Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 18, 2016

                O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,

                Won’t you stand up for me?

                O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,

                It would save my sanity.

                Why do you lean so far away

                After all I had to pay?

                O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,

                Next year I’m going artificially.

                Yes, it’s that time of year again – putting up our real, Christmas tree.  Over the years, I have bought several kinds of Christmas Tree stands all of which despite their promises of easy, first-time- straight-up tree-raising usually left me reaching for the fishing line and eye-hooks. If I can get a tree up in under a half-hour without blue-smoke and uncharitable language it is considered a small miracle. Just ask my kids, all who, I think, now have artificial trees!  Hmm, I wonder if there is a connection.

                We actually seriously discussed whether we would put up a Christmas tree at all, this year. But very briefly. Even I would agree that the house would feel empty without its annual visit of a Christmas tree. We don’t go crazy in decorating the house for Christmas anymore but a Christmas tree is a no-brainer, a must. It will be a smaller one than the kind we had when the children were small. It’s snowing today, so it’s the typical sort of day when I go out to buy the tree. There are just some traditions, no matter how painful, that make the spirit bright.

                It strikes me how tempting it might be to set aside the meanings of a real Christmas. It becomes easy to leave it all boxed up in the attic or basement of our emotions and feelings. We begin to make excuses or rationalize why we are doing less to celebrate this unique event of a child born in a manger. Too many times, we grit our teeth and put on a happy face (which is hard to do at the same time) and persevere just to get through the holidays.

We lose Christmas bit by bit and convince ourselves that we are becoming too old, too busy, too sad, too overwhelmed, too unhappy, too poor, too sophisticated, too grown-up, too doubtful, too progressive, too skeptical to run to the manger with the shepherds and see that which has come to pass. So, we downsize Christmas to fit our moods and circumstances. We want Christmas to fit our lifestyles and beliefs.

“I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people,” (Luke 2:10). The angel said this to a bunch of hardened, tough, cold, grumpy, cynical shepherds who perhaps had seen it all out there in the wilds and wastelands. They had fought off wild animals and looked for lost sheep. Some good news on a cold night while tending their ungrateful, wandering sheep would be welcome. Good News might be interpreted as a hot coffee, a warm blanket and home fires burning. But look at what they would have missed if they had just hunkered down by their campfire and hadn’t run off and looked for a “child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger,” (Luke 2:12).

It might take a little work on our behalf to get to the Good News of Jesus’ birth. There are stones, sticks and potholes on the road to Bethlehem, especially in the dark, no matter how brightly shone the stars that night.  It’s Good News, not because it fits us, but rather because it doesn’t fit where we are or what we are or what is happening to us. It’s odd and unusual. That’s the point!  But at the end of this road is the One who incarnates the Love of God. For everybody, including and maybe especially you, this Christmas.

So, pass me the fishing line and the eye hooks, I have a Christmas tree to put up!

Dale