Christmas Eve (Luke 2:1-20)  12/24/2011

We are now late into the evening of Christmas Eve and I am quite certain that Santa and his reindeer have successfully navigated their way across the Atlantic and will be arriving shortly. And I hope I am not the first to tell you (and this might be especially important for the men to hear) but there are now zero shopping days left…no more time to run out to the store and buy that perfect gift. This year’s shopping season is now complete; a shopping season that has been closely watched and analyzed, with some good news and some bad news regarding our gift giving habits for this year. Overall sales for the season have apparently improved more than expected as compared to last year’s sales, and that’s the good news.[i] The bad news is that nearly 10% of everything that was purchased will be returned to the store, a few points above the return rate of a “good year” for retailers.[ii] Although there are many reasons for the higher return rate, “buyer’s remorse” is among the most common. “Buyer’s remorse” is the condition where people gaze upon the large pile of sale items they have purchased and begin to wonder if all the turkey and apple pie eaten on Thanksgiving may have caused them to lose their mind for a brief time. All the more reason to follow Santa’s advice and carefully make a list, and check it twice!

There was certainly no buyer’s remorse among the shepherds in the field on that first Christmas night. The shepherds were visited by the angel of the Lord and told of the birth of their Savior, Christ the Lord! We hear from Luke’s Gospel account that the angel informed the shepherds that the babe was with the holy family and lying in a manger, in the little town of Bethlehem. The Christ child was in Bethlehem, not in Jerusalem, the royal capital city. The Christ child was in a manger, not in a big majestic palace. This is surprising news because, like the Wise Men of the East who first go to Jerusalem, we expect the really great gifts to be wrapped in a special way and presented in the most magnificent manner. But the greatest gift given to us lay wrapped in a manger in the tiny town of Bethlehem. The angel told the shepherds that they were among the first witnesses of the ultimate gift; they were among the first recipients of the greatest gift of all; and the shepherds were amazed and they went out “glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen.” (Luke 2:20) Certainly, there would be no returning this gift, but there are far worse things that can happen to a gift than to be returned.

More than 15 years ago the movie Toy Story was released during the holiday season. This movie was the first of three popular animated movies that followed the imaginative world of a young boy named Andy and his toys. As the story begins we meet a friendly pull-string cowboy named Woody and we quickly learn that Woody holds the favored place as Andy’s favorite toy. But Woody and the rest of Andy’s toys have a problem: Andy’s birthday is just a few days away and hidden in the next room there appears to be some new and exciting toys in his future. Among these gifts is a futuristic space ranger action figure named Buzz Lightyear; and Buzz has all the fun and exciting improvements that only new toys can have. The animated movie is fun to watch and has something for people of all ages, but the energy behind the story’s plot comes from the concern that Andy’s favorite toys have toward these new gifts. Woody and his friends wonder if someday they will be shoved to the back of the closet; packed away in a box; suddenly irrelevant in Andy’s world. Andy’s toys understood an important truth of gift giving: many gifts are given to us; some gifts are returned; but some gifts, even some of our favorite gifts, are boxed away for a later time or perhaps simply forgotten as our time becomes devoted to new endeavors. The worry of the gift giver is that the shine of the gift will lose its luster.

On this holy night, the gift of the Christ child radiantly sparkles before us and the glory of the Lord shines bright, just as God’s glory “shone round about the shepherds.” Christmastide, in all its joy, stretches before us until we celebrate the light of Christ in the feast of the Epiphany. But the gift we have received this night, the gift of the Christ child, is a gift for all times and all seasons. The light of Christ will never lose its luster; but as children of God, as children who have received the greatest gift of all, we must not hide the radiance of Christ under a bushel basket and box up our relationship with Christ as we pack away the rest of our holiday decorations. Christ is with us today, tomorrow and for all seasons. On this holy night and throughout the entire year, may the love of Christ be our favorite gift of all. AMEN.