Luke 2:1-18
When did you first begin to set out your Christmas decorations this year? Was it before Thanksgiving? Or sometime after? How many wait until the very last minute? I saw that trees were still for sale yesterday as I drove back from Rochester. I suppose there’s even time to find a tree for sale somewhere after our service is over tonight. By the way, where do you store your decorations in-between Christmases? Into which part of your house did you have to go to find those bags of tinsel, those boxes of ornaments and lights? In a closet, in the basement, in an attic, in an unused room, out in the garage, or the barn? What are some of the decorations you have? And which ones do you especially love? A tree, lights, ornaments, wreathes, candles, manger scenes, candy canes, nutcrackers, drummer boys, angels, stars? I remember how my Dad using a big sheet of plywood, cut out the shape of a snowman family singing Christmas carols, painted in bright colors, set it out on the front lawn, and aimed a floodlight to illuminate it. No one else in our neighborhood had anything like it. When he put that up each year I knew Christmas was getting close.
So when do you take down the decorations? Right after you open presents tomorrow morning? Before the New Year arrives? Do you keep the decorations up until your true love sends you those last presents – 12 drummers drumming - on the twelfth day, January 5th. Some go even later than that. The traditional date celebrated for the arrival of the Magi is the Day of Epiphany, January 6th, and in some Christian traditions Epiphany – also called Three Kings Day, El Dia de Los Tres Reyes – is when gifts are exchanged. I even knew someone who loved her tree so much that it stayed up until the last needles fell out in March. I won’t identify who that was, except one of those years I didn’t finish sending out Christmas cards until about the same time. I called them “March cards” that year.
Is there anyone here who does NOT take the decorations down after Christmas? Is there anyone who leaves them up year-round?
Our hopes for peace, justice and love rise with the coming of Christ, and we all commit ourselves on this night to work with Jesus to make these hopes real. The angels sing “glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all” and we enthusiastically add our own voices to the angels’ songs. Some of us sing our hearts out because we mean every word of it.
But too soon these hopes and commitments are put away, like decorations, and life goes back to the way it was. And Christmas, rather than a starting point for a new world, is left as a vague wish for better things that never really happens. And the same cycle is repeated year after year.
So the big question I ask of all of us, including myself, is this: What will we NOT put away after Christmas? OK, you can leave your Christmas lights along the eaves at the roof line, saving you the trouble of putting them up next year, but of course I’m not talking about decorations at all! It’s the spiritual treasure of Christmas that I’m talking about, it’s about all of those hopes and dreams that we sing and pray about this night in particular. What has your heart risen to discover and experience this Christmas, and how will you sustain that after the formal Christmas celebrations are over? What will you NOT put away?
Or think of it this way: it’s not just you by yourself that has to answer this challenge. How can the rest of us help you hold on to what you discovered or experienced this Christmas? How can we encourage you, pray with you, sing with you, and roll up our sleeves to work with you, so that what you found is not put away.
Our granddaughter Ellienna, now nearly two and half years old, experienced Christmas for the first time this year. For her Christmas has been an unexpected joy that has come out of the blue. Of course, she has now lived through three Christmases, but this time is the first that she has been aware of something special happening. She loved decorating the tree in our sanctuary, but, later, she was astounded that we would have a Christmas Tree in our home, too! Wow! And how much she enjoyed seeing the lights in the neighborhood! The wonder and joy she has experienced is amazing, especially when compared to those of us who have celebrated Christmas so many times that we find few surprises in it any more.
I think Ellieana has also grasped the idea of “time” in all of this. As teens were climbing the tall step ladder to put the decorations on the higher branches of our tree in the sanctuary, I’m pretty sure I saw in her face the understanding that someday, down the road, she will get her turn to climb the ladder, too … but not yet! She seems to know she will be growing up. So as she grows up, how will we help her hold on to that joy and wonder and generosity she experienced this Christmas . The worst thing we can do with that is to teach her to put it away! And not just younger children like Ellieana, Austin or Annabelle, but all of us!
Let’s encourage one another in every way that we can to not put Christmas away until another year! This is something to talk about with your friends and family when you open gifts, when you visit the relatives, when you enjoy delicious Christmas cookies, something to talk about as you begin to put the decorations away.
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