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A Sermon Preached at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, Oak Park, IL
on Christmas Eve 2007
the Rev. Paris Coffey
on Luke 2:1-20

I inherited my father's love of Christmas, and along with it, his belief that when it comes to Christmas there's no such thing as over the top - no such thing as too many gifts, too many lights or too much Christmas music, and certainly no such thing as a Christmas tree too big. The bigger the better - unless your space is small - in which case a slim, TALL tree will have to do. In fact, the tall, slim trees behind me were given in my father's memory long after he died at the age of 61. In truth, though, every Christmas since childhood has been for me in some way a tribute to my father or at least to the influence on a daughter of a father's fervor for Christmas.

I have always loved Christmas, and yet this year was strangely different, beginning with my "yes" to an artificial tree. For years my husband Michael pleaded for a smaller, easier tree (by which he meant an artificial one) but I resisted. This year, though, I initiated the idea, purchasing online a tree that was shipped to our house and upon arrival, fully assembled - lights and all - in less than 30 minutes. Nevertheless, it stood undecorated for days, and when I finally did begin hanging ornaments, it was a slow process. Oh, it's often slow, since we have many ornaments, but this year it was solemn as well. "Baby's First Christmas," I read pensively on a handmade bell given to our daughter Sarah when she was four months old. "Sam C.," read another, this time on the back of a figure resembling the Hulk in Christmas garb, shaped by the preschool hands of our son Sam. All had a story to tell, and as I hung each ornament I reflected on its story and on the person whose life and love it represented.

Finally, the tree decorated, I went to wrap out-of-town gifts, most of which I had purchased during the year. Shopping for gifts in this season may be the only thing I don't love about Christmas, although I do love wrapping them. This year, though, instead of spending hours elaborately wrapping each gift, I simply closed the already colorful boxes with Scotch tape and stuck a gift tag on them. Not surprisingly I was finished in no time, which turned out to be a blessing since my mother - who had recently been hospitalized with congestive heart failure - took a turn for the worse. My daughter Sarah and I left for Virginia, which meant that the two of us - along with my brothers, nieces and their children - spent the better part of the week before Christmas in a hospital room.

True to form, the first thing I did when I arrived was to bring my mother's tiny pre-lit tree to the hospital. Later a red Poinsettia and vase of Christmas flowers arrived, but beyond that we did little but talk, laugh, pray and hold our mother's hand. It didn't seem much like Christmas, at least not the ones we had grown up with. I suppose, though, it did feel like Advent - that season of waiting and watching - which in truth it still was. In fact, I kept hearing the beautiful voices of St. Christopher's choir singing Martin How's anthem from this year's Advent Lessons and Carols. Entitled Advent Message, the words of this anthem repeat simply, "Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. Come."

These words became my prayer, my mantra, if you will, although I wasn't sure what I meant when I prayed them. Come take my beloved 88-year old mother home to you, Lord? Come heal her so that we can take her home? Come fill us all with the assurance of your presence? I don't know. I do know, though, that in this prayer in my mother's hospital room I created space in my heart for Christ to come. And he did - not in any carefully defined or anticipated way - but in some mysterious, unexpected way, the way God comes to us in Bethlehem.

Yesterday - Sunday, December 23 - I flew home from Virginia to be with my family in Oak Park and with you, my St. Christopher's family, for Christmas. My mother unfortunately was no better. Indeed, having fallen earlier in the week and broken her hip, she was worse. Her hip had been surgically repaired and in time would mend, but congestive heart failure was still a concern. It wasn't easy to leave her, especially in the hospital at Christmas, and yet I knew that God was there/that Christ had come - not just to me but to my mother who was ready to let go of life or to get better if that was possible, to my brother Steve, who recognized more deeply that the recent loss of his job was a gift allowing him to be our Mother's caretaker, and to all of us who understood with gratitude that what we had inherited from our parents was not just a passion for Christmas, but an abiding faith in Jesus Christ/Emmanuel - God with us.

I arrived home last night about six o'clock in the evening. I knew the next day was Christmas Eve, but I was tired. Family gifts had not yet been bought or wrapped, my Christmas sermon hadn't been written, and our cupboards were bare. None of it, though, really mattered for I knew that Christmas would come - will come - if we make room in our hearts to receive it. Still, receiving it is not enough, for we must also bear God's light and love/God's comfort and joy into the world, especially into life's dark and broken places. This, in fact, is an essential part of the incarnation as Meister Eckhart, one of the Church's great mystics, reminds us in his question, "What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to Him in my time and my culture?"

That was some 700 years ago, but nothing much has changed, for God still has no hands and feet but ours, no eyes or ears or arms or mouth but ours. Once God had the hands and feet - and heart - of Jesus, born as a baby smack dab in the middle of human vulnerability to offer us a different vision of the world. His vision, though, always included us, for he came not as a magician waving a magic wand to change the world, but as a baby reaching out in love to change the human heart so that through us the world might be changed.

How else would God's vision of peace on earth be fulfilled? How else could Emmanuel - God with us - continue to act and speak except through our words and actions? God with us in good times and bad, in places of darkness as well as light, when all of the human things/the earthly things do not line up exactly the way we think they should because lining things up just right is not how God operates. Rather, God's Presence manifests itself in the ordinary but disorderly, the dark but penetrable places of life where Christmas comes with true power and where God enters our hearts with greatest glory - in the humble, vulnerable, sad, broken, messy, noisy, unmanageable, human places of life.

God comes to us and works through us, calling us to celebrate his coming with joy, unlike the mother who brought her little boy to the late service with her one Christmas Eve. Already in his pajamas, the boy was sleepy but excited, sitting as quietly as he possibly could on the hard church pew. Occasionally he would fidget, turning around to smile happily at those behind him, but no one was bothered. On the contrary, the child delighted everyone within view, with the exception of the boy's mother who after about the third time gruffly turned her five-year-old son around in his seat. "Stop grinning," she said in a loud whisper, "You're in church!" Quickly the boy dissolved into tears. "That's better," said his mother, regaining her illusion of control. I say "illusion" because; despite our best efforts, Christmas is not about control. Ask Joseph, who finds no room at the inn for his VERY pregnant wife. Ask Mary, who gives birth in a stable and lays her first-born son in a cattle trough. Ask parents, children or spouses who've suffered with a loved one facing illness or death, or someone who has lost a loved one this time of year. In fact, ask anyone past the age of maybe twelve if Christmas is about control and they will tell you that quite the opposite, "Christmas is about our deep need for God and God's transforming presence with us in the midst of life." It's about God with us in life's messy, broken places as well as places of light, but just as importantly Christmas is about God in human hearts. In fact, in this sense maybe my father was right. "Bigger is better when it comes to Christmas," for with hearts overflowing with God's love we are strengthened to be Christ's incarnation of light in the world, of peace on earth, and of goodwill towards all people.

Amen.