12/30/07                                                                                 Hebrews 2:10-18

“LET YOUR HEART BE LIGHT”

Rev. James Singleton

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on, 
our troubles will be miles away.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly Christmas disappears. What took months in the coming, preparing, waiting, anticipating, seems to be over in an instant. Here we are just five days removed from the big celebration, and already it feels like it is Christmas that is miles away, our troubles are back in sight and our heart is feeling anything but light. In fact it may be feeling heavy—very heavy.

How is it that what we have prepared for since Thanksgiving can be over shortly after it begins? Perhaps part of it can be explained by the consumer industry that, now that they have their money, has moved on to the next big money making holiday. But part of the reason for a short Christmas lifespan lies within us. Even though this is the first Sunday of the Christmas Season, Christmas seems more like a dream that we have awakened from and we feel silly still singing Christmas carols and talking about this baby with the New Year and all of its troubles staring us in the face.
 

It’s time to put Christmas back into the boxes and up into the attic where it will sit until after next Thanksgiving. Reality has come crashing back upon us.  

·        The news is already shattering the Christmas dream with heartbreaking stories;  

·        The doctor appointment we have put off until after the holidays is coming up;

·        The bills we have accumulated are coming due soon;

·        Work projects aren’t waiting;

·        The Christmas truce that held broken relationships at bay is over;

·        The temptations that have plagued us and that we managed to fight off through the holidays are haunting us once again;

·        And who knows if our sick loved one is going to make it much longer?

All our troubles are back with a vengeance so what does our merry little Christmas have to do with us now?

It has been less than a week since sweet baby Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph. By now, they are probably decorating his room, coloring it blue, putting up mobiles, and adjusting to their new life as parents of the Son of God. How perfect it must have been. But, in reality, that’s not the way it was.
 

According to Matthew, they had to flee soon after the birth, because King Herod was so enraged at the possibility that this child might be the newborn King, that he gave an edict to kill every child born in the Bethlehem area over the past two years. Joseph and Mary had to escape with their child and flee like refugees into Egypt for safety or else their newborn baby would be run through with a sword. From his birth, Jesus was beleaguered by troubles and hunted by death.

As an adult, he would be led into the wilderness where he would be confronted by the Devil and tempted to abandon his calling, his faith, and his moral values. He was often misunderstood by his own family and closest friends. People used him and then left him when he said something they didn’t like to hear. He got tired, felt overworked, tried unsuccessfully to get away, was interrupted time and again, and felt pulled in a thousand directions at once. His success would rise and fall. His competition was strong and persistent.

His enemies would plot to kill him and eventually they would succeed. The sins of men and the darkness of death would catch up to him. He would be slapped by ignorant men, betrayed by one he trusted, abandoned by his friends, tossed around by the political powers, let down by the religious leaders. He would feel exhaustion and sorrow. He would hurt so badly that his sweat would drop as blood. He knew grief, and felt dread and agony.

Finally, on a hill outside of Jerusalem this baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s son, would die a horrible and heartbreaking death on a cross. This child, born in a manger, born under a star whose birth we have celebrated with such festivities and joy, lived a life filled with suffering, temptations, and the shadow of death hovering over him wherever he went.

Why do I bring this up on this first Sunday of Christmas? Why not continue to talk about the baby and the joy of having a baby? Why not continue to talk about the wonder of that holy night? Why not try to keep the mood of Christmas going as long as possible?  

Christmas is not about a feeling, or a mood, or the celebration of a special child who is unlike us. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us today that Christmas is about the birth of a special child who is like us in every way—a child who knows suffering like we know suffering; a child who experienced temptations the way we experience temptations; a child who lived under the shadow of death like we live under the shadow of death every day.

This is no child born with a silver spoon in his mouth. This is a child who has been tested and, as the writer to the Hebrews says, “because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”  

Where do we find the courage at this last Sunday of the New Year to face another year? You know what is coming. It will be a year in which there will be tragedies and we will be involved in them to one degree or another. Either they will happen to us or to a friend or we will watch them on television and be shaken.
 
            It will be a year in which we will be tempted to hurt other people or to hurt ourselves. It will be a year in which circumstances that are out of our control will try to force us to act against our principles and tempt us to do what we know we should not do.  

It will be a year of joys but also disappointments. It will be a year of good luck and bad luck. It will be a year in which the obituaries will be filled with names—some of them we will know; some of them we will love; perhaps one of them will be our own.

How do we keep from running under the bed and hiding? Where do we find the courage and hope to go forward into the unknown of another New Year? We are creatures that are powerless to live as we ought to live, powerless to save ourselves from sins or harm, powerless to control the events that are constantly influencing us, powerless to prevent our own demise. How do we keep from going insane?

There are various ways we can face the future. We can cower in fear. After all, we have plenty to be afraid of. We can admit how weak we are; believe we are alone and that we are no match for what is coming and live everyday with frayed nerves and churned stomachs.  

We can try to deny our fear by fooling ourselves into believing we are immortal or that it can’t happen here. We can try to numb the fear by drink or drugs or work or constant entertainment.  

Or, we can face our fear and beat it. How do we do that? We begin by remembering what season it is that takes us into the New Year and what the message of that season is all about. Christmas is the Season that takes us into the New Year every year.  

Every year we want to be done with Christmas immediately after the last store bought package is opened and clear out the living room of all the paper, bows, and decorations and throw the tree onto the curb because it’s time to get on with real life. We treat Christmas like it is a fairy tale that has enchanted us from awhile by whisking us off to a make believe world, but as much as we would love to stay, we know we must get back to our real lives because we have to brace ourselves for what is coming.  

And yet, it is this baby Jesus who leads us into the unknown darkness of the New Year like a pioneer. Not a pioneer who goes it alone, but a pioneer who has gone up ahead and already met what we will meet, so that we will have someone with us who understands what we are going through.
 
            For many people, Christmas time seems to be all about joy and laughter, parties and presents with no place for sadness, fear, troubles or death. But Christmas is about incarnation. Incarnation is a fancy word that means that God comes into this life, into our flesh and blood, into our real world to experience what we experience and to defeat what threatens to defeat us. Incarnation means God in fleshed. God with us. God in us.  

Christmas is where God came into our world comprised of sin, trouble, sorrow, suffering and death to show that all of those negative powers are no match for his love for us. If you have proclaimed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then Jesus proclaims you as his brother or sister. And Jesus does not abandon family.  

There is nothing the New Year will do to us that we will not have Jesus going through it with us, assuring us that we are loved and leading us forward, perhaps scarred, but leading us nonetheless into a new life.  

If we believe that God is with us; if we worship and pray to Jesus; if we live by his example and allow Him to forgive us and restore us when we don’t; if we hold onto his resurrection from the dead and cling to the truth that there is nothing in life and nothing in death that can separate us from His presence and love—then He will be our power throughout the coming New Year. He has already gone on ahead and calls back to us, “There is nothing here greater than me. Do not be afraid. Come.”
 

Christmas shows us that we are more important to God than even the angels. For Christ did not come to earth to help angels but to help us. As it proclaims in Mozart’s Requiem, translated from the Latin, “Think, good Jesu,/that I am the cause of your wondrous incarnation” or “Remember, merciful Jesus,/I am the cause of your journey.”  

Do you think Jesus would come all this way just to allow the world to defeat you? He came that He might know life as we know it, live life as we live it—with one difference. Where we fail and are defeated, He was victorious. And where He was victorious—we are victorious through Him. 

Don’t be so quick to put Christmas away. This Christmas child is both with us and has already faced everything we will face in this New Year. Whenever we begin to fear because we face something for the first time, hear Jesus say, “Been there. Done that.”  And not only has he been there and done that, he beat that—and so will everyone who is in his family.  

No, our troubles may no longer be out of sight, but because of God’s Merry Little Christmas, neither is our Savior. So from now on, we can let our heart be light.

 AMEN