Full Disclosure

John 1:6-8, 19-28


Shawn and I watched the movie Elf last night. I know this is a favorite for some of us around here and I’d like to explore the whole concept of the “Christmas Movie.”

The Christmas Movie, has become quite the phenomenon. When I was a kid, it seemed like there were about 3 of these movies: The Grench, Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman. These movies are now lost among the hundreds of Christmasy movies and shows that come through the TV. They seem to all end up depicting the same scenes, despite their variances in plots and mishaps: maybe he was left home while the family went to Europe, maybe she kidnapped her date for family Christmas, maybe he’s losing the light competition to his neighbor, maybe that obnoxious brother has parked his RV in the driveway, maybe he’s killed Santa Claus and now has to BE Santa Claus. You know, everyday stuff.

In the end, the movie is always about love and family. The girl gets the guy, the child and parents are reunited, the feuding brothers call for a truce. Everyone exchanges gifts, and eats large turkeys, while the snow falls softly outside and for a moment all is calm, all is bright. For these shows, things become possible at Christmas, like in no other time. People tell the truth, they help each other, the lost return home, the prisoners are set free, wars cease. All kinds of miracles happen—Christmas miracles.

I picked movies to talk about our cultural ideas of Christmas. I’m guessing we’re all smart enough to know the difference. To not think that Santa might really pull through this time with that wish we’ve always had. But there’s still something about it all that holds sway with me. I feel the nostalgia creeping up in the fall, the second I start to smell cinnamon candles in the grocery story. It hits me when I see a snow flurry, hear a particular song, think of a Christmas Eve candlelight service, or a beautiful tree. The first time I saw this sanctuary all decorated, it caught my breath. Because Christmas is coming. In all of its glorious, magic, feel-good possibilities.

When we meet John the Baptist in today’s scripture, he is busy. He is crying in the wilderness, he is preparing the way, he is baptizing with water, he is testifying to the light, to the coming Messiah.

In our wider culture, Christmas is about Christ only in name. Even the local Christian radio stations talk more about listeners’ “favorite xmas memories” which are things like “decorating cookies with my mom” “finding the tree with my dad,” “snow.”
Nothing that sounds like the true meaning of the coming of an Incarnational God in the body of a human baby boy. It all sounds more like traditional family values and Northern weather.

Instead we have this strange, overly sentimental holiday which might have more to do with getting us all through the depressing slump of winter than anything else. A holiday in which we honor the celebrations instead of the true event. The way we might celebrate a wedding, more than a marriage.

And then we come to church, and it’s all ruined. We hear about buying less and giving more, about sacrifice and courage in the face of fear and change. We talk about Jesus. And we don’t sing Christmas carols. We’re not buying poinsettias. We honor the waiting, the coming before we honor the presence. To that end, Christmas is just the beginning. It’s the birth of God Among Us. Not the day that it all is unwrapped, opened, and then quickly put away.

The thing I love about cultural Christmas, is the hope and joy. And maybe not everyone needs Jesus for that, but I do. And maybe Christmas ought to be just about Christ. And the Winter Festival of Hope and Joy can be for everyone else.

I wonder if our churches haven’t become more like Christmas and less like Christ. I wonder if we haven’t replaced Christ with warm, accommodation, if we have become culturally comfortable instead of radically disreputable.

John the Baptist is radical. He lives on the fringe of society and preaches an urgent message of quick repentance. He baptizes with water, as part of a cleansing ritual of purification in the face of the end times. Jesus comes to baptize with water and the spirit, as the Son of God.

To those who interrogate him, John tells them who he is not and who he is. He is not the Light. He is the voice crying in the wilderness. John knows his reason for existence, his purpose, and the one whose way he is preparing. As we prepare for Christmas this Advent, do we know for whom we are preparing? Are we repenting?

Like John, we are to testify to the light. Not the trappings of the holiday, but the light that it’s supposed to celebrate. Not the sentimental light, not twinkly lights, but true blazing light. Not light that sparkles politely in the night. The light that ends all darkness. The light of a baby who turns out to be God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, lying in a dirty trough, tiny, helpless, and squalling. What can we do with that other than drink another cup of eggnog?

From the very beginning, God chooses to be in the suffering. God doesn’t come as an earthly king, not into a rich family, not to experience the luxuries of wealth, but the realities of poverty, dirt, and hard work. The incarnation reveals exactly what kind of God we’re dealing with. A God who comes to us as both God and Human Being. Who comes as a baby—helpless and dependent—unable to do anything but the most basic of creaturely functions. And born into a poor family at that, with young, unmarried parents, who couldn’t find a decent hotel to stay in.

The baby grows up to become a man, who, like John the baptizer, is not always someone we’re comfortable with. But someone we’re supposed to testify about.

Words like witness and testimony have become like the bogeyman in many of our churches. We don’t witness to Jesus, or testify about our faith, because then we sound like THOSE Christians: the pushy kind, those who debate people on the street, who say things like “if you were to die tomorrow, where would you spend eternity?”

Instead, I think we need to reclaim those words. Instead of thinking of winning a debate, of converting another person as a competition, in the purest sense, testimony just means telling our story. It means witnessing to the light of Christ in our lives, whether or not we are convincing. It doesn’t mean memorizing scripture to be able to proof text it in a theological street fight.

We all need to be able to tell our story, of how we got here, and not just how we came to be at Washington Street, whether it’s been 40 years or 30 minutes, but how we understand the pull that God has on us, the claim that Jesus has on our lives, the Holy Spirit that we feel moving.

I’ve had to tell my story a lot, and it’s never been in a church service. It’s usually with a group of other preachers, and we call it “THE CALL STORY.” It’s deeply personal, but it’s fair game in almost any gathering that we will tell of our callings. Even these aren’t necessarily about how or why we’re Christians, just how or why we think we should be ministers. The Christian part goes something like this” Well, I was raised in the church and as a I grew up, I found that I still found my faith in church teachings.” Everyone nods knowingly and we go on to talk about family reactions and so forth.

John came to testify to the light. I am not the light. I have no confusion that I am anyone’s savior, but the more I see and experience of humanity, I realize that we are deeply, deeply in need of a redeemer. It makes sense to me that a divine “thing” would have created this world and everything in it, that it didn’t happen by accident, however it happened. But that belief doesn’t make me a Christian. It just means I’m not an atheist.

With all our pain and brokenness, it’s hard to breath sometimes, just thinking about it all. We are not all fine on our own, even with a loving God somewhere, it’s not enough. When God the Word came to live on the earth as Jesus, God validated us in a wholly unique way. God said not only have I created you, but I am one of you too. God came and validated and honored our existence and our life: our joys and our pains, the full spectrum of all that it means to be a human person. When he died, he just went that much further, to share death, the immortal God, sharing in death and suffering, and then he vanquished that death once and for all.

And that’s the kind of God I believe in. The kind that lived in a human body, and allowed himself to break in order to save the world.

The hope and joy of the season, radiate from and point back to the hope and joy and promise of Jesus. It’s kind of nice to see everyone embracing these and striving for happiness and joy and merriment. But it’s also sad, like in so many instances, we cherish and celebrate the effects of something, instead of the actual thing. Perhaps it’s because the party, the celebration is much more fun then the actual event, then the actual caring and raising of a baby. Or we don’t know what to do with Jesus. It’s nice when he’s a baby even if it’s weird that he’s also God. But he’s manageable, small, and sweet. But he grows up, lives a strange life, and dies a gruesome death. We don’t get to keep the Christmas Jesus, the tiny omnipotent baby God. Our sweet images of baby Jesus will soon be replaced by an embarrassingly skinny, rib showing, half-naked man nailed to a cross. Then that will be replaced by an even stranger image of a scarred man dressed in white ascending into heaven. Maybe Santa Claus and flying reindeer really do make more sense.