First Sunday After Christmas
Sermon: Pastor Kendra Mohn
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:1-18
Audio sermon link:
http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/FD4BFF81-E8F6-127D-B6A8-F9E9DD36A36F.mp3
It’s ten days after Christmas and the lights are starting to come down. More and more houses are shedding their nighttime signs of the season. Down and deflated are the pump-em-up Santa Clauses and even the lit up Nativity crèches. And, as witnessed in Pastor Mohn’s neighborhood, Santa on his Harley. Off the air are the “K-Mart Saves Christmas” commercials extolling the discount giant’s contribution to an otherwise deflated shopping talley. Commercial Christmas, having started immediately upon the heels of Halloween, is over. My wife said to me yesterday, “Don’t laugh … the swim suits are out already”.
Yes, commercial Christmas is gone, but in The Church, Christmas still persists. In fact, the twelve days of Christmas starts on Christmas Day and continues until the Epiphany. In the Church, we have as ense that Christmas needs to go on, needs to continue. Christmas is much bigger, much longer than we can cram into one day.
Christmas isn’t a day … it’s a season.
It’s a season to celebrate the light that has come into the world in the baby Jesus.
Pastor Mohn mentioned that while she’s amazed God sent His only Son to be born among humans, she’s even more amazed that He stayed!! His own did not accept him. But God is persistent. He didn’t come to stay for a day. He came to stay.
Parents of newborn children know the feeling. You prepare for 9 months for the miracle to arrive. Then you bring them home and the next morning, they’re still there! And the next, and the next, and all the next days. Your life is NEVER the same again.
So when the Santa on a Harley is deflated, where will the light of the real Christmas be? The Good News is … YOU’RE the light. WE’RE the light … for one another. In the apparent & real loneliness that often accompanies the dismantling of the lights of commercial Christmas, in the anti-climax of the hullabaloo of the shopping season, we are, all of us, sent out in to the darkness of the Monday morning world awaiting us again. We are sent into that darkness to BE His light for one another.
God sent Jesus, then the disciples, now us … to be lights for one another.
I was reminded of this watching and listening to my youngest child pray throughout Advent, but most especially AFTER Christmas. Often the dinner prayer started:
“For Barack Obama’s grandma and Pastor Mohn’s grandma … (who both passed away in November). For Santa who was bitten, that he’s OK (yes, NPR reported that a cat in New Jersey bit the Jolly Ol’ Elf only weeks before his fateful ride through the skies was to occur). And for the kids missing … that they find them.”
Even after Santa had been good to him, after the presents and the anti-climax, there was still Santa’s recovery, grandmothers’ souls, and missing children’s safety to ponder before a meal and at day’s end. My son’s voice in that moment is a light for me. I am obliged to Pay It Forward and contribute to the cost of the joint ride … to show concern, volunteer time and talent and treasure, to be there to bear a cross of those with more to carry than myself. Often a kind word and a smile will even suffice.
My son brought back memories of the children’s chorus in the Catholic Church where I grew up singing …
This little light o’ mine
I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, Let it shine, Let it shine …
The Good News?
K-Mart doesn’t need to save Christmas … because God sent Christmas to save us!
