Christmas Eve 2022
Grace and Peace
Welcome home-
Whether you are here every week, or visiting family, or worshiping with us for the first time, we pray you feel at home.
Whether you are tired from travel, dazed from holiday parties, or crossing your fingers that the heat in your home doesn’t give out, may you feel the peace and joy of Christmas Eve- surrounded by songs and bells and candles and scriptures.
May you feel at home in the house of God
where you don’t have to do anything except be.
Sermon
There is the gift you ask for, and the gift you receive.
Every year at Christmas, my brother Joe asked for a dog, and every year, he got Legos or Ninja Turtles.
Every year my brother George asked for a power-wheels car, like one of those you can actually drive in, and every year, he got football jerseys or board games.
And every year, from ages 5 to 11, I asked for one thing, and one thing only:
An Easy-Bake Oven.
***
You know, that little contraption with a light-bulb heating element, so you make your very own miniature cakes and cookies? With an Easy-Bake Oven, I imagined hosting my own tea parties with delectable treats. And whenever I got sent to my room for punishment? I could just whip up a tiny batch of brownies to pass the time.
An Easy-Bake Oven, I knew, had the power to turn an ordinary afternoon into a wonderland of delights for a girl with an outsized sweet-tooth. Yes, visions of sugarplums danced in my head, and did cartwheels right out onto my bed as I envisioned my own petit patisserie.
***
There was only one problem. Mom said “No EZ Bake Oven; you’ll burn the house down.
It was the Pattison parent equivalent to that line from the movie “A Christmas Story”: where young Ralphie asks for a Red Rider BB gun and his mom says “You’ll shoot your eye out!”
Each year, I tried again, hoping Mom would change her mind- hoping she’d note my increasing level of responsibility and trustworthiness.
I grew up in Kansas, land of Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” and she’d promised: “The dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”
But every year, I got a doll, or a junior weaving loom, or a pack of stickers-
never an Easy Bake Oven.
There is the gift you ask for, and the gift you receive.
***
If there’s one thing I know to be true-
It’s that most things in life- even the painful things- contain a gift.
But we don’t always get the ones we ask for.
***
That day that Mary awoke to a sudden flash of light, what greeted her was not what she’d asked for.
That evening that Joseph dreamed of an angel visitor, what came next was not what he’d asked for.
That night that the shepherds were routinely tending their sheep, what resounded from heavenly choirs was not what they’d asked for.
***
Sometimes you’re just out there - standing in your field, asking for the same things you’ve always wanted:
More toys
Good health
Happy family
A loving partner
An easy holiday
And what you get instead is-
Well … not what you asked for.
***
In fact, sometimes it seems like your wish-list got accidentally mixed up with someone else’s, as you watch your own dreams coming true for other people- and not for you.
Anybody know the feeling?
***
But what the angels say to the shepherds, so they sing unto you:
“Don’t be afraid. Good news is coming.
Even though things might be hard and confusing and impossibly sad-
Even though you may not get what you asked for-
God is bringing good news of great joy,
for all people!”
And that includes you.
***
One of my favorite older church members is in her late 80’s, dealing with some dementia. She doesn’t always remember who I am, and sometimes asks me over and over again why I’m there.
But on my last visit with her, we talked some about church and family and life, her growing up years on a farm in Saugerties.
I stood up to get a glass of water and asked, “Can I get you anything?”
She smiled up at me: “Just lots of love.”
And before I left I said, “How can I pray for you?”
She said, “Just love me.”
***
It’s that simple, isn’t it.
It seems that what we need at the end of life, is the same thing we need at the beginning. And the middle, and everywhere in between:
Just love.
I wonder if that’s why God decided to come down as a baby.
Maybe God knew that a lot of words and ministries and activities weren’t necessary:
Just love.
***
Brennan Manning tells the story of a little boy named Richard whose mother was wrapping presents for Christmas. She asked her son to shine her shoes for Sunday, and so he polished them very diligently, and after presenting the shoes to her and beaming proudly in a way that only a 7-year-old boy can, his mother said, “Wonderful job!” And she gave him a quarter for his efforts.
The next morning as she was putting on her shoes to go to church, she felt a little lump in the toe of the shoe, and reaching down she found a quarter wrapped up in paper. Written on it in a child’s scrawl were these words from young Richard: “I done it for love.”
***
Speaking of-
I’m not sure there’s anyone in the world I love as much as my three nieces and nephew.
A few years ago, when they were still toddlers, their parents asked me for sensible gifts for the kids for Christmas:
Books.
Socks.
Sheets for their cribs.
***
But you know what I got ‘em, right?
EZ BAKE OVENS.
☺
That’s right.
I didn’t care that the box clearly said “For ages 8 and up.”
There’s the gift your parents ask for-
And there’s the gift your Auntie brings.
***
The people in Jesus’ day were looking for a king-
Someone strong and rich and powerful-
a leader with horses and chariots and sword-
But God had a different gift in mind.
***
“To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
And then angels started singing
And shepherds started running
And a young man and woman in a stable catch each other’s eye-
Because somehow that night-
In spite of it all-
Arrived the greatest gift of all-
not as we might have asked for
or expected-
but a baby who would one day grow up to heal us and feed us and save us and forgive us.
And he done it for love.
***
Let us pray.
Most Loving God, we believe.
Help our unbelief.
Amen.
Prayers of the People
Holy God,
Emmanuel- God with us-
We turn to you this Christmas Eve night,
Awaiting the promise of morning.
You know what dreams each of us holds.
You know the prayers we’re still waiting for.
You know that sometimes we have no idea what it means, to truly “keep Christ in Christmas.”
***
Maybe, like Mary and Joseph, we sense a promise yet to be filled in our lives, but right now there’s no room at the inn.
Faith can feel elusive, and finding the strength to leave the familiar is hard.
It’s hard to feel your love, when there are empty chairs at the Christmas table;
hard, when our family at times feels disappointing or dysfunctional;
hard, when we regress into roles we thought we’d left behind;
hard, when we realize another year’s gone by and our life isn’t where we wish it was and the world hardly looks like one visited by a Savior.
***
We especially pray tonight, for those on our hearts who are dealing with sickness and grief, sorrow and isolation.
We pray for those who do not have enough to eat this week, for those looking for sustaining work and affordable housing, for those suffering in places of violence, addiction, or abuse, and for those who haven’t yet found hope in any power greater than themselves.
***
As we pray, Jesus, help us to be your hands and feet in this world.
Show us how to be even a small part of the answer to our prayers.
Send your Spirit to guide us- that we might partner with you in feeding and healing your people. In being agents of forgiveness, freedom, and love.
***
Merciful God, no matter what we’re feeling tonight, no matter how little faith we have, or how fraught the family dynamics; no matter what presents we failed to remember or wrap, thank goodness we don’t have to worry about keeping Christ in Christmas.
***
For you are already here, in the midst of it all,
whether we invited you or not.
This is your story-
Your saving story-
May it be our story, too.
Our Father…