So, this is a weird time of the year for me. It always has been. As a kid, I was coming up during the time when the commercialism of the holidays was really taking off. Holidays would start when “It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” came on TV, leading to Halloween. Then right on its heels was Thanksgiving which was sort of pre-Christmas because the family would get together, but without the presents. After that, the whole thing kicked into overdrive. Lawn ornaments went up everywhere. There were trips downtown to see the department store windows with live-action characters from the North Pole. Rudolph and the Grinch were on TV. Then back again with the family, this time for real because they brought gifts. Then the big day, Christmas Day, with all the presents, and the annual French Toast casserole.
As a kid, we were low-key Presbyterians, so I don't remember that we did very much church-wise on Christmas Eve. Christmas celebrations occurred on whatever Sunday was closest, with the kids' pageant (I was always a shepherd, never a wise man). But as far as I remember, that service and the ceramic manger scene with the donkey that had lost its face were the only nods to Jesus that I remember.
Then after all that holiday hoopla, we had a slow but steady week of not quite giving it all up. Of hanging on, or at least trying to hang on, to the holiday spirit so there could be the hardest of all holidays, at least to me – New Year's. The end of one year, the beginning of another. And the killer of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Only seven days in, and we pronounce ourselves DONE with the holidays at the stroke of midnight. Too exhausted to carry on for five more days.
And us Presbyterians didn't have a clue what the end of the twelve days, the Epiphany, would even be about. I mean, we saw the wise men before Christmas day back at the pageant. And in the South, being Presbyterian meant being something a little more subtle than Baptists, but we still weren't drinkers, at least in public, so New Year's was a reason to try to stay up and watch Guy Lombardo. It was something that happened in New York City and local bars, but by that time we were over the holidays.
Mom had undecorated the house long about December 27th. The tree was easily on the street by the 28th, most of the toys were broken or forgotten. And kids were trying to get the scratchiness out of the new flannel shirts and jeans, and we were all dreading school starting back up.
It was a weird time of the year. All that forced joy and cheer. Gone. All the happy, beautiful Christmas ads for cigars, cigarettes, liquor, and beer. Gone. Lights down. Department stores back to normal. Where did it all go. Did it really happen at all?
That feeling still lingers with me, decades later, even as a priest. After Christ the King Sunday, we declare a new liturgical year, and immediately begin that tension-filled push toward Christmas. Reminding ourselves to take it slow while wondering if those gifts we ordered will get here on time through all the rush. Looking at how rapidly our calendars fill up and how quickly we forget to sit back and calm down.
And now its over. The baby is born; the shepherds are back with the sheep; the angels are off scaring someone else. And we sit around, shell-shocked, waiting for someone to tell us what's the next big church event.
And in the middle of all of this comes the First Chapter of John.
No baby Jesus, no manger scene, not even a hint of Santa. Just poetry – a man trying to explain what really happened on that night from God's perspective. And it's a beautiful attempt with such wonderful, cosmic language.
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” As close as it gets to explaining an unexplainable truth if there ever could be. And I'm not going to try to do John any better.
But I have to admit that after all the Christmas story of Elizabeth and Mary, John the Baptist, silent Joseph, and that assorted cast, this beautiful poem is kind of a let down of a reading. A last gasp of the holiday, a different perspective, a summing up – kinda like all the top ten lists we fill this week with as we move to 2020. And every year, I wonder, as a preacher, “What's the big deal? Can't we just move on?”
Then the other day, it struck me – it's all about moving on. Hidden there in this first chapter of John. It's about moving on.
I rarely do this in a sermon, talk about the original language of the Bible. But I think it's important today. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Do you get that image? Jesus coming down from heaven and living on Earth. But the Greek version of this is so much more vivid. It really says, “And the Word became flesh, and he set up his tent among us.”
Just like the ancient Israelites when they were escaping Egypt did. Living in tents because they were constantly on the move. This is the Jesus that came to live among us. Always on the move. Not in one place.
Not a Jesus that we plop down in a manger year after year. Not a Jesus that is stuck in some backwater hill country centuries ago. Not a baby that we coo over and sing about somewhere between Rudolph and Auld Lang Syne.
A Jesus that is on the move, moving with us. Not waiting for us to come to him where he stands, but moving to stand with us where we are.
In those times when we need healing, he pitches his tent with us. In those times when we need comfort, he pitches his tent nearby. In those times when we are completely lost, wandering in the wilderness of our souls, he packs up his tent and comes looking for us.
This is God, not a God on some sky-throne, but a God on the move, moving ever closer to us pesky humans that God loves so much. This is the Word, not a word frozen in a dictionary, but the sound of the breath of God, moving through the universe.
This is Jesus, the Christ that we hold in our hearts, as we move through our lives.
And maybe that's the greatest gift of the season, the knowledge that behind all those manger scenes and carols and poinsettias and trees. Behind all the presents and visits and food. Behind all the cheer of the season. Behind all of that, there is this simple gift - God packing up his tent, turning to us, and saying, “Hold on – I'm coming with you.”
Amen.