The Man Who Hated Christmas
A Sermon Delivered by The Rev. John D. Painter at Centenary United Methodist Church Metuchen, New Jersey December 24, 2009 (Christmas Eve)
Text: Luke 2:1–20
2 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be regis-tered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, be-cause there was no place for them in the inn.
8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. —Luke 2:1-20, NRSV
According to a front page story by Gustav Niebuhr in The New York Times a few years ago, this moment is an annual predicament for us preachers. What do you say in a very few min-utes to a larger-than-usual congregation that will convey the power of this night and day? And how do you do it in a way that encourages you all to return on a regular basis? One New York preacher says he takes this opportunity to at least remind everyone that “we do this every Sunday morning at 11:00.” Well, I can’t say that—because we do it at 10:15.
By the grace of God, I stumbled anew this year upon a story by Nancy Gavin of Balti-more, MD, which I had first encountered back in December 1996. It was called, “For the Man Who Hated Christmas.” And so my greatest predicament in thinking about preaching this eve-ning came in deciding whether to proceed with the standard angels, shepherds, sages and saints, or let you bask in the glory of Nancy Gavin’s story. Well, after re-reading Nancy Gavin’s re-membrances a few times, I made my decision: Tonight you’re going to hear about Mike, “…the Man Who Hated Christmas.”
“It’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so. It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas—oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it—overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma—the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of anything else. Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.
“Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly [African-American]. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler’s ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford.
“Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn’t acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, ‘I wish just one of them could have won,’ he said. ‘They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.’ Mike loved kids—all kids—and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse.
“That’s when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anony-mously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the bright-est thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years, for each Christmas, I followed the tradition—one year sending a group of [developmentally challenged] youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground a week before Christmas, and on and on.
“The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents. As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure.
“The story doesn’t end there. You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. And when Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition had grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchil-dren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope—Mike’s spirit, like the Christmas Spirit, will always be with us….”
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PRAYER
On this eve of love reborn, may we be reminded that each human venture of love, given unselfishly, is but one faint fragment of the glimmer of light lit in Bethlehem that burns on eter-nally. May our souls dance within the unending circle of its splendor and our spirits know the song of true everlasting peace. Amen.
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