“NO CHRISTMAS GOOSE”
First
Second
Dr. Matthew Brown
I certainly am not immune to the Christmas spirit. December days should find people prancing
with a little more Bing in their step and it is good for the church to add a
touch of holly to its holiness. There is
a superabundance of energy at this time of year in the church and in your
lives. Yes, there is confusion about the
purpose of it all, but at least some of the excitement helps to remind you that
your heart is still beating.
Whether it is stress or anticipation or unfettered joy that
is spiking your pulse rate, the palpable pulsing of your aorta is a sign that
you are indeed alive. And yet, the human
body being what it is and the state of our physical fitness being what it is,
that heart can only race for so long before it fatigues. As the prophet proclaimed, “even youths shall
faint and be weary...”
We can only take so much excitement. In a 15th Century triptych painting of the
Nativity by Giovanni Bellini we see angels singing and visitors arriving, analogous
to the usual flurry of our holiday activity.
But as we look in on the holy family, Joseph, with his head on his wrist
and his elbow on his knee, seems to be dozing - exhausted from a sleepless
night and the trip from
Mary appears totally drained. She may have just delivered the savior of the
nations but there is no energy left to rejoice.
While angels sing, her visage says, “I can’t believe I birthed the whole
thing.”
There’s an honesty in that painting that strikes me and
speaks to our experience of Christmas.
Exhausted, drained, sapped, enfeebled. In your last minute dash toward Christmas day
your battery may have run down before the finish line even entered your
sight. Yet there were still crowded
malls to be navigated; there were still command performances that required your
attendance; there were still voices that called for your attention. We know it is a season for celebration but,
sometimes, you are either too busy or too tired to notice.
Our immune systems weakened we become most vulnerable to
such ill-humored maladies as Grinchitis, Scrooguenza, or the dreaded Mr. Potter
Syndrome. Your loved ones will notice
the symptoms long before you do. Your
Ho, Ho, Ho’s slowly morph into humbugs.
Your hallelujahs sound more like harumph’s. Grumbling, grouching, groaning, grousing,
griping. You become a real “joy to the
world.”
Certainly, a recent night found me exhibiting the
aforementioned symptoms as I performed the suburban dad’s dance, leaping and
plieing between committee meetings, e-mails, and school performances. And, O, I was in such a happy mood because
nothing is as intoxicating as the prospect of a middle school band
concert. Yes, I’ll confess before God,
my son, and my congregation, I was less than confident that this would be a
delightful experience. Honestly, I was
thinking more along the lines of torture.
Remember middle school band?
The ill-fitting clothes that just couldn’t keep up with our rapidly
changing bodies. Your sleeves too long,
your pants too short, your shoes too tight, your socks mis-matched, your acne
in bloom. Yet, we pulled out our shiny
new instruments from their pristine cases and held them high with pride. We were so proud of those instruments, too
proud to practice, ˆI guess. Wouldn’t
want to get fingerprints on that shiny brass.
Melting together in the warm radiated heat of the musty
ancient gymnasium, we made Three Blind Mice sound like an avant-guard European
piece. Our parents would come forward
with their Kodaks in hand, showering us with compliments, kudos, and
congratulations. “You sounded so
good. I could hear you hit every
note. We’re so proud.” They were lying.
Musical proficiency and even excellence would come to some,
garage sales and Karate lessons would be in the future for other instruments
and students. But, either way, in those
early formative years, we sounded rough around the edges and messy in the
middle.
So now it was my turn to play the doting parent. Needless to say, my attitude was as out of
tune as most middle school instruments.
The winds of Christmas Spirit had missed my house that day, the clouds
of self-pity hanging low. My apologies
to all who crossed my path that day and had to endure my pitiful laments. “You think you’ve got it rough, I have to go
to a middle school band concert. Ho! Ho!
Ho!.” “I’m sorry I can’t meet with you
this evening, but remember me in your prayers as I have to go to a middle
school band concert tonight. Fa, La,
Thoughts of Christmas cheer were remote as I pulled in the
school parking lot and ducked into the back of the cafetorium, the aroma of over
baked pizza and adolescent perspiration hanging heavy in the air. The only
Christmas I expected to experience in this place was a saxophone section
sounding like a gaggle of wounded and wailing Christmas geese on their way to
the oven.
Therefore, I was left a bit incredulous when the
surprisingly sonorous sounds of the first selection came to an end. The hard frost that had encased the perky
portion of my personality began to drip.
“This isn’t going to be so bad, I thought.” And then it happened.
The second song began and suddenly we were transported to a
gothic cathedral, a Greek revival sanctuary, a country church, a suburban
chapel, a prayer meeting - wherever it is that you experience worship in its
purest sense. It was the lyrical melody
of My Shepherd Will Supply My Need, and one consequence of doing what I do is
that I had a faint recollection of the words to Isaac Watt’s paraphrase of
Psalm 23.
(Glenda sings.)
It’s not a Christmas carol, but Christmas arrived in that
moment, and this dour dad, this Scrooge of South Mecklenburg melted like butter
in a microwave. The pretentious smirk
was replaced by the comic look of one vainly seeking to stem welling tears.
“He brings my wandering spirit back, When I forsake His
ways;”
You’ll notice there are no stars mentioned in Luke’s
nativity and a star did not lead me to that schoolhouse sanctuary. I guess my adolescent drummer boy brought me
there to a place where I would experience the coming of the One who would be
called the good shepherd.
“He brings my wandering spirit back, When I forsake His
ways;”
You never know when or where you will be surprised by
Christmas, when or where you will experience the advent of the Savior. But tonight we celebrate those times when the
veil between heaven and earth is so thin that we can see through it and know
that God is near. Tonight we celebrate
holy manger scenes that will continue to confront us long after your
decorations have been put back in the attic.
It may happen in a late night diner when you see the
life-hardened waitress hold the fussing infant so that his travel-weary
single-mother could eat her soup. It may
happen when the soldier, thousands of miles from familial faces, reads the
newsletter from his home church. It may
happen in the shelter, where warm food and kind words soften the journey of
If you have not found Christmas yet, do not fret, for
Christmas has a way of finding you where and when you would least expect
it. The grand good news of the
incarnation is that our God will not wait for us to find him. God finds us and surprises us with grace. “To
you is born this day...”
The stunned shepherds were not looking for Jesus or
listening for angels when the skies opened and the songs poured forth. They were the wanderers, they were society’s
forgotten, they were the one’s ignoring and stumbling over the question of
life’s meaning, they were you, they were me.
“He brings my wandering spirit back, When I forsake His ways;” Thanks be to God for the surprise of Christmas.
Amen.
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