Christmas Eve message delivered by Rev. Dr. Linda McCoy on December 24, 2013
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Mike, our daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, and I spent a few days with my nieces and nephews and their families. The various family units had separate accommodations, and that worked quite well. There was a real benefit that we derived from being just our family in one spot, and that was a little extra time that we could spend just being together.
One morning, I had a very special wake-up surprise. I had slept in a little bit, nursing a cold, and our granddaughter had gotten up before me. At her Papa’s urging, she came in to wake me. The first hint I had of it was when she was nose to nose with me, and said happily, “Hi, Meme!”
As you can imagine, my eyes popped open, and there was this sweet little girl with a huge smile on her face, ready to give me a wake-up hug. My first thought was “Love, pure and simple love,” And that’s really what a child offers us — pure love. That seems to be what children know how to do best, and they are good teachers because they can draw forth love from us — love we may not have even known was within us.
In some mysterious way, that’s what Christmas is all about. It’s about love, and probably the closest we ever come to “getting it” is when we have the opportunity to experience it in our love for one another and in the love others have for us — especially through those who are closest to us.
Indianapolis native, pastor, and writer, Tom Ehrich, puts out a digital reflection most weeks, and just after Thanksgiving, he shared a very special happening in the life of his family. He lives in New York City and talked about a phone call he received from his son in California — a son who was crying as he called to tell his parents that their grandson, Gabriel, had been born.
He said that he and Gabriel’s grandmother ached to hear the baby’s sounds, and then Ehrich wrote, “Babies change everything in the homes that God assigns them….Babies remind us that God is never done…In the confusions and in the simple moments of clarity, God has more to say.”
We’re at one of those simple moments right now — Christmas Eve. All our waiting and preparations are over; this is what we’ve been waiting for, and the simple fact is that it was here all the time. It’s the love that we experience through the birth of a child — love that comes from God. It is God saying to us that no matter what we’re going through, we’re loved. No matter the questions and struggles we face, God’s answer is love. That’s all there is, and that’s what God does in this surprising even that we call Christmas.
I really like this reading that Delphia Cline Freeman wrote that kind of highlights what Christmas Eve is like for me. It’s entitled “The Meaning of Christmas.”
When the hustle and bustle is over
And the last of the gifts has been wrapped
And the cookies and cakes are all ready
For the big Christmas plans you have mapped;
When the children are quiet and dreaming
Of the presents Saint Nick will bestow,
And the fire on the hearth burns less brightly,
And the clock has struck twelve long ago;
You relax by the embers and ponder
On this happiest evening of all
On the meaning of Christmas to humankind
By Christ’s birth in the low cattle stall.
In the giving of gifts upon Christmas,
People pattern our God up above
Who, in giving the gift of Jesus, gave the very best gift of all
So the meaning of Christmas is love.
Love is the message of Christmas. Maybe Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best with these words:
“Love is an image of God, and not a lifeless image, but the living essence of the all-divine nature which beams full of all goodness.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
That’s who God is; that’s what the Christmas story is all about — the goodness, the light, the love of God.
Quaker Pastor Phil Gulley tells a story about the gift of love in one of his books, Christmas in Harmony. The key character in this story is a pastor whose name is Sam, and Sam shares a story about his grandfather, whose he described as a hard man to get to know. This grandfather’s favorite thing was spending time in his workshop in the barn behind his house. Each year on Christmas Day as Sam was growing up, l he told how his other always sent him out to the barn to thank his grandfather for the gift of $10 which he had received. His grandfather would acknowledge his words with a nod, and then return to his puttering.
Sam’s grandfather died right after Thanksgiving during Sam’s first year in college, and it fell to Sam and his dad to clean out his grandfather’s workshop. He was sorting through one of the boxes, and his dad was working at the workbench nearby when Sam heard an unfamiliar sound — a cough, and then what sounded like a sob.
There was his Dad standing by the workbench, his back to his son, crying. Same had never seen that before and wasn’t exactly sure what to do. He just went and stood by his dad, laying his hand on his dad’s shoulder.
After a few minutes, his dad collected himself and spoke to his son. He said that all these years, all he had wanted was for his dad, Sam’s granddad, to tell him he loved him, that he was proud of him, but he never did. “It was the only thing I ever wanted,” Sam’s dad said.
And then he went on, “I don’t ever want you to feel that way. I want you to know I love you, son. I’m proud of you, awful proud of you. Have been since the day you were born.”
Same said that those words were the best gift his father ever gave him.
Here we are on Christmas Eve, and I believe that’s what God is saying to you and to me. “I want you to know I love you. I’m proud of you….have been since the day you were born.”
That’s Christmas, and it’s love — simply love. Amen.
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