I've decided that there are two basic species of Christmas sermon.
The first one is sort of like having tea with a distant relative whom you visit once a year. Christmas is, after all, often that time when we see people we haven’t visited all year long. Sometimes it is grandchildren or grandparents who live far away, maybe some cousins or aunts and uncles. We come over to their place and make the effort to “fit them in” for a Christmas visit. I recall a particular aunt on my father’s side of the family, whom we would visit on particular occasions. I think maybe she had some money or something, and maybe there was the hope that if we came to visit every once in awhile, there would be something in it for us at the end of the day.
There is a sort of Christmas sermon which wrestles, to a greater or lesser extent, with this reality. We really haven’t seen Jesus all year long, but it’s time to drop in for a visit and see if He is still there. God is rather like the elderly aunt whom we humor with our presence, and hope that someday we will get some kind of inheritance when the time is right. The kids all have to behave, and you are not allowed to touch anything when you are visiting, and for God’s sake don’t do or say anything embarrassing. We can exchange some pleasant conversation, and then return home, having checked off one more thing from our Christmas “TO DO” list. We might visit once a year, but this person has no real importance in our lives for the other 364 days, and there is no need to do otherwise. And on the side of the elderly aunt, the preacher thinks “Make the visit pleasant, and maybe they will come back again.”
The second species of sermon is an attempt to trump up Jesus beyond all the distractions of the rest of the season, lament about the fact that there is no Christ left in Christmas, and try to lay out the whole plan of God’s salvation, explain in 10 minutes or less all the jargon of the Christian life – sin and grace, redemption and eternal life, prayer and repentance, joy, peace and love, what it means that Jesus is “Lord and Saviour”, and give everyone a chance to have a conversion experience in less than one hour. Preachers with a lot of expertise and the gift of communication can squeeze the whole Christian faith into one sermon on Christmas eve. I don’t’ have that particular expertise.
I have, I believe, one particular area of gifted expertise. I am a guy. I have been a guy for at least 4 decades. And I am a parent. I have been a parent for almost 10 years. Therefore, my “guy skills” are greater than my “parenting skills” by a ratio of almost 4 to 1. Christmas is about that thing that frightens guys more than anything else in the universe, except for a local playoff blackout – Christmas is about birth.
Yes, Christmas is about birth. Now I am at a disadvantage when it comes to this topic. Because what I know about birth really comes only second hand. Something I have discovered over the last 10 years is that holding a baby is an acquired skill – at least for guys. Guys are not natural baby holders. Guys know how to hold things: BBQ utensils, remote controls, seasons tickets. But guys learn how to hold babies only by comparing babies to footballs. You sort of cradle it in here and tuck it like this so that no one can tackle you and take it away. That is how guys learn to hold babies. It’s just not natural for us.
It’s an acquired skill – it takes practice, and sometimes we would rather just hand off the baby to someone else. It makes us feel self conscious – am I doing it right? What if I drop it or it starts to cry? And the question which is most often on guys’ minds in these situations; “Do I look stupid?” That is the ultimate question which governs the lives of guys. And at Christmas, we can get like that with Jesus. We really don’t know what to do with Him. We don’t know how to hold Him. We are afraid that if we actually try to hold him, we will look stupid.
It's an acquired skill. In church they call it "grace".
I've discovered a few other things in the parenting process. For instance, there is the birth announcement. Guys are usually excited, but don’t know what to say. If you are lucky, you get a few phone calls, you might even go whole hog and put something in the paper. Not this baby. What does His Father do for a birth announcement? Let’s put a star up in the sky, and get a few singers: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace”.
And then there is the question every guy ponders – so what’s he going to be when he grows up?
Got high hopes for your boy, do you? Yes, yes, God is beyond gender, but you can see His Divine Guyness coming through: my Son is going to accomplish something. It just won't be the way mortal guys think. If we come back to visit Jesus at Easter, we will see that He is grown. Sometimes we are amazed when we haven’t seen someone for a while. Then we come for another visit and we see how they have grown. God not only has high hopes for his boy, He has high hopes for you and me. Higher hopes than we have for ourselves.
After they all come home from the hospital, guys discover one more thing about babies that they had never considered before. Something that they knew about, but had never really given much thought to. Something so mysterious and awful and stupendous that most of the guys I know, myself included, simply pretend that we don’t know how to do it. And here it is. It’s called change.
Where ever there are babies, there are going to be some of these – diapers. Babies and diapers go together like... – well, let’s just stop right there. Babies are all about change. As a father of 4, I can say that babies are about constant change. Everyday. Small changes, and big changes. Some changes are easy to deal with. Some are rather messy. The highest level of alert in our house is called a “hose down”.
The good news about this baby – Jesus – is that you don’t have to change Him. Instead, he is going to change you. Big messes, small messes, daily messes. Change is a necessary part of this whole picture. What kind of change does God want? God became like us – Jesus was born, so that we could become like God – we can be reborn.
I may well steal some of this tomorrow . . .
Posted by: Preston Parsons | December 23, 2008 at 04:09 PM
Heh, yes, I can identify with some of that ;-)
Posted by: Peter | December 23, 2008 at 05:20 PM
Good one, Joe (swear, spit, scratch). Merry Christmas!!!
Posted by: Gene | December 23, 2008 at 06:03 PM
Hmm - this one sounds a little familiar...
Posted by: Tim | December 24, 2008 at 09:13 AM
What you said about babies changing men was so powerful - I have experienced this twice. But this Baby didn't just change his Dad - I wonder if Faith Hill knew what she was singing about with "A Baby Changes Everything" - a very merry Christmas! - FD
Posted by: Frugal Dougal | December 25, 2008 at 02:37 PM