In John Grisham’s novel Skipping Christmas, which is now a hit movie, Luther and Lora Krank decide to take a year off from all the clutter of Christmas. They spent $6,000 last year on Christmas with very little to show for it. Their daughter is now serving in the Peace Corp so maybe it is time for something different! For one year there would be no rooftop Frosty, no company party, not even a tree—just the two of them setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. Does such a scenario sound enticing to you?
Does Christmas really make any difference? If Christmas is simply Frosty the Snowman in a winter wonderland, some of us might rather join Kenny Chesney longing for a deep, dark tan with our feet in the sand. If Christmas is simply business, then most of us could use a break. Even in the culture wars over Christmas, we Christians, if we are honest, will have to admit that we stole December 25 from the pagans. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible about the festival of Christmas.
So I want to do something I seldom do on Christmas Eve. I want to skip the manger and go for the message. I haven’t come to bring you Season’s Greetings but to proclaim from the bottom of my heart that Christ our Savior is born. Tonight I want to put Christ into the center of Christmas.
I. THE CHRIST OF CHRISTMAS MAKES FORGIVENESS AVAILABLE
“God’s readiness to give and forgive is public.”
My all time favorite Christmas card has a message that goes like this:
If our greatest need had been knowledge, God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need is forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.
A little boy sent this letter to Santa: Dear Santa, There are three little boys who live in this house. There’s Jeffy; he’s two. There’s David; he’s four. There’s Norman; he’s seven. Jeffrey is good some of the time. David is good most of the time. Norman is good all the time; I am Norman. Remember that when you come to visit Christmas.
If you’ve gotten to Christmas Eve without hurting anyone, wounding anyone, disappointing anyone, betraying anyone, you probably don’t need to be here. Go on home and sit by the fire and sip your eggnog. But, if you have limped in here a tired, old sinner, hungry for a spiritual dinner, then you have come to the very spot to find the wondrous grace of a God who fails us not. Here sins can be forgiven. Here God and sinners are reconciled. Here people bent beneath life’s heavy loads find the courage to carry on. College students, business persons, homemakers, friends—In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.
I remember a discussion I had a long time ago with a colleague over the necessity of Holy Communion for Christmas Eve worship. His wife who was appalled by the whole Body and Blood sacramental thing, kept asking, “Can’t I come to church at least once a year without somebody getting killed?” Why can’t we let our faces glow in the candlelight and go home without remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus?
I wish we could. Forgiveness fits faulty people. Forgiving is not forgetting, not excusing, and not setting ourselves up for more torture. Forgiveness opens new doors of possibilities and creates a new future. Forgiveness is the oil that lubricates the human machine. Without it, all of life becomes hot and screaky. Wouldn’t you like to walk down that road of forgiveness tonight?
Would you pray this prayer with me?
If I have wounded any soul today,
If I have caused one foot to go astray,
If I have walked in my own willful way,
Dear Lord, forgive.
II. THE CHRIST OF CHRISTMAS MAKES NEW LIFE POSSIBLE
“This new life is starting right now, and is whetting our appetites for the glorious day when our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, appears.”
In a Tom Wilson cartoon, Ziggy is visiting with the lending officer at the mortgage department. When the agent asks how she can help, Ziggy replies “Actually I am looking for a new lease on life.” Does that in any way describe you tonight? Out on the highways and byways of life, time takes its toll, debts accumulate and fuel runs low. Christ can take an old life, stained and spotted, and give us a new one all unblotted.
Have you discovered that life is not about you? Life is not about your happiness, your needs, your greed, and your fulfillment, not even you future? Life is not about you and me. It’s about discovering our God-given identity and using our gifts in service to others.
The birth of Christ sets in motion new birth for us. We can be born anew. We can begin again. We can become what we are created to be, fully loved children of God, empowered to love one another as God loves us. We call it transformation—touching hearts, transforming lives. Spiritual transformation is the process, sudden or gradual, by which we come to life at our deepest selves and discover the power to shape our lives in the image of Christ.
I received a letter from a kid I had in Confirmation 25 years ago. She says, “I still remember you asking me to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I did it then. That is why my family and I attend church every Sunday and we are raising our children in the Christian faith.”
I met with a college student this past week. She is taking her first steps into full-time Christian ministry. I was on winter BreakThru a couple of years ago. I really hadn’t been very involved in the youth groups. On that retreat, my life was changed and I want to devote myself to Christian service.
A couple months ago, I baptized a 70 year old man and received him and his family into this community of faith. At a little luncheon given in his honor, he said to his closest friends, “I thank God for today; I felt it deep in my heart.”
I know there are people who slip into this place and in the mystery of the moment find their hearts strangely warmed and their lives radically transformed. I know because they tell me so. What the Christ of Christmas has done for others, he wants to do for you. Christmas will make a difference if you invite the Christ of Christmas to dwell in your heart.
III. CHRIST MAKES GOODNESS ATTAINABLE
“He offered himself as a sacrifice to free us from a dark, rebellious life into this good, pure life, making us a people He can be proud of, energetic in goodness.”
Sometimes at Christmas I think, if we can care for the poor, spread good will, do good deeds in December, why can’t we do the same all year? Why does it take December for us to be genuine, generous, grateful, and glad?
One little girl trying to watch out and not pout before Christmas was so relieved when she made it that she exclaimed to her parents, “I like Santa Claus much better than Jesus. You have to be good for Santa in December but Jesus wants us to be good all the time.”
Energetic in Goodness—I don’t have a lot of time for greedy, grabbing, griping, grumbling, grouchy people. If you were born in the objective case, possessed by self-centeredness, then I hope you enjoy your own company. Let me remind you, “People all wrapped up in themselves make mighty small packages.”
As any novelist will admit, it’s easier to get people to read about vice than virtue. It’s easier to see the hole than the doughnut. So it will take some intentional effort to see the goodness right under our noses. But go for it.
Edmund Burke was right—“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” How could six million Jews be beaten, starved, tortured, and murdered in the heart of European civilization less than a hundred years ago? Did a few evil people have that much power, or did good people choose to remain quiet?
How could the Church tolerate the blatant sexual misconduct of priests and pastors for so long? Are there that many pedophiles in full time ministry or did good people just keep quiet, hoping it would go away?
In a world where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, where health care is threatening to be reserved for the privileged, where company profits are more important than company employees, you have to wonder, can good people just stand there? With every power to say, “No,” may we find the courage to say, “Yes.” Yes to goodness, yes to justice, yes to peace, yes to hope, yes to love.
Dare I remind you on this holy night of the motto of our founder, John Wesley:
Do all the good you can, by all the means you can,
In all the ways you can, in all the places you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can.
Does Christmas make any difference? It will if we remember the reason for the season. It’s Christmas, Christ our Savior is born. Your sins can be forgiven. Your life can be restored. You can walk out of this Sanctuary, determining to be a better person. Now that makes all the difference.