The Cost of Christmas

but is become also a reflection on what effect the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has for us personally and as the whole body of Christ.

What does Christmas cost that cannot be measured in dollars?

It is the cost of a changed life; things can never again be the old self-centered way again.

As we often say: Wow! What a wonder that God cares about me!, about us!

When God catches hold of people,

their lives are never the same again.

We bear witness with our lives to the incarnation, the coming of Christ Jesus in Bethlehem and to us this day also.

On the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Days of Christmas, we recognize three differing ways that this witness takes place:

On 12/26, we remember St. Stephen, the first man who willingly gave his life for the faith.

He was killed by the angry crowd.

He was a witness in both will and deed.

12/28 is the day to remember the Holy Innocents, the children killed in Herod's rage against the Wise Men, an attempt to get rid of a new king who is a threat to his power.

They gave their lives, but not willingly.

They are martyrs (witnesses) in deed but not in will.

Today we remember St. John, who, according to old stories was the only one of the apostles not killed for the faith, although he would have done so willingly if it had become necessary.

He too is a witness, (a martyr in the wider sense) with a long life of faithful preaching and teaching.

Some scholars think that there may have been several persons who worked over the years under the name of “John”.

If that opinion is right, it only reinforces our point, that we are called to faithfully bear witness as they do, passing on all they have heard and seen from the witnesses before them.

In doing so we can get caught up in tooting our own horns that we can forget both what message it is that we toot, and also to whom it belongs.

So stanzas 9 and 10 of Luther's hymn are not about Luther, nor about us,

but rather about the amazement that God cares for us:

O Lord, you have created all!

How did you come to be so small,

To sweetly sleep in manger-bed

Where lowing cattle lately fed?

Were earth a thousand times as fair

And set with gold and jewels rare,

Still such a cradle would not do

To rock a prince so great as you.

Once a year or so, we publish a list of names in the Lion to acknowledge and thank those who have assisted in some way in worship-leadership:

acolytes, ushers, servers, sacristans, choirs, flower deliverers, etc.

We try to make the lists complete, but sometimes we accidentally omit a name.

When it is noticed, we try to note it in subsequent publications.

Most folks are understanding, but now and again a person gets annoyed.

Then, very gently, we need to remind one another that what is most important is not our place on a list of names,

but rather that we bore witness to Jesus by what we said and did.

The job is more important than any list or recognition.

That may be a painful little cost to our sense of self-importance, but it is the truth!

In the verses immediately preceding the passage we read as Gospel today,

the risen Lord Jesus is charging Peter with his task: Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, Jesus says.

Do you love me,? he asks of Peter 3x;

Then do your job.

Peter turns around, sees John, and in what sounds like jealousy, asks Jesus, What about him?

Jesus' reply in essence is:

Do worry about others whom I call;

you get at and do what I have sent you to do!

Pride and place and position are not so important, but rather faithful witness in whatever skill and gift that each of us has received.

How can we be pride-filled in ourselves when we know what Jesus has endured:

For velvets soft and silken stuff

You have but hay and straw so rough

On which as king so rich and great

To be enthroned in humble state.

In wonder and awe and humility all this should drive us to pray:

O dearest Jesus, holy child,

Prepare a bed soft, undefiled,

A holy shrine, within my heart,

That you and I need never part.

Witnesses one and all we are.

ones who point to the incarnation,

to God come in the flesh.

And the first task in witness

is right here together.

Let everyone join saints and angels of every time and place and sing:

My heart for very joy now leaps,

My voice no longer silence keeps;

I too must join the angel throng

To sing with joy his cradle song:

“Glory to God in highest heav'n,

Who unto us his Son has giv'n”

With angels sing in pious mirth:

A glad new year to all the earth!

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.