Here is the meditation I plan to use for our more traditional Candlelight
and Carols services...

Peter K. Perry
Prescott United Methodist Church
Prescott, Arizona USA
mailto:pkperry@cableone.net
http://www.prescottumc.com

Christmas Eve Meditation
December 24, 1999, 7 and 9 PM
Prescott United Methodist Church

I suspect that most of us have some kind of Christmas tree at home…after
all, if we are the kind of people who are going to come out on a cold wintry
night to remember the birth of the Christ child, then we are also likely to
be celebrating his birth at home with as many of the trappings of the season
as we can possibly muster. Perhaps you have downsized in recent years,
exchanging the cut live tree of previous years for a small artificial one
for a tabletop. Or maybe you are just starting out in life and you’ve
bought one of those potted pines that come pre-decorated for the holidays.
Or maybe, like the Perry family, you trekked out into the woods and cut your
own tree, knowing that it wouldn’t be as perfectly shaped as the ones you
can buy at Home Depot or down at the YMCA stand, but that the perfect shape
didn’t really matter when you consider the time spent as family in getting
the tree.

Everyone has their likes and dislikes in a Christmas tree. Some like them
flocked, and some don’t. Some like them strung with tinsel, and some prefer
popcorn and cranberries. Some want homemade ornaments, a mish-mash of
memories…some prefer all the ornaments to fit the theme and compliment the
Christmas décor.

The other day in a newspaper ad I saw an illustration of an absolutely
beautiful Christmas tree. It was in the back of the stable, illuminating
the scene with the shepherds gathered around, and the angels overhead
praising, and the wise men kneeling, and Mary and Joseph gazing, all at the
precious baby of Bethlehem. Of course the problem is that there was no
Christmas tree at the first Christmas. The Christmas tree is a fairly late
arrival on the great stage of Christmas traditions. But still I like the
idea…a Christmas tree in the stable…

I can see it decorated…little glimmering angels strung around the branches,
shining their light of love. Near the bottom of the tree there are little
shepherd boys hanging from the limbs, searching for dangers untold, vowing
to protect their flocks with their lives if need be. Kings, seeking a
greater king still, so regally placed among the pine boughs, bear gifts of
gold and frankincense and myrrh. The innkeeper has a prominent place on the
tree. And there is a collection of Roman soldiers, centurions parading
about the branches, enforcing the laws of the Roman Emperor. And yes,
Emperor Augustus is on the tree, along with Quirinius the governor of Syria,
political pawns in the unfolding God’s great drama. There, hanging from one
branch is John the Baptist, the proclaimer of God’s messiah, and with him
are his parents Elizabeth and Zechariah. There are the priests in the
Temple of Jerusalem, and Old Simeon and the prophetess Anna are nearby.
There are the beggars on the street. There are the blind men and the
lepers, the vineyard keepers and the fishermen, Zebedee and his young sons
James and John and their friends Peter and Andrew. And look, hiding in the
back, are the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. Near the top of the
tree is a carpenter named Joseph, and his betrothed Mary. They are leading
a donkey, and Mary is heavy with child. At the very top of the tree is a
star, shining with a light of hope and a promise of love from God on high.

But there are a few more ornaments hanging on that first Christmas Christmas
tree. Look… there’s me and you. There are our families, and our friends.
We are all there. What are we doing there on that tree?

We are there because we are a part of the great Christmas story as it
unfolds again this Christmas. Two millennia after the first Christmas, the
baby continues to be born in the hearts of God’s people. It is that
continuing rebirth of God in our hearts that makes us a part of the
Christmas story. God’s incarnation at Christmas, God’s becoming real at
Christmas, is not a one-time event. It continues in you, in me, in each of
us as we let the Christ be born.

It is a mystery, this thing called incarnation. For God is big. God is the
creator, the maker of mountains and plains, of skies and seas, of galaxies
to far to see through the most powerful telescopes and particles of matter
too small to see with the most powerful microscopes. God is redeemer, able
to take upon himself all of the trials and tribulations of humanity, and
indeed all of the creation, giving life its meaning and purpose. And God is
sustainer, holding up the weak through faith…bringing wholeness to broken
places…bringing peace in the midst of strife, bringing truth in the midst of
falsehood. Yes, God is big…so big that we cannot begin to comprehend God.

But God wants us to comprehend…to understand…to see. And so God, throwing
away God’s vastness and incomprehensibility, comes to us as a tiny baby…as
the one thing in all of the creation that we instinctively are going to love
and cherish. God knows that we are not threatened by this child of
Bethlehem, but rather are tickled and touched. God knows that we will smile
down at the baby and the baby will smile back.

The baby has a place in our heart, a place for God to begin working in us
and through us. You see, the incarnation is a toehold for God to grow in
the world as God grows in us. And herein lies at part of the meaning of
incarnation. When embrace this Christ child, you become Christmas. You
become Easter. You become all of the truth that Jesus embodied in his life
and his teaching. Incarnation does not simply mean that God became real
long ago in Bethlehem. It also means that God becomes real, right now in
Prescott.

One of my favorite preachers, Bishop Mel Wheatley once wrote these words:

Some people have been greatly disturbed lest we lose Christ out of
Christmas. I am concerned lest we lose Christ in Christmas. Some are
afraid that we will not talk enough about a baby born in a Bethlehem stable.
I fear that we shall talk about that baby in such a way as to make him
wholly irrelevant to babies born in modern hospitals. They fear that we
shall neglect the good news that God was in Jesus. I fear that we shall
neglect the momentous meaning of that news – God is in us. (Mel Wheatley,
Christmas is For Celebrating, p.67)

You see, the quaintness and the familiarity of the Christmas story sometimes
let us forget that this story is not fixed in time and place, long ago and
faraway, but is rather a universal story that transcends time and space.
Matthew and Luke’s descriptions of the stable and star and the shepherds and
wise men that we love to hear and recreate sometimes lead us to believe that
Christmas is a physical event instead of a spiritual one. But Christ is
bigger than bigger than Bethlehem, bigger than the cast of characters in the
story, bigger even than Jesus of Nazareth. In a few moments, as we light
the Christ candle in our Advent wreath, you will hear again the stirring
words from the Prologue of John’s Gospel:

(John 1:12-13) But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he
gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the
will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

The message of the incarnation is that each of us has been given the
opportunity to become a child of God…that when Jesus lives in our hearts,
God lives in us and is made real through us. The message is as radical
today as it was 2000 years ago. Christ is in us. God is made real through
us.

Now, none of us will ever be Jesus. None of us will ever remotely come
close to his capacity to love and serve and proclaim the truth of God. But
each of us has within us the potential to be more Christ-like than we are
today. Each of us can embody the incarnation of God better than we do. Let
me give you an example.

Some of you were surprised the other day to see me playing a trumpet. It’s
a rusty old secret that once upon a time, I played a pretty mean horn. It
was my fantasy to be Doc Severinson. I haven’t played my horn regularly
since I was a kid, but every once in a while I find some time to get out my
trumpet and toot a few tunes. I don’t often do it in public because that
would be cruel. But sometimes, when I’m all-alone, I close all the doors
and windows in the house and turn on an old Doc Severinson album…and play
along, pretending to be the trumpeter of my dreams. I started this practice
years ago when I was still in High School. One day, my mom and my little
brother came home unexpectedly and heard me playing out my little fantasy.
David said to mom, "Gee, if Peter practiced for a thousand years he’d never
sound like Doc Severinson, would he?" And mom responded with some wise
"mom" words: "No, but if Peter practiced for a thousand years, he would
come much closer to sounding like that than he has ever yet come!"
("Creatively" based on a story told by Mel Wheatley in Christmas is For
Celebrating, p.76.)

Friends, in order for the incarnation of God to stay a powerful force in the
world today, we have got to practice being Jesus. We’ve got to let Christ
live in us and become real through us. That’s the message of Christmas…that
’s the story of incarnation.

So yes, you do belong on the Christmas tree, for you are a part of the story
of God coming into the world. Don’t put God with the rest of the Christmas
decorations…make room in your heart and let God live in you and through you.
Amen.