I’m building in much the same way I built those houses on Penlyn Drive. One nail at a time. One brick upon the other. See how, within my kingdom, everyone is welcome, and everyone has a place? It’s not finished yet, but it’s coming along nicely. See it. Taste it. This will keep you going until all is fulfilled."

O yes, I love this service! Because I’m just the presider, not the host. We’re all guests tonight, the guests of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us.

Christ is here, just in time for Christmas.

 

 

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