I cannot believe that Christmas is already over. The Christmas presents have been unwrapped (and I’m sure some of them are already discarded or broken). The Christmas Trees will soon be on the curb or put away in the attic. The ornaments will be carefully packed up in their boxes. The radio goes back to playing top 40 hits. Our shopping is completed, our traveling and cooking are done. After weeks of preparation, hanging all the lights, decorating the house, sending all the Christmas cards, after all the parties, eating way too much food, after the kids return to school, Christmas has come and gone. All the special Christmas traditions have been completed, all the doors of the Advent Calendar have been opened, all the candles on the Advent Wreath have been lit.
One of the Christmas traditions that my husband and I love to do each year that we just finished is watching all of our favorite Christmas movies (for the record, yes we think that both “Die Hard” and “Gremlins” are Christmas movies, and we watched them both this year). We also watched a Christmas episode of “South Park” that featured a funny Christmas song parody with the lyrics “It's once a year, it's Christmas time! When we hear about how Christmas only comes, Once a year.”
There is a lot of truth to that sentiment. It feels like all that Christmas spirit, the generosity and kindness, the hope and love and peace and joy that we profess on Christmas, are only important for this one day. But then after Christmas, the spirit is gone. We go back to business as usual. We forget the Christmas feeling so quickly and easily, and we return to so-called ordinary time. On the Christian calendar, the Christmas season of Advent, and the Easter season of Lent, are separated by what it is literally called “Ordinary Time.” And that is exactly how life feels after Christmas. Ordinary. We have this huge build up of Christmas cheer and spirit that vanishes on December 26th. Life goes back to normal. We all go back to living our ordinary lives after this one special day.
Another movie my husband and I watch every year is “The Muppets Christmas Carol”, Jim Hensen’s take on the classic Charles DIckens tale. Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, and realizes he has been living a life of greed, not generosity, a life of hate and anger, not love and joy, and he promises to change. He says, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
I think Scrooge has the right idea. Christmas isn’t just one special day, it is a way of being. Why can’t the Christmas spirit be alive all year? Why can’t we show people the kindness and generosity that are demonstrated at Christmas, throughout the other 11 months of the year? Why can’t we celebrate Joy to the World every day?
The shepherds who first saw the baby Jesus in the manger did not forget the joy they experienced once they returned to their fields, back to the tiring and unappreciated work of caring for sheep. The birth of Jesus didn’t immediately change their circumstances, but it changed them inside, deeply and profoundly. Yes, they still had to deal with cranky sheep and smelly manure, but that hardly mattered now. They had seen the Christ child. They experienced God’s grace and goodness; they witnessed the amazing miracle of the Incarnation, and they would never be the same. God the Creator took on flesh, our flesh, became one of us, and lived among us. John wrote in his gospel, "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." What happened that first Christmas night changed the lives of the Shepherds. It changed the lives of everyone who gathered around the manger. Can it change our lives as well?
Christmas marks the beginning of something new, a new understanding of the unconditional love of God. A new understanding of liberation and salvation for all people. A new understanding of peace, which comes not by way of the sword, but through nonviolence. These hopes and dreams and visions of peace and love were born on Christmas, but they did not end the day after Jesus was born; they didn’t even end after his death. The visions are still alive today, inspiring people to live lives of hope and peace and love and joy.
The apostle Paul was so inspired by the visions of Jesus that he traveled thousands of miles to spread the good news, and kept in contact with the communities he met, trying to inspire their lives as well. In every letter that he wrote, he pleaded with people to change their ways and live lives worthy of Christ. In our scripture this morning, Paul prays that God will give the Romans patience and encouragement to help them live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus.
I have the same prayers for humanity. Recent news has been inundated with the bad behavior of full grown adults, many of whom call themselves Christians but are definitely not living lives fit for followers of Christ. It’s not just the increasing violence, shootings, and murders that concern me, it’s the anger and impatience of everyday people. It’s the managers making their employees work through a deadly tornado. It’s the nasty comments that people make to strangers online. Its the customers mistreating waitresses, store clerks, and flight attendants. I read in the New York Times that since January 1 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration has received 5700 reports of unruly passengers, making this year on track to produce a higher passenger misconduct incident count than the entire history of commercial aviation. It’s so bad that flight attendants are taking self defense classes. What is wrong with us? Clearly, much of humanity has lost its patience and encouragement and are no longer capable of living in complete harmony with each other. Maybe some people gave a little bit more this Christmas, acted a little bit nicer, did a good deed or two, but now that Christmas is over and life is going back to ordinary time, I fear that hope and love and peace and joy will be packed away with the manger scenes.
But maybe we can do something different this year. Maybe we can make this ordinary time not so ordinary. We can fill our everyday lives with joy, praise, and celebration. We can live the extraordinary lives that God would have us live. The advent candles of Hope and Love and Peace and Joy may get stowed away in the closet, but the spirit of hope and love and peace and joy can be lived all year round. Love came down at Christmas. Love does not have to end at Christmas. Let us make the Christmas spirit last all year long. Let us go back to the office, back to the classroom, back to the factory, back to our neighborhoods, back to our families, back to our daily routines, full of life, full of hope, full of joy, living with love and justice and peace. We can make every day "the most wonderful time of the year."
On Christmas, we celebrate the fact that God became flesh and blood and dwelt among us. If we look and listen carefully, we will realize that God is here, in us, with us, everywhere, on Christmas and always, to end of time. May God be enfleshed in us, enfleshed in our hearts and minds and hands, enfleshed in our relationships and in our care for the stranger, for the jobless, for the homeless, for those in any need or trouble, enfleshed in our struggle for justice and peace among all people. Let us keep the Christmas spirit in our hearts not just once a year, but all year long. Amen.
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