Christmas Day
Luke 2:10-11
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Eighteen-sixty-four was a leap year. It started on a Friday and ended on a Saturday.
On February 1st of that year, fifty-seven thousand Austrian and Prussian troops crossed the Eider River into Denmark, marking the beginning of the Second Schleswig War. Sixteen days later, off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, in the midst of the Civil War, the tiny Confederate submarine Hunley torpedoed the USS Housatonic, becoming the first submarine to sink an enemy ship. A week later, the first Northern prisoners arrived at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia. Another week would pass, and Lincoln would appoint Ulysses S. Grant as commander in chief of all Union armies.
In May of that same year, the Russian Empire took the lives of more than 1.5 million Circassians. Those who survived the assault found refuge south of the Black Sea.
On June 15th, U.S. Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, established Arlington National Cemetery on land once owned by Robert E. Lee. And on August 22nd, the Geneva Convention founded the International Red Cross.
In October, a tornado killed 70,000 men, women and children in Calcutta, India. In November, Abraham Lincoln was reelected in an overwhelming victory over George B. McClellan. And in December, the Union forces decisively defeated the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
Then late that same month, as America was still months away from Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sat down to write the words of a poem.
You may know he was a professor at Harvard University. But what you may not know is that he endured more than his share of tragedy. His first wife, Mary Storer, died from a miscarriage after only four years of marriage. Then he met and married another woman, Frances Appleton. After seven years of courtship, she agreed to become his wife.
But one hot day in July, as she was sealing locks of her children’s hair with candle wax, her dress suddenly caught fire. Longfellow rushed to help her, throwing a small rug over her, but it was too late. She was already too badly burned. She died the following morning. Even he was so badly burned, he couldn’t attend her funeral. To cover the scars, he would wear a beard for the rest of his life.
He was so devastated by her loss, he begged his friends to not send him to an asylum. He later wrote he was “inwardly bleeding to death.”
Even more, in November, Charles, Longfellow’s oldest son, who had joined the Union cause as a soldier without his father’s blessing, was severely wounded.
Then as Longfellow sat at his desk on Christmas Day, 1864, as he heard church bells ringing and ringing, he wrote the words of a poem. You know how it goes: “I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play And wild and sweet the words repeat Of peace on earth, goodwill to men. And in despair I bowed my head There is no peace on earth I said For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on earth, goodwill to men. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, goodwill to men.”
Christmas is certainly one the most beautiful times of year. But it can also be one of the most difficult. While we can’t help but hear people sing, “’Tis the season to be jolly” and “Have a holly, jolly Christmas. It’s the best time of the year,” it can be the most difficult time of year.
Elvis Presley seemed to touch that nerve when he sang that song: “Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree won’t mean a thing if you’re not here with me.” And he said, “I’ll have a blue, blue Christmas without you.”
Why do we struggle so much at this time of year? Part of the problem, I suppose, is what we’ve done to Christmas. We’ve romanticized it and sentimentalized it to the point that we miss out on how hard that first Christmas must have been.
If you want to know what that first Christmas was like, go to a barn. See what it looks like and what it smells like. God sent His Son to be born, not in some sanitized, cute little place warmed by freshly washed, fragrant smelling cows and sheep. Where Mary birthed Jesus, it was a stable. Then she laid Him in a manger.
If you feel kind of blue this Christmas, think of Mary, called to be the mother of the Savior. God didn’t save her from the stigma of being pregnant outside of marriage and giving birth in a place far from home, away from family and friends, under the worst possible conditions. If you’re having a little trouble being jolly this Christmas, remember Mary.
Even more, remember her Child, Jesus. Unless you see the shadow of the cross falling across that manger, you’re not seeing Christmas as you should. Jesus didn’t enter the world to be a cute little baby. He came to suffer and die on a cross so our sins could be forgiven and we could be saved. Because of the death and resurrection of the One born at Christmas, we have the hope and the promise of life eternal, where God Himself will wipe away all our tears and where there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain anymore.
That’s the beauty and the wonder of Christmas.
Wil was only eleven, and was minding his own business in Miss McDaniel’s sixth grade class, when he got the call: “Willimon, Mr. Harrelson wants to see you in his office”—Mr. Harrelson, the ancient, intimidating principal. Shaking with fear and trepidation, he trudged down the hall, toward the principal’s office.
And on his way, he went over and over in his mind what he could possibly have done wrong. Sure, there was that rock through the gym window, but it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t throw it. He only saw it happen.
And as he sat before the big, oak desk, Mr. Harrelson had his full attention. “Listen clearly, young man,” he said. “I do not intend to repeat myself: you, go down Tindal Ave. two blocks and turn left. Then go down two more blocks to number fifteen. I need a message delivered. You tell Jimmy Spain’s mother that if Jimmy is not in school by this afternoon, I will report her to the police for truancy.”
“Oh no,” thought little Wil. “Why did it have to be Jimmy Spain? He’s the toughest kid in school—a sixth grader who should have been in eighth. Besides, what in the world is ‘truancy’?”
Pondering those somber thoughts, he walked down Tindal Ave. as ordered, bidding farewell to the safety of the schoolyard, turned left, then walked two more blocks.
That’s where he found Number 15, a small house with pealing paint and a cluttered yard—just the sort of house where you’d expect to find Jimmy Spain.
There was a big blue Buick parked out in front. And as he approached the walk, a man stepped out of the house, putting on his coat and straightening his tie, letting the door slam behind him.
Wil asked, “Are you Mr…Spain, sir?” As the man laughed and sped off in his car, that’s when Wil remembered Jimmy didn’t have a dad.
He stepped up onto the rotten porch and knocked on the dirty screen door. His heart sank when it was opened by none other than Jimmy Spain. But before Jimmy could say anything, the door was pulled open even wider by a woman dressed in a faded blue, terrycloth bathrobe.
“What do you want?” she asked in a cold, threatening voice.
Wil answered, “I’m from school. The principal sent me.”
“The principal?!” she said. “What does that old man want?”
“He sent me here to say that we, uh, that is, that everybody at school misses Jimmy and wishes he were there today.”
Jimmy, the feared thug who could beat up any kid at Donaldson Elementary anytime he wanted, peered out in amazement.
And suddenly this tough hood, feared by all, looked small, clutching his mother’s protective arm. His eyes were embarrassed and pleading.
“Tell that old man it’s none of his business what I do with James.” Then looking down, she said, “Do you want to go to that old school today?”
Jimmy looked at her and wordlessly nodded.
“Well, go get your stuff,” she said, “and take that dollar off the dresser to buy lunch. I ain’t got nothing here.”
In a flash, he was away and back. Without a word, they walked back to school.
That night, as Wil told his mother about his day, she said, “That is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard! Sending a young child out in the middle of the day to fetch a truant student. Mr. Harrelson should have his head examined. Don’t you ever allow anyone to put you in that position again. Sending a child!”
But in a manger, in a little town called Bethlehem, that’s exactly what our God and Father has done.
As Paul once wrote to the Galatians: “And when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might be adopted as sons.”
That’s the gospel. And that’s the joy, the hope and the wonder of Christmas night.
The meaning of Christmas, the reason we celebrate Christmas is that, through the infant Jesus, God chose to become one of us. He chose to experience the fullness of the human condition, to come face to face with the joys and sorrows of the human race. God chose to become breakable.
It is one thing to have a God who rules from heaven. But it is quite another to have a God who chooses, out of His great compassion, to become one of us.
Our God is not simply One who reigns with strength and power. He is One who was born in a lowly manger. He is One who cared for the outcast, who broke bread with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners. He is One who became a homeless peasant to speak a message of reconciliation and to suffer death on a cruel, wooden cross. And through His amazing, all-consuming sacrifice, we will share in the joy and the glory of heaven.
God is with us. And because He is with us, we will never be the same.
O God our Father, we praise You for the gift of Your Son, who was born in the poverty of Bethlehem that we may enjoy Your heavenly blessing. Help us to cradle the Christ Child in our hearts and give us the grace to adore Him all our days. This we ask in His name. Amen