Luke
2:1-20
“Welcome
Home” for Christmas
I don’t know if you are likely as
me to read church signs as you drive down the highway. A few years ago, I noticed a whole book of
them, in the country-store area at the Cracker Barrel. There must be a newsletter, or an on-line
resource or folks are just really quick in copying each other, because once a
creative church sign goes up, it seems to go up at a lot of places at the same
time.
My new favorite from this Christmas
season; spotted somewhere down near Ware Shoals reads: “Are you part of the Inn
group, or one of the stable few?” Get
it? “Inn group,” spelled i-n-n, the inn
where there is no room for Mary and Joseph.
Contrasted with the “Stable few” - there were only a few who gathered in
the “stable” in order to adore the Christ Child. Maybe it loses something when you can’t read
it for yourself. (It surely loses a lot
when someone tries to explain what it means.
Sorry about that….)
My all-time favorite sign message
is somewhere between here and the church where I spent my first 20 Christmas
eves. That the sign is on the highway
to the rural area in North Carolina where I spent my first 20 Christmas’ might
have something to do with it being my favorite.
My number one, all-time favorite church sign had a very simple
message. It read: “Come Home for
Christmas.”
At the risk of ruining another
creative message, let me try to explain why this one moves me so deeply.
“Come Home for Christmas.”
The Christmas story is built upon
the lack of a “home” for baby Jesus and his family. The Christmas story exposes that home is not
so much a physical place as it is a place of welcome and comfort. The Christmas story invites its hearers to enter
the discussion about what it means to come home and to be at home and to have a
home.
In ways more powerful than any
family celebration I have ever attended; the story of this Holy Night is a
story which settles our yearning for safety and security and contentment.
Where else could we come, or go, in
order to be more at home, than in a place surrounded by others hearing the good
news of a God who creates a home for each of us, and then comes to make his
home among us?
“Come Home for Christmas.”
The phrase stuck with me. I thought of it as I listened to the music
being played on my “Country Christmas” Pandora station. Particularly at night, in the evenings, as many
are wrapping gifts, a huge number of the songs played on such stations are all about
“coming home.” Many of the songs were
familiar, and I find myself singing along – perhaps too loudly and maybe a bit off
key. But singing along with a warm
feeling in my heart. Is it okay for me
to admit that I sometimes have difficulty remembering the second verse of “Oh
Come, All Ye Faithful,” but I can sing right along without hesitation to every
verse of Rascal Flatts’ rendition of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” I wonder if the same might be said for some
of you?
“Home.” Being at home. Going home.
This hope, this promise, this is the desire is just below the surface of
practically every conversation had during this time of year. There are few gifts considered as precious as
the simple gift of “coming home.”
I didn’t lead worship this past
Sunday. The last Saturday before
Christmas is when my mother’s fathers’ descendants gather on the family farm
established by my great-grandfather. I
haven’t been in the office that much this week either, but I should have kept
track of how many folks asked me if I enjoyed my weekend “at home.” The question shows great sensitivity to me
and my life, but there is a part of asking me if I enjoyed my weekend “at home”
which strikes me as odd. I have lived in
the upstate of South Carolina longer than I ever lived in Vale, NC. So why, when you who also live here ask me if
I will travel to North Carolina, do you ask me if I am going to make it “home”?
Isn’t this my “home”? Isn’t this “home”
for both of us?
“Come home for Christmas.”
Or course it isn’t the “place”
which beckons us – it is something else.
It is the returning to or going to that place where the shoes come off
and the collar is loosened and the hair comes down and we experience what it
means to be loved and appreciated and accepted and cared for and protected.
That place is the place we all
desire to be and long to be. It is the
place we go to and return to and come to.
My hope for you, for all of us, as
we sit together on this Christmas Eve, in this house of worship is that you are
gifted with that same feeling of being were the shoes can come off, the tie
loosened, and the anxiety level reduced.
My prayer is that each of you feel the relief associated with being
“home.”
This is the hope and the gift for
each of you. Whether you are a regular
attendee at the Sunday services offered in this place; whether you are an adult
who came here with your parents when you were a child; whether you are a
traveler, holed up in a hotel room; whether you are a local who wanted to be at
home tonight even if these buildings and their occupants have failed to allow
you to feel at home during the previous fifty-two weeks; whatever your status
before you came through those doors – you are at home now. And the owner of this house is committed to
making your homecoming all that you desire it to be.
Mary and Joseph were at home on
this evening, in Bethlehem. They were at
home with their son. Their home included
shepherds sent their way by angels singing in the heavens. Mary and Joseph found out that evening what
home really means. And ever since we
have known that we can come home or return home or be at home in any one of the
millions of places where the story of Jesus’ birth is retold.
What a joy. What a delight. What a gift.
Amen.
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