Waking Up to Christmas

Luke 2:15-20

Christmas Eve

William G. Carter

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

It was a beautiful Christmas Eve service, a lot like this. The white lights sparkled. The music warmed every heart. The Bible stories carried everybody to another time and place.

As it concluded with a musical flourish, everybody stood to depart and go home. Everybody, it seems, except for one woman who sat about halfway back on the aisle. The ushers waited patiently as she sat in silence. Finally, they looked at their watches. The evening chores were finished. It was time to lock up and go home.

So one of the ushers approached her, cleared his throat, and she looked up with a beatific smile. As if to explain herself, she said, “It all seems like a dream, and I don't want to wake up"

We know, don’t we, what she was speaking about? Christmas Eve was a moment of deep beauty. The music transported all present to another place. There was a thick presence of peace in a room accurately called a sanctuary. Nobody wanted it to end.

But may I go on record? When Christmas morning comes, I would like to wake up.

There is a popular distortion of that word “spirituality.” The distorted view is that we can be removed from the world. The intent is to get out of the mud where everybody else resides. The goal is to be lifted into heaven, and thus be fished out this mess. But that’s the dream – the false dream. Christmas calls us to wake up to reality.

This little baby whose birth we celebrate was raised by a carpenter. He had splinters in his hands. He probably hit his thumb with a hammer. So consider this: if God didn't like the physical world, he should not have created it. If God didn't love the world, God should not have come to it. If God didn't care for the poor and the needy, the baby Jesus should not have been found among us as a peasant infant, placed in a feeding trough, and raised by day laborers.

But it is precisely because God does love the world, the real world, the physical world, that Christmas happens. It was God’s way of saying, “Wake up. This life matters.”

Christian faith is not primarily about the next life. It's about this life, the only life we have. When the New Testament speaks of “life of eternity,” it is pointing to a quality of existence that begins here and now. God has come among us in Jesus. As we trust this as truth, true life proceeds. When we wake up to this truth, we live as if life matters. Sometimes we have to make some changes to embrace it, especially to rid ourselves of the toxic dreams.

Like the Lake Wobegon story about the Lutheran minister who went Christmas shopping. He was tired and weary and worn-out, even before he drove thirty-five miles to the Mega-Mart. Then he had to fight for a parking space, was shoved around by the crowds, treated rudely by the stressed-out sales clerks, all beneath those strange lights designed to drive you slowly insane. And he said, “Why? Why am I doing this, all to buy a video game called ‘Annihilation’? Why? Who’s running Christmas?”

For him, it was a wake-up call, a moment to step out of the strong current of consumption, to look for an alternative to Annihilation. Yes, there is violence in the real world; even know King Herod is convening his soldiers to try and snuff out the Light of the world. Because of Jesus, we know Herod is stuck in his own bad dream. When we wake up to Christmas, we don’t have to live by the nightmares of consumption and violence. Simplicity and compassion are the holy gifts given to be shared.

At the heart of Christmas, we wake up from the false separation of flesh from spirit. When Jesus is born, body and soul are held together. When we recognize God in this little child, we are affirming God has a blood stream, calluses on the feet, and avoids eating bad fish. As certain as Jesus was transfigured into a pillar of fire, he came down to heal a child with epilepsy. The bright mountaintop and the dark valley are held together.

What we are singing tonight is that heaven and earth intersect. God and sinners are reconciled. Word takes flesh, so we shall not separate what God has joined together. We wake up to see the wonder of what it means to have the creator of heaven and earth living among us. It means every life has been dignified by the presence of God – your life matters, your neighbor’s life matters, the poor and the needy are God’s royalty.

So maybe we step out of time for a few minutes tonight. We light our candles and sing our carols. And we do this, not to escape the world, but that we might enter it more deeply. Not to run away from pain, but to welcome the healing that comes from the mercy and peace of God.

And that means tomorrow, when we walk up, we get about living as if God is truly with us. Thanks to the birth of Jesus, the Word can take flesh once again - in us.

There’s a poem from the Quaker mystic Howard Thurman called “The Work of Christmas.”(1) I can’t think of a better description of what it means to wake up to Christmas. So let me put it into the air and let it do its work:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

Sleepers, awake. Christ is born, right here, in the real world.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

(1)  "The Work of Christmas" in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations (1985)