I don’t preach very often anymore, but I was given the opportunity yesterday, on the 4th Sunday in Advent. For those who are interested, here is the sermon. Christmas blessings to one and all!

After today, there are only three more days until Christmas.
So…
Watch out.
Be careful.
Pay attention to what you say and to what you say you wish for.
That’s it.
That’s this morning’s sermon.
Got it?

Of course there is a backstory.
So before you label me a grouch or the grinch or just a grumpy old man, here it is.
I love Advent and Christmas.
I love the decorations.
I love our tree in our front window adorned with a lifetime of ornaments.
I love the lights on our neighbor’s house.
I love the Santa ski by the front door.
I love our collection of creches pulled out of their boxes and placed in their assigned spots around our house.

And, I love the carols and the music.
Playing in the car while I am running errands.
In our dining room as we light our Advent candles and eat dinner.
Even the piped in music in the stores when I am shopping.
I often find myself humming or singing along.

And, I love the memories.
My brother’s disappointment with the gift of a brand new bike hidden under a blanket because what he really wanted and what he thought was under that blanket was a hippopotamus.
And, I love watching those whom I love the most unwrap their gifts on Christmas morning.
And, for me and maybe you as well, I love all the times I have sat in a darkened sanctuary and looked at all the lit candles as we sang Silent Night together.

This year as our decorations began to be carried up from the basement and take their assigned places around our house, and the music of the season began to fill the air, a line from a prayer I often used sometime during Advent or at Christmas unexpectedly became unforgotten and pushed its way back into my consciousness and has become something of an ongoing meditation for me as we have moved through these Advent days. The line from that prayer is this: O God, give us not the kind of Christmas we want, but the kind of Christmas we need.

I know the kind of Christmas I want.
I want soft edges and a warm glow.
I want candlelight and Silent Night.
I want the beauty and poignancy of that moment to last.
I want the candle’s reflection in the faces I see to linger not just on their faces, but to burn in their hearts even after the candles are blown out.
I want there to be safety.
And contentment.
And that profound quiet which pushes deep within heart and mind and soul, and settles us.
Settles us with who we are and where we are and who we are with, even if it is just with ourselves.
I want that kind of Christmas.
But, I am pretty sure that is not the kind of Christmas I need.

My Advent pondering of that forgotten, now remembered, line from the prayer also led me back to this reflection by the author, Annie Dillard, from her book Teaching A Stone to Talk. She writes:
On the whole I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of
conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely
invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children
playing on the floor with the chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday
morning. It is madness to wear ladies straw hats or velvet hats to church; we should all
be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares: they
should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense,
or the sleeping God draw us out to where we can never return.

So, I wonder…
What did we sing just a few minutes ago?.
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus?
Really?
Do we have any idea what we are asking for?
And, if Annie Dillard is right…
Like I said, after today only three more days until Christmas.
Be careful.

Which brings me back to this.
The kind of Christmas I need.
And, this is where it gets hard. At least for me.
All those Advent readings which we have heard again these past four weeks…
Of swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.
Of lion and lamb lying down together.
Of the blind seeing and the deaf hearing.
And, that simple story which I have heard and read hundreds and hundreds of times which we will hear again in a couple of days. That simple, and yet not so simple, story…
Of the birth of a child.
Of shepherds watching sheep.
Of unexpected angels
The kind of Christmas I need is for those poetic words of the prophets and that simple story of the birth of a child to suddenly become stripped of their warm glow and their holy halos and slam into the comfortableness and safety of my life.

I think, like many of you, I long for that something more which sometimes tugs at the edges of my life. Especially at Christmas..
That something more not just for you and me, but for us all.
And, I am left wondering,
With Annie Dillard’s reflection echoing in the background
Am I courageous enough to say Come Thou Long Expected Jesus and to mean what I say.

So, the kind of Christmas I need…
I need a Christmas which shakes the ground under my comfortable and secure life.
I need a Christmas which stops me in my tracks and buckles my knees.
I need a Christmas that knocks me down and then picks me up stronger.
I need a Christmas which reminds me..
That it is not Pax Romana. The Peace imposed by Rome.
That it is not Pax Americana.
That it is not Pax Gunboats and drones…
That will begin to turn our lives and our country and our world right side up.
I need a Christmas which reminds me again and again of the deep and provocative promise of the  Peace of God.
Found in all having enough and all having a place.
Found in acknowledging we are all in this together.
Found in requiring my stepping back so others can step forward.
Found in that life shaking realization that the human and the holy meet again even in, especially in, this very fragile life which is mine. Which is yours. Which is ours. And, which is theirs.

And, amidst the blare and barrage of the headlines and the whirlpool of doomscrolling, this Christmas I need to regain eyes to see and ears to hear the angels who still come.
I need to be able to see and to recognize them for who they are.
The angels who proclaim Glory to God by whispering in the ears of those in need “You are not alone. I will stand with you.”
The angels who proclaim Peace on Earth by refusing to back down from or to turn away from anything which demeans or demonizes or diminishes any one of God’s children.
The angels who tell me, who tell you, that in the midst of it all, hope is born again and waits to be found. Found sometimes in the most unexpected of places if we will but let go and follow.

I don’t want to give up on or to lose the kind of Christmas I want, because, in some ways, that kind of Christmas sustains me.But, in the end, if I believe what I say I believe.
If we believe what we say we believe…
Swords into plowshares.
Spears into pruning hooks.
The blind seeing.
The lame dancing.
The mountains and hills being brought low.
The rough places being made smooth.
That is hard, hard, hard work.

So what I need this Christmas, along with the carols and candlelight, is this.
An unsettling reminder.
And courage enough.
And a vision so compelling that it pushes back my cautiousness and carefulness, and opens my eyes to see and my ears to hear and my hands to action.
So ushers…
Instead of a “Good morning.” and a bulletin…
A signal flare and seatbelt, please.
And maybe even a crash helmet.
Because, at my best and in my best moments, I want to be ready for God when God comes.

What about you?