December 25, 2011
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
“Good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” “Unto us a child is born, a son is given.” Unto us a gift is given.”
We opened a few of our presents this morning before coming to church. This afternoon we’ll go to Lauren and Daniel’s house to celebrate Christmas with them and the grandkids. I especially like to play with the new toys that they received. Then we’ll feast!
Tomorrow, it’s back to usual; but not quite. Tomorrow is the day after Christmas, the biggest day for more sales and shopping and to return all those presents that don’t have a suitable place in your home.
Some gifts that we might return just don’t fit right. They may be too large. I like the food gifts that I receive—big bags of trail mix or so many cookies that I can’t eat up at one time. I have more Harry & David’s Moose Munch for another time! With all that eating, these gifts will make me grow bigger to fit into the clothes that were too large. But some of the best gifts require time for us to fully understand and grasp their meaning for us.
A few years ago, we bought our granddaughter Sage her first bike. It was purple and white with a little bell on the handlebars and plastic streamers at the end. There were training wheels on the back. When we gave it to her, we know she would have no idea how to ride it. In fact, her little legs were too short to reach the pedals. We knew in the days ahead, her parents would spend anxious days teaching her how to balance and master bicycling. And she will learn and her world will be forever gets bigger. Her world might begin in her enclosed and safe backyard but will then expand to the street outside her house. She will ride down to the corner store for a carton of milk, to see her neighborhood friends, to the library where she discovers, just about everything, a whole new world. In just a few years—it seems only a few years—her parents may receive a phone call from London, “Hi Mom and Dad! We just arrived in Heathrow!” When you give a bicycle for Christmas there is just no telling where you might wind up in life.
The best Christmas gifts might be something we grow into.
How many of you have wanted a puppy for Christmas? How many of you have received one? I see that Hallmark this year has this electronic puppy that every time you say his name, “Jingle,” he would bark! I’m not talking about an artificial puppy but a real live one.
Imagine this: a puppy lopes across the floor on Christmas morning and puddles in front of her new master, a young boy without the slightest idea that anything might be required of him beyond the delight of getting the best Christmas gift ever. This little boy is only a child, a pup himself. This little boy doesn’t know anything about puppies but he will learn. He will learn that most messes and accidents can be cleaned up, a very important lesson to learn. So far in his life, he has been the recipient of care; now he will begin to learn how to care and he will discover that caring will fill all his days. He will grow and the puppy will grow and grow up and grow old, and finally breaks his heart, for that lesson must also be learned with the gift of tears.
Some gifts take years to explore and understand. Some gifts that we receive may require a lifetime of living before we can fully appreciate their value for us.
A Gift Too Large
The gift we are given at Christmas is this latter kind, a gift several sizes too large that we grow into.
“To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” We hear about this gift that has been given but we are not too sure if the garment fits.
Joy and I would ask each other every year, “What would you like for Christmas?” She would say, “I don’t need anything and what I want you can’t afford!” I would always say, “I want to see peace on earth and goodwill to all.” Have you felt a need for a Savior that you would list Jesus Christ on your wish list? With all of the season’s celebrations resting on the assumption that the gift of a Savior has already been filled, have we asked for Christ for Christmas today?
We might even think that since the season’s celebrations are already filling up our dates and calendars, how can we ask for more? We don’t have time for more! We only wish we could save the happiness of the holidays for a little longer, but do we want “a Savior?” We are not quite certain what to do with this grandly announced gift. We assumed that it is “Good news of great joy for all people,” but are we clear how it is good news for us?
Because we are not quite sure how to receive this gift, how to hold this gift in our hands, how to figure out what to do with it, the child’s mother, Mary shows us how.
For a while, the manger in the stable in Bethlehem was this cozy little place where a baby was born and witnessed only by a cow and donkey. But then you can imagine the shepherds barging in and waking up the baby. One imagines a boisterous and rather smelly group crowding the manger, rattling on and on with wild stories of seeing angels and hearing songs in the sky. So excited were the shepherds that Luke said, “All who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”
Now there must have been other people there. The walls of the stable have expanded to include a larger crowd than just the mother and father and child. We now have the boisterous shepherds and “all who heard it” were amazed.
This gift of a child that once was nicely and cozily fitting into the manger in the stable is now the sight of many. This gift was a gift to Mary and Joseph. But it’s now a gift to a bigger group of people—the shepherds and many others who were amazed in what they heard and saw!
The same amazing sort of thing happened in Luke’s story of Pentecost. A band of disciples were huddling in a locked house (Acts 2:2). God’s Holy Spirit breaks in the room, not only filling the disciples with power but apparently exploding the walls outward so that a large, diverse crowd of “Parthians, Medes, Elamites” and heaven knows who else heard what was being said.
In the same way, Christmas explodes upon us with angels heralding and choirs singing “Glorias” and shepherds shouting like how the kids excitedly opening their presents on Christmas morning! There ‘s more to these gifts that are being unwrapped! We’ll need to work on putting some gifts together. We’ll want to spend some time playing and enjoying these gifts. There’s more to come than all the singing and shouting. It’s not that we have too much Christmas, rather we have not enough Christmas and it’s over too quickly.
According to the world, Christmas is about over. The presents have been opened, “thank yous” said, if not written. After church, there’s only Christmas dinner, and perhaps a drive home. Christmas ends on Christmas Day, doesn’t it?
Holidays
In recent years, there’s been some political correctness controversy over whether we should wish others, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” While “Merry Christmas” is definitely more explicit in describing that it’s Christ’s birthday, “Happy Holidays” is okay too. There’s nothing wrong in saying, “Happy Holidays!”
We don’t just have the one day of Christmas. We have a whole bunch of holidays—“holy days” to celebrate. We celebrated Christmas Eve last night when we sang “Silent Night and Holy Night.” Today is Christmas Day but on December 28, some churches remember “Holy Innocents Day” when violence erupted around Jesus’ birth with little children being killed in Bethlehem. Not everyone wants a Lord and Savior.
We celebrate not just on Christmas Day but the twelve days of Christmas, which are not about partridges in pear trees or calling birds or pipers piping, but is the twelve days between Christmas and the Day of Epiphany, when we remember the coming of the magi to find the child of promise, and even then we are not finished with the gift of Christmas.
This church has celebrated Christmas over 130 times and there will be more times when we’ll have a Christmas Day. Each of you have attended and participated in many Christmases maybe as many as you are old. But for some Godly reason, we are still coming to worship Christ the baby who will be King.
The good news requires time for reflection and pondering. Being amazed and inspired may be wonderful for the time being, but it doesn’t take us far enough. This gift at Christmas just gets bigger as we get older and we are still striving and seeking to understand what all this means to us. It only opens us up so that we might receive something more marvelous yet. Mary shows us the way, as Luke describes it, “Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
Just like trying to assemble that new bike under the tree, it comes with instructions. God’s gift at Christmas comes with instructions too. The good news, the best news cannot be received all at once. We need time to ponder; we need ponderings to allow this new birth to grow within us. Take this story of angels’ singing and shepherds’ excitement and the child born in Bethlehem and treasure it in your heart. Let it rests there. Do not be anxious to unwrap it, do not worry over the awkward fit, do not hurry to be done with the story. When the angel came to announce this amazing birth to Mary, she nodded and said, ”Let it be with me according to your Word.” Let this word be with you too. Treasure it, ponder it, and let it live in you.
Take your time reading the instructions and in God’s time, you will put your life and faith all together.
You might think that after today, it’s time to take down the decorations, haul the tree to the street corner, and begin planning for the New Year’s party. But Christmas is only a beginning. Next Sunday on New Year’s Day, we’ll still be singing Christmas carols and lighting up all the Advent candles again.
Christmas is just the beginning because this Christ Child gets big enough for his parents to present him in the temple where he receives the blessings of Simeon before he dies because the Holy Spirit told Simeon that he would not see death before he sees the Lord’s Messiah.
This Christ Child grows up to be twelve and goes to the temple where he sat with the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard this conversation were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
This Christ Child grows up and is baptized by his cousin John the Baptist in the Jordan River when a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
This Christ Child grows up and spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness being tempted by Satan and in the end Jesus discovered what his purpose in the world would be.
This Christ Child grows up to be a man and went up to the synagogue in Nazareth unrolling a scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Jesus then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and pronounced, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
At Christmas, we receive a gift that is too large to fit. It’s much bigger than we can embrace. And in God’s time, this gift of the Christ Child grows up to learn about how the sin in the world breaks his heart.
Today is Christmas but it’s just the beginning. We have received an incomparable gift. We may know what happens to the Christ Child, but the question for us is what will finally happen to us? As you like Mary treasure this gift in your heart and ponder the mystery of its coming among us in the world, may you grow up to fully understand this gift from God that just gets bigger.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, our focus for much of this season has been on purchasing gifts for others, or wondering what we will receive. We sometimes forget that all we have comes from you. And that the most precious gift we will ever receive is your grace made visible in the birth of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Guide us and lead us to fully understand Christ in our lives and in the world as we joyfully celebrate your glory and further your work of your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. In the name of the Christ Child who is born in Bethlehem, we pray. Amen.