What are You Getting From Christmas

It is more important to get something from Christmas.

The signal has been sent that something momentous is about to happen. The God of the Ages is about to interrupt our lives and rearrange our world, if necessary, to find us, and it is time to get ready for it. How we react to this news of God’s entrance into our lives determines how he is received.

We can choose to ignore this call to prepare. It is easy to be oblivious to the Advent tradition and be caught up in our routines that we do not prepare for Christmas. How often do we postpone preparation and end up at a store that has stayed open for extended hours on Christmas Eve and discover that there is nothing left under the sign that says, “The Perfect Gift for Someone You Love.”

This way of doing things yields little satisfaction. It occurred to me that the intensity or meaning of an event is in direct proportion to the attention to it ahead of time. Rarely do you just happen upon the significant experiences of life. The Hebrews knew this. They did not come “huffing and puffing” up to an event like one of their high festival days. They prepared for days in advance so they could experience the festival to its fullest. If you have chosen to ignore the preparation for which Advent calls, Christmas Day is likely to be just another day for you. The height and depth of its significance will not be realized. We can also depend on others to prepare for us and make Christmas meaningful for us. This is putting our hopes in what other people are doing for us. This is eagerly waiting for someone to ask, “What are you getting for Christmas?” Then, hoping against hope, that they will be willing to make your dreams come true. This is the way little children experience Christmas. We spend a lot of time shaking and squeezing, hoping to figure out if we are going to get what we want. There is no guarantee that others will come through for us according to our wishes.

Duffy Daugherty of Michigan State used to say that the trouble with being a football coach was that “you were responsible to irresponsible people.” The same is true for Christmas; you may be depending on people who are not dependable to give you what you want for Christmas. Even if you are specific about what you want for a person to do for you at Christmas, there is no guarantee that they will do or can do what you expect. Using Advent to build your hopes on what others will do for you is risky business. Fortunately, there is a third alternative for us. We can take deliberate action and ask the question, “What do I want from Christmas this year? How can I spend the next 9 days so that this season will have the depth and joy?

To answer the first questions, we have to answer another question first; “What can we expect from Christmas?” The waitress walks up to the table and asks, “Does anyone want dessert?” Invariably someone asks, “What do you have?” It’s hard to know what to expect from Christmas before we know what Christmas offers us. Isaiah helps us answer this inquiry. Isaiah states that God offers good news, healing, freedom, pardon, a year of grace, comfort, care, messages of joy and praising hearts. That sounds like a great menu. Can anyone receive this from Christmas? Well, that’s the problem. What God offers is only to some specific people: the poor, the heartbroken, captives, prisoners, the mourning. That is a motley crew. Those people certainly need what Christmas offers. But who are they?

That’s the critical point. Who are these people that Isaiah is speaking of? One thing is clear. The work of the one who comes to them is to bring a reversal of fate to those in various states of destitution and deprivation. This group of people in desperate straits are bewailing their conditions and yearning for release. This group of people sound familiar to me. I think I know them well. In fact, I think I am one of them. I have bewailed my desperate condition and I yearn for release. I have heard others bewailing their conditions and yearning for release. The more I followed what I was hearing, I came into many of your lives. There is a lot of bewailing and yearning represented in this room today.

One of the most dangerous persons I know, especially at Christmas time, is named Third. You may know Him and his sister, Her. Their cousins are They and Them. We readily agree that Christmas is for Him or Her or They or Them. We heartily agree that the oppressed, afflicted, the brokenhearted, the captives and mourners need what Christmas offers. The most difficult thing to admit is for one to say, “I am the oppressed, afflicted, brokenhearted, captive and mourner. I need this from Christmas.”

Anyone who has ever been in any recovery group, therapy or counseling knows that the hardest thing to realize is the obvious. The declaration, “I am an alcoholic,” is a monumental step toward healing. The same is true with anyone or anything. First, there has to be a recognition that there is destitution and deprivation. I am destitute. I am depraved. Honesty drives us to our knees. Brennan Manning tells the story of a client in a recovery group who was sugar coating his problem. He said he was a good father and didn’t have any issues
with his children. The counselor called his wife and asked her what kind of father he was and she said that he had left his daughter in the car in freezing weather while he drank with his buddies until she had severe frost bite. She had some of her fingers and toes amputated and lost her hearing due to the episode. The counselor asked him how much he drank. Max said, “Only a couple of drinks an evening before dinner. The counselor called the bar that Max frequented asked the bartender the same question. The bartender said that Max was his best customer. He spent forty or fifty dollars a night on drinks. This routine went on for hours, according to Manning, and finally Max was sobbing uncontrollably in the floor, curled up in a fetal position. The counselor roared at Max, “There’s the window or there’s the door. Either end this charade, leave this group or decide to be honest about your life.” Perhaps your desperation is not to the extent as Max’s, but each of us knows the reality of affliction, grief, oppression, a broken heart or bondage at one level or another. We walk around thinking that we are all O.K., when we are not. If I am O.K. and yo u are O.K. why are we here to begin with. Why are we hopeful for good news, healing, freedom, pardon, a year of grace, comfort, care, messages of joy and praising hearts if we are not afflicted, broken, bound, brokenhearted and uncomforted?

Christmas reminds us that Good News begins with Bad News. It is when we honestly appraise our lives, acknowledging the bad and the difficult that the good can soothe and comfort and challenge. Christmas can only be merry after we have faced the dreary. It is the light of Christ that darkness could not overtake!

One of the most unique and privileged callings in history is what I do as your pastor. To know you and love you. To walk with you and hurt with you is at once a terrific burden and joy for me to experience. Each Sunday as I look at your faces, I know that many of you are facing difficulty and hardship like you have never faced before. I am aware that your difficulty affects the life of this church family as we pray for you, help you and listen to you. For many of you, this Christmas season is not a “fa- la- la- la- la” kind a season. Frankly, you may wish that Christmas just skipped you this year.

Not to diminish your difficulty, let me encourage you by saying that you may be in a position to experience the best that God has to offer through Christmas like never before. You may receive something from Christmas that you never expected, not in spite of your difficulties, but because of them. God has entered history intent on finding you no matter what your difficulty, affliction, pain or point of suffering, and He will find you, even if he has to rearrange your world. When he does find you, he has some wonderful things for you.

God is in the business of offering hope in our hopeless worlds. Let me remind of those hopeful things once again. He has sent good news to the poor, healing to the brokenhearted, freedom to those who are captive, pardon to the prisoners, the year of grace to celebrate God’s
destruction of our enemies – and to comfort all who mourn. To care for all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquet of roses instead of ashes, messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit (Isaiah 61:1–4).