Cleaning Up After Christmas

Cleaning Up After Christmas

What was it like about this time yesterday at your house? Was it nice and quiet and peaceful? ….

Who doesn't remember the thrill of getting up on Christmas morning and racing to the Christmas tree to see what Santa brought us?  After that, there’s a great breakfast and trips to grandparents and relatives.  We usually have our traditional Christmas Tex-Mex meal. As children, Christmas morning was a magical time in our lives that none of us ever forget. As we grow older, that Christmas morning joy doesn't disappear.  We re-create that joy for ourselves, our friends and our children. Christmas morning is a time filled with exhilaration, gratitude and hope.  We still enjoy opening gifts with our family members and sharing memories with them of other Christmas mornings. It wasn't only getting and opening up gifts that made Christmas mornings special in our lives.  Those trips to church and to visit relatives, the music, the food, the fire crackling in the fireplace are all part of what made those mornings so special. So special, in fact, that we carry them with us our whole lives.

After the excitement of opening gifts come the chore of cleaning up the wrapping paper and boxes that the gifts came in.

I thought about cleaning up after Christmas…

Luke 2:19-24 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. 21 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived. 22 When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."

I.          Precious Memories

I remember one Christmas where the SS class of young married couples invited the senior adult SS class to their party. We went around the room sharing our favorite Christmas memories. What a great time … what precious memories.

Assignment … write down your favorite thoughts and memories from Christmases past and present.

Start a notebook. Cherish those moments each year as you add to your collection.

a. V. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

b. John 15:20 Remember the words I spoke to you:

c. John 16:4 I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.

In Hank Ketcham's comic strip "Dennis the Menace," Dennis asks his father, "Why can't Christmas ever go into overtime?" It's a good question. It's a great idea! All we could ever imagine, could ever hope for, He is. ... He is the Prince of Peace whose first coming has already transformed society but whose second coming will forever establish justice and righteousness. All this, and infinitely more, alive in an impoverished baby in a barn. That is what Christmas means-- in a place where you would least expect to find anything you want, to find everything you could ever want.

II.       Normalcy Returns

a. V.20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

b. Luke 17:22-25 Then he said to his disciples, "The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 Men will tell you, 'There he is!' or 'Here he is!' Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

In "A Carol for Children" Ogden Nash picked up the rhythm of the carol "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" Two of the stanzas are these: "Oh, dimly, dimly glows the star Through the electric throng; The bidding in temple and bazaar   Drowns out the silver song.       Two ultimate laws alone we know,  The ledger and the sword--  So far away, so long ago  We lost the infant Lord."

In the Indian Ocean there is a Christmas Island; an almost lost, isolated speck of land. There is another Christmas Island, an equally isolated speck of land almost lost in the Pacific Ocean. Christmas is always an island; an island of hope in a world of despair, an island of love in a world of indifference, an island of giving in a self-centered world. Come to Christmas Island!

III.    Prophetic Name

a. V.21 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.

b. Matt 5:17-18 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets ; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

c.  Luke 10:24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it." 

When Jesus was born, the whole course of human history was changed. Art, music, literature, Western culture itself with all its institutions and Western man's whole understanding of himself and his world changed. It is impossible to conceive how differently things would have turned out if that birth had not happened. And there is a truth beyond that: for millions of people who have believed since, the birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it.

Isa 9:6-7 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.

IV.    Obedient Act

a. V.22-23 When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord")

b. 2 Cor 2:9 The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything.

c. 1 Peter 1:14-16 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." 

Residents of Wauconda, Illinois refused to let the plug be pulled on Christmas. Two water towers had always served as landmarks for travelers heading for their homes near Wauconda, Illinois. But especially at the holidays. More than 40 years ago, John Kuester, then village police chief, suggested mounting large twin lighted crosses on the towers to mark the season. The display of crosses became a tradition. But in 1989, Robert Sherman, spokesman for American Atheists, Inc., heard about the crosses. Since Wauconda's crosses were on government property, Sherman saw an alleged violation of church and state. He delivered an ultimatum: remove the crosses from the water towers or meet in court. Several town hall meetings followed. Resident Joyce Mitchell, a member of Crossroads Community Church, asked God to give her the right words and right spirit before each meeting. "The Christians in the community were united with the rest of the community--whether they were churchgoers or not--in refusing to let some outsider tell us how to celebrate Christmas." Realizing a similar case had lost in court, the residents of Wauconda opted not to fight the order. Then a grassroots group of residents had the final say. "Our business, Wauconda Boat Company, is located across from the village hall," resident Rosemary Buschick explains. "The meeting about the crosses was on a Tuesday night, and when it was over, we knew the crosses would have to come down. Then my husband, Chuck, went to the back room of the shop and constructed a window-sized cross with lights to display the next day. Will Shumaker, whose home appliance store is also on Main Street, also put up a cross. Within weeks, crosses were appearing on houses everywhere--attached to antennas, stuck in yards, beaming from trees, shining in windows. It seemed to just happen." When Joyce Mitchell drove around the village with her daughters, who were 6 and 9 at the time, she began to cry. "The media portrayed us as losing the fight, but we didn't lose. Two crosses had been replaced with hundreds. God was glorified in the end."

V.        Required Sacrifice

a. 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."

b. Rom 3:23-25 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.

c. Eph 5:1-2 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Praise God for Christmas. Praise Him for the Incarnation for Word made flesh. I will not sing of shepherds watching flocks on frosty night or angel choristers. I will not sing of stable bare in Bethlehem or lowing oxen wise men trailing distant star with gold and frankincense and myrrh. Tonight I will sing praise to the Father who stood on heaven's threshold and said farewell to His Son as He stepped across the stars to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. And I will sing praise to the infinite eternal Son who became most finite a Baby who would one day be executed for my crimes.

 Praise Him in the heavens.

 Praise Him in the stable.

 Praise Him in my heart.