skippingchristmas

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12.06.09

2nd Sunday in Advent

SKIPPING CHRISTMAS

JEREMIAH 23:1-6; LUKE 1:68-79

What Is Christmas All About?

The Temptation to Skip It

My all-time favorite author is John Grisham

As a lover of courtroom shows such as Law & Order, I love the courtroom dramas he portrays in his novels
I first got hooked on his novels a number of years ago when Janie and I gave our son a copy of The Pelican Brief for Christmas
Not long after Christmas, Eddie came to me and said, “Dad, I just can’t get into this book you and Mom gave me,” so I told him to give it to me and I would read it
From that time on, I’ve been an avid fan, not only reading the books he publishes, but collecting them

Of all the novels he has published during his writing career, my favorite book of his isn’t a courtroom drama

Instead, it’s a little book that was published in 2003 entitled Skipping Christmas
During the Christmas season of 2004, that book came out as a movie entitled Christmas With the Krank’s
Tim Allen played the role of Luther Krank, a man who was incensed that his family spent $6,000 on the previous Christmas with nothing to show for it
With his daughter in the Peace Corps, he manages to convince his wife to skip Christmas for a year and put the money into a Caribbean cruise
That means no Christmas parties, no tree, no presents, and it also means they would not participate in the neighborhood Christmas decorating contest—one in which the entire neighborhood puts up an identical Frosty the Snowman on the roof of their homes

The story line is about how the neighbors react to the Krank’s decision to skip Christmas for a year

The strongest reaction comes from the man who organizes the neighborhood lighting contest, who is furious over the Krank’s decision
All seems to be going well with their plan until they begin to be snubbed by their neighbors who accuse them of being Scrooges, and who try to force them into the “spirit of Christmas”
The clincher comes when their daughter pulls a surprise visit home and expects them to be celebrating the holiday as usual

In certain ways, it’s a tempting idea—to disappear the day before Thanksgiving and reappear on January 2

That way, we could avoid the holiday hoopla entirely
We wouldn’t have to deal with fighting the crowds in the stores or worry about finding the perfect gifts and dealing with maxed out credit cards
We’d be absolved from attending all those holiday get-togethers, sending Christmas cards, and reading stale cards and letters from people who are absent from our life the other 364 days of the year
We might even be able to avoid eating Grandma’s or Aunt Edna’s fruitcake!
Skipping Christmas may actually give us a shot at experiencing peace on earth, goodwill to all, and it may even give us a true Silent Night

Consumer Christmas

In our consumer driven society, skipping Christmas is virtually impossible

The social pressure is too strong to resist—at least that’s what the Krank’s discovered when they tried to do it
Even an attempt to streamline our Christmas puts us at risk of being labeled a Scrooge or a Grinch
Christmas has become less about “peace on earth, good will to all” and more about creating conflict between friends and family who compete to outdo each other with the quantity and cost of their gifts and decorations
Christmas is often more about getting than it is about giving
In a very real sense, maybe we are already skipping Christmas without being aware that we’re doing it

What is Christmas all about anyway?

Literally, the word means “Christ’s mass”
Mass is a form of worship, usually involving the Sacrament of Holy Communion
Christmas is to be about the worship of Christ
That’s what the shepherds did when they heard the news and left their flocks to find the baby born to be our Savior
That’s what the Magi did as they traveled half a continent to kneel before a king, offering him their priceless treasures

But Christmas isn’t only about celebrating the birth of a baby

It’s about experiencing the gift of salvation that came into the world through that baby’s birth
It’s about hearing his teachings, following his example, experiencing for ourselves his death and resurrection, and receiving the new life that he came to bring
Christmas is about the full scope of the gospel—it’s about God coming to live among us and what that means for humanity

We are in danger of missing out on more than just presents if we decide to skip Christmas

When we allow all of the trappings of Christmas to become more important to us than the event we are supposed to be celebrating, we are cutting ourselves off from the storehouse full of blessings that God extends to us through the gift of God’s Son
The prophecy of Jeremiah and the song of Zechariah begin to give us the flavor of some of the blessings we will miss if we fail to understand and celebrate the significance of the Savior’s coming into the world

Missing the Christmas Presence

The Promise of a Shepherd

Jeremiah begins with a scathing rebuke of the leadership of Israel who failed in their responsibility to shepherd the people

The shepherd is a common Old Testament image for leadership
It’s a picture of what servant leadership is all about
The role of a shepherd is that of a caretaker, to provide for the needs of the flock and to maintain their health and security
A good shepherd is one who makes the needs of his flock his first priority
He leads them to safe pasture and quiet streams so they might find food and drink, he protects them from danger and rescues them from harm
When one wanders away from the flock, he finds it and gently leads it back to the fold
He calls each sheep by name and he knows their personal characteristics

This is the role that the leaders of God’s people were to perform

These were not the king’s people, they were God’s people
The king’s primary responsibility was to serve the people so that they, in turn, could serve God
Yet, instead of caring for them and providing for their needs, they exploited them and perverted justice
Instead of protecting them, they exposed them to danger
Instead of gathering them into the fold and leading them to God, they allowed them to turn from God and caused them to be scattered

In judgment,, God declares that these wicked shepherds will be removed and in their place God will raise up a Good Shepherd, the Righteous Branch of David’s line

This Good Shepherd will gather up all those who are scattered
He will give of himself to care for their needs, and he will execute justice and righteousness among them
The name of this new shepherd will be “The Lord our Righteousness”

Things We Will Miss by Skipping Christmas

Contained in this passage are those things that we will miss if se skip a true celebration of what Christmas is all about

First, we will miss the opportunity to have a relationship with the Good Shepherd
God’s promise is that God would be the shepherd of God’s people
God will see to it that the needs of God’s people are met
God will see to it that God’s people are safe and secure, and that justice prevails among them

The fulfillment of this prophecy came in the birth of Jesus Christ

It was no accident that the good news of the Savior’s birth first came to shepherds who were keeping watch over their flocks by night
It was no accident that they were the first to come and worship him
Their presence at the nativity foreshadowed Jesus’ life and ministry—providing for the needs of all God’s people, gathering all who have strayed into sin and bringing them back into relationship with God
If we skip Christmas, we miss the opportunity to experience the love and care of our Good Shepherd

Secondly, if we skip Christmas, we may miss the opportunity to return home

One of the responsibilities of the Shepherd is to gather all the sheep who have strayed and bring them safely back into the fold
The fold, of course, is the household of God
If we have no need for the Shepherd, we will have no way of being rescued, and we will be excluded from the family of God
Entrance into that family is through Jesus Christ and Jesus made it very clear that “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
If we skip Christmas, we risk remaining lost in our sin and losing our place in the family of God

Thirdly, if we skip Christmas, we will miss receiving God’s gift of righteousness

Righteousness means deliverance and salvation, and these are things that we are not able to do for ourselves
We are not able to be righteous on our own, for there is nothing we could ever do that would be good enough to earn God’s favor
The only way we can be made righteous is by the grace of God
Righteousness is given to us only through a relationship with Jesus Christ

Jesus is all about righteousness

He came to earth to make a connection between people and God, and to help us see that our righteousness is the gift of God’s grace
This Lord-righteousness is the exact opposite of the self-righteousness that dominates our life today, so different from the self-centered smugness that leads us to believe that we somehow deserve our good fortune
Our righteousness comes from God alone, and God makes us righteous through Jesus
Being just, honorable, and free from guilt is not a human achievement—it comes to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
If we skip Christmas, we miss the opportunity to be made righteous before God

Zechariah’s Song

Zechariah’s song, which he sang at the birth of his son, John the Baptist, reveals for us some of the other gifts of God’s grace that we will miss if we skip over the meaning of Christmas

We will miss the coming of God into the world and miss the presence and power of God in our daily living
To miss the presence of God is never to experience what true love is all about and never to know what it really means to live
We will miss the opportunity for salvation, and that is the primary purpose for Jesus to be born
His name means “God is salvation,” and the angel that appeared to Joseph made it clear that this was his mission
“You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
To miss God’s gift of salvation is to miss the mercy of God—to miss God’s gift of salvation is to be forever lost in our sin

Zechariah also says that the reason for the Messiah’s coming was to shine the light of heaven on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death

The writer of the Gospel of John describes Jesus as “the Light shining in the darkness” and that light is the source of life
That light shines so that we might see God; it shines to illumine the pathway to God
That light is the source of our hope, and to miss it is to miss the hope we so desperately need

Finally, to skip Christmas is to miss the possibility of finding peace

In the hectic world in which we live, we are desperate for even a little peace
To catch the true meaning of Christmas is to discover an oasis of peace in a world of chaos
Jesus came “to guide our feet into the path of peace”
There is no hope for peace on earth unless we first discover peace within ourselves
To miss God’s gift of peace is to miss one of the greatest gifts of all

Skipping Christmas may not be such a good idea after all

It’s so much more than presents and parties, decorations and trees
Christmas is about God giving himself to us and for us
To skip it is to miss those things we need the most—hope, love, joy and peace—all wrapped up in the best gift of all—Jesus Christ, God’s Son, our Savior