Mary Talks about Christmas

          Today is December 21^st – the first day of winter and the shortest day of the year.  Today something happens that through the centuries has made people look out at the world and say: “This is as bad as it’s going to get. From here on out it’s all down hill. December 23^rd will be brighter and December 24^th will be brighter still. Each day is going to be longer. The light has started to increase.”

       We don’t do this in Southern California of course. We are not really much attuned to the seasons – because of our climate and because Edison provides electricity to drive away the night. But for hundreds of years – thousands of years – the people of the world have been vitally aware of times and seasons and have celebrated the passing of darkness. They have commonly chosen some time right after December 21^st for an enormous celebration.

       Why? The light has started to come back. From here on, if we’ve made it to this point; if we haven’t died, if sickness hasn’t taken us, if age hasn’t taken us, if the cold hasn’t taken us, if famine hasn’t taken us, if we managed to get over this hump, there is a good chance we will make it to spring.

       In the Roman Empire they celebrated. In the year 274 Emperor Aurelian declared that December 25^th was going to be a special day for celebrating the triumph of light – the birthday of the unconquered sun.

       Do you know how the Romans celebrated?  They decorated evergreen trees, they exchanged gifts, they did a lot of feasting, they sang songs, they decorated their houses with greenery and with lights, and they were particularly kind to poor people.

      So if someone from the Roman Empire were to be put right down in the middle of Ventura County tonight, he would feel almost completely at home?  He would see that this is holiday time and believe that the good people of Ventura County are worshipping the unconquered sun.

       Our guest from ancient Rome – the same guy who would put a Christian in the amphitheater to be killed by lions – would feel right at home. For he celebrated this time of year the way we celebrate this time of year – with almost all of the details correct.

       Then, or course, the Germans and the Norsemen also recognized December 21^st as a turning point. And they also had a big celebration a few days later. They got a log called a Yule log and burned it as an offering to their god of thunder and lightening – Old Thor. My own British Celtic ancestors celebrated. They spent their time kissing each other under the sacred mistletoe – which is how I got here.

       What this means is that if we were able to go into the Roman Empire or visit the barbaric people of the north at this particular time of year, we would look around and say: “I didn’t think they had ever heard of Christmas. But they have evergreen trees and beautiful lights and decorations and they are hugging each other and caring for the poor and there is a lot of good will going around. These people really have the Christmas spirit.”

       Jesus was probably born in the Spring.  It was not until some time between 325 and 350 A.D that December 25^th was first celebrated as the birthday of Jesus Christ.  When Christianity became the Roman religion under Constantine, it was the most natural thing in the world for the Romans to find a good Christian reason to continue their annual party. “Why don’t we just choose that day to celebrate the birth of Christ?”

       Now this is where some people get a bit carried away. For example, when the Puritans first came to the New World they knew that many Christmas activities have pagan roots. So they said: “Let’s ban everything that is suspect. No more evergreen trees, no lights, no mistletoe.” Do you know that for a while that it was illegal to make a mince pie? Mince was a controlled substance. The Puritans were not just the church. They were the government. It took a good long time before America began to celebrate Christmas in come of the ways the Romans and the barbarians celebrated the return of the light.

       So if what we do can be traced back to the Romans who were heathens or the Germans who were barbarians or the Norsemen who had some oddball ideas about their Gods, does it mean that if we use Christmas trees and lights and eat mince pies and have a big dinner, we are taking part in a heathen activity? I don’t really think so.

       You see, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with evergreens. God made them. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with lights. God is light. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with singing. God gave us voices. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with gifts. God gave us his only begotten Son. And there is nothing wrong with food. God made us people who eat and who socialize in our eating. There is nothing wrong with any of that.

       What is wrong is if this is where Christmas ends for us – if this is all our Christmas is.

       If you were to go to the Oaks Mall this afternoon and ask a hundred people: “What is Christmas?” you would get a variety of replies.

       One person says: “Christmas is a warm, happy time when we get the old Yule log and put it in the fireplace and the family gathers around and we get a bit of yuletide grog. Oh, I love Christmas!”

       You go to someone else and say: “As far as you are concerned, what is Christmas?” “Well, Christmas is the time of year when we go out of our way to fix the house up. We get a lot of cookies in and fruit and nuts and all that kind of thing. We want everyone to know that at Christmas we are a home of great hospitality.”

       You turn to someone else and say: “What is Christmas for you?” “Oh, Christmas is a time of year when we try to help the forgotten. We like poor people to realize once a year that we think about them. We take food baskets and we sing in rest homes. That is Christmas for me.”

       You ask someone else, “What’s Christmas for you?” “It’s Santa Clause. The old guy comes down the chimney and puts gifts under the tree. Boy, do we take it in!”

       But if you happened to be fortunate enough to be able to talk to the girl who was the human God blessed in order to visit this world, the girl who made the incarnation possible, you would hear something very different.

       She was a virgin, of course, and her name is Mary. She was probably the most highly favored teenage girl who has ever lived.

       You know, it is sad that in Protestant churches we almost totally ignore Mary. And yet she is a key to the gospel story. As Dr. Alexander White, a great Scottish theologian said: “We must give Mary her promised due. We must not allow ourselves to entertain a grudge against the mother of our Lord because some have given her more than her due.”

       It is doubtful Mary ever dreamed she’d be captured in marble or have her flesh and blood caught in stained glass. But Mary is an extremely dedicated girl. She is a girl of enormous faith, when the angel Gabriel talks to Mary, he asks her to believe some totally impossible things. She will give birth to a baby while she is a virgin. She will give birth to a baby as a result of the power of the Holy Spirit of God. She is asked to believe that she can call His name Jesus because this baby is going to save people from their sins. Furthermore, He will be called the Son of the Highest. Gabriel says, “You can call this baby any name that we now call God and it will apply to Jesus. He will sit on the throne of his father, David. He will rule forever. He will be called the Son of God.”

       This teenage girl, virgin, loved the Lord so much, she was so totally dedicated, she had such enormous faith, that she believed. She said to Gabriel, “Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it happen just the way you have said.”

       Do you remember what Mary said to her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, when she went to visit her? Mary said: “My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For He has regard for the humble state of his handmaiden. For behold, from this time on generations will count me blessed. For He who is might have done great things for me: and holy is His name. And His mercy is upon generation after generation of those who fear Him. He has shown strength with His arm.”

       Mary knows her Old Testament.  She knows that Isaiah had prophesied that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and he will be called Emmanuel which is God leaving heaven and becoming flesh and dwelling among men and women. Mary knows that.

       Now let me point out three things that may says she expects from this event of the birth of Jesus.  In her song, the Magnificat, Mary is looking for three revolutions.

       First, there is the moral revolution. Verse 51: “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.”

       Second, there is the social revolution. Verse 52: “He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree.”

       Third, there is an economic revolution. Verse 53: “He has filled the hungry with good things and he has sent away the rich empty handed.”

       Last Sunday in the candle lighting, Mary’s mother Anna referred to he as sweet and innocent.  That’s true in a sense.  But Mary was not innocent about the world system, economics or the need for change.  As you read Mary’s words you get the sense of why God chose Mary, beyond her bloodline or her personal purity.  He was well on the way to becoming the woman God wanted to teach His Son. 

       Mary was not frivolous or empty headed. She was biblically and politically and socially and economically aware. And if we read her words and don’t spiritualize the life out of them, it is clear that Mary was looking for the birth of Jesus to bring big changes. Mary is, quite frankly, a revolutionary.

       In fact, Mary’s words are so inflammatory that William Temple, late Archbishop of Canterbury, warned his missionaries in India never to read them in public worship. Christians were already suspected of trying to overthrow the rich get richer and the poor get poorer Indian caste system. And Mary’s words would sound like a call to arms. And it is certainly true that wherever the gospel takes hold, major social change occurs. God has come to stand human values on their head.

       But there is more to the gospel than even Mary understood at Jesus’ birth. Even Mary, for all her insight, didn’t understand the whole story until after the resurrection of our Lord.

       For all her uniqueness, Mary had normal feelings; scared, tired, lonely and too young. She knew the small town shame of being pregnant without a husband. She never heard their words but she could imagine them. She knew the strange beds and fatigue of waiting for her baby far from home. She traveled to crowded Bethlehem with only Joseph to comfort her. She was probably cold, too, in the stable or sleeping beside the road. She knew the mixed joy and fear and having a baby: the pain and the tiny hands, her own gasps and the first wail from a new voice.

       She then discovered the fear that others would hurt her child, for soldiers came looking to kill him. And she knew, later, what it meant to give up her child. Even at twelve years He established that He would not always stay around town. He was meant to be more than her son.

       Later Matthew tells in the 12^th chapter of his gospel that one time some people came to Jesus while He was teaching and said, “Your mother and brother are standing outside wanting to speak with you. Jesus replies, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then He points at His gathered disciples and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” From Mary’s point of view, you know that had to hurt.

       She gave her son up completely at the foot of the cross. She watched him die, slowly, of suffocation. She could not understand, as none of his followers did, what his purpose was in dying. For despite warning, He had gone deliberately toward death. Mary didn’t want this.

       Yet, she should have known. She was told. When Mary and Joseph took the eight day old Jesus to be dedicated at the temple, a priest named Simeon took Jesus in his arms and prophesied to Mary: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed. And a sword will pierce even your own soul – to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

       As her Son hung on the cross, Mary experienced the sword in her soul that Simeon had prophesied. She felt the pain.

       But Mary was also to experience something much more. She felt the pain but she also felt joy as she learned the truth of her Son’s victory over the grave. Mary experienced the cross but Mary also experienced the resurrection.

        When we last see Mary she is a part of the church. In the Book of Acts, we find Mary after the resurrection gathered with Jesus’ disciples. Luke writes that they were together “in one mind, continually devoting themselves to prayer.”

       Mary lost a child. But she gained a savior. And her gain is also our gain.

       I wonder if we could bring Mary into Ventura County this Christmas, and asked her to comment on our celebration, I wonder what she would say.

       Imagine that the first person to come along is the owner of the Martha Stewart outlet store in the whole county that has the largest Christmas sales. This woman comes up and she is excited. “Mary, it’s time for dinner. Have we planned a feast. You won’t believe the size of the turkey we got. And one of our wholesalers gave me a genuine English plum pudding. Come home with us Mary. We are gong to celebrate. But, uh, Mary, don’t bring Jesus. Babies can be such a bother. Maybe you could get Elizabeth to look after him.”

       Mary says: “My dear, creative friend, why don’t you forget your dinner and go out and find your God. Christmas isn’t dinner. Christmas is God in the flesh.

       The next person that comes up is the father of a big household – six kids, two boy, four girls, mom and dad, 1.4 pets. He comes to where Mary is and says: “Mary, guess what we did this year? It was great. We took our family and drove to the mountains and cut down our own Christmas tree – a beautiful silver tip, about 8 feet tall, and we took it home and the entire family decorated it. You should see the gifts piled under the tree. Mary, come in and be with us. We want you to celebrate with our family.

       “But father, Christmas is not a Christmas tree. It is not decorations. It is not food. It is not even family. Christmas is when I gave birth to the Son of God and if you can’t make a prominent place for God’s Son around your tree you are simply repeating what the Romans did two thousand years ago.”

       Finally, another person comes and says: “Mary, do you know what we are going to do tonight? We are going to sing. We got this group together and we are going to have a couple of drinks first to loosen our voices a bit and we are going to go out on the street and carol until midnight. Come with us, Mary.”

       “When are you going to get his straight? Christmas isn’t caroling. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against the tree or against caroling or against dinner. But I’ll tell you what I am against. I am against the fact that millions of people are celebrating the birth of my Son, and they have never given him the central place in their lives. I tell you this; it isn’t Christmas until you know the one who entered the world in that lonely stable and later died and rose again.  It isn’t Christmas until the Christ of Christmas lives in your heart. It isn’t Christmas until my holy child becomes your risen Savior and Lord.”