Isaiah 35.1-10                                                                                        Carol A. Solovitz

Psalm 146.5-10                                                                                     07Advent 3A

James 5.7-10                                                                                         December 16 , 2007

Matthew 11.2-11

What I Really Want for Christmas

 

 

    Everywhere I turn this time of year, there is Santa Claus!  Not only is he at the mall, but he also showed up at the Civic Theatre and in the Holidazzle Parade.  When I got out the Christmas wrapping paper, there was Santa on several of the rolls.  He’s in the comics and on the Christmas cards.  Behind all those Santa sightings, there is the question that Santa always asks, “What do you want for Christmas?”  Parents, friends and children ask it, too.  What do you want for Christmas?  If you had to choose one thing, what do you really want?

My friend Paula is a pastor in North Dakota.  Recently, her parents both celebrated their 80^th birthdays and their 55^th wedding anniversary.  She couldn’t decide on a 55^th anniversary gift that was appropriate, affordable and that they would be able to use.  Finally, she decided to sit down and write a list called, “55 Gifts My Parents Have Given Me.”  She writes, “But it went so well that it turned into ‘80 Gifts for Your 80^th Birthdays.’  The list included a whole host of memories, and the topics were far-ranging – from reflections on the lessons they taught me about servanthood and compassion, to supporting me when I was the first girl to play Little League baseball in Minnesota, to teaching my sisters and me all the words to old favorites like ‘My Darling Clementine’, to how to make a proper cup of tea.”  She also noted that there was not a single gift on the list that was of material value.  Instead, she said, “the list contained the values that were material in shaping me into the person I am.”  She goes on, “…as I look back on my life, I see time and again what the most significant gifts to me have been – gifts of time, gifts of love, gifts of self.  I am who I am not because of the Deluxe Doctor Kit I got from my parents when I was in 3^rd grade, or the NFL bed sheets I got in 4^th grade, but because my patents took me to worship every Sunday, held family devotions, and because I heard them say the Lord’s Prayer at night before they went to bed.”

What do you want for Christmas?  What do you want for other important times in your life?  My family has been asking me what I want, and all I could think of was a Bible exactly like this one that Gus the Wonder Dog chewed up and an electric drill.  That wasn’t enough to satisfy them, and they keep pumping me for better answers.  I think I know now, but I’m not sure they will like this answer any better than my first one. 

What I really want for Christmas is this: Jesus.  Now I know this might sound like I’m running for Miss South Carolina, but I am telling you the truth.  I want Jesus to return, flesh and blood and power and might.  I want Jesus to come in all his glory, love and forgiveness, peace and yes, judgment.  I want to see this world change because Jesus is in it.  I want to know that all of my years of believing, and all of our years of teaching the faith to our children and families and friends have been worth it.  I want to stop praying for the Second Coming and to eliminate that phrase in the Creed that says, “…he will come again to judge the living and the dead.”  I want him to be here among us where we can see and touch and cling to him in physical ways.

Is that too much to ask?

John the Baptizer was born to be the one who pointed to the Messiah.  When Jesus came to the wilderness of Judea to the banks of the Jordan to be baptized by his cousin, John announced to the crowd, "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”  That was in Matthew 3; in the next chapter, we learn that when Jesus returned from his 40 days in the wilderness, he learned that John had been arrested.  Today we are in Matthew 11, and we hear from John again.  He is still in prison, and his group of disciples comes to Jesus saying that John sent them to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  Jesus gives them this message for his cousin, their leader, “Take a look at all the signs, and you will have your answer.  Just as Isaiah prophesied, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the leapers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”  God’s great acts of righteousness ought to speak for themselves.  Does John even need to ask?

Or does John realize that he is never going to get out of prison alive, and his disciples need to know whom to follow?  So he sends them to Jesus so that they might believe in the true Messiah.  John knows that Jesus is “the One,”  but his disciples are not so sure.  John is handing them over to Jesus.  As for John, he knows the truth, that his cousin is the Savior for whom his people have been waiting.  Bishop Nycklemoe told us at Wednesday’s Bible study that here John is saying, “I’ve stopped looking for the Messiah.  See for yourself that Jesus is the one.”

So if Jesus is the Messiah, then why haven’t things changed more?  Why don’t we have those signs today that Isaiah talked about and Jesus actually did?  This is the question that many people – Jews, Christians of all denominations, people of many faiths, skeptics, atheists – have asked for centuries.  If a Savior has come, why is the world still such a mess?  Why do people plant bombs and shoot people in school, church, and shopping malls?  These are validf, important questions. Because we do not have perfection in this world, people doubt that Jesus made any difference in human history. 

We truly want a world that returns to Eden, where no one is weak or hurting and nothing in creation is in danger, where joy and peace are the only things we know.  Jesus came momen-tarily into history to give us a taste of the reality of such a world.  He lived out the possibility that such a future can be ours.  He gave us a glimpse of Heaven and a future with hope.  He was a living witness of the signs of the presence of Messiah.  Do we need those signs again today?

Honestly, most of us are able to believe even without the signs.  Most of us believe because we have the stories, and they are told to us by people who believe and practice the things Jesus came to proclaim – to live in love and peace, to show justice to all (especially the poor and the downtrodden), and to watch for his return.

So that’s it.  That is what I really want for Christmas – to know the presence of Jesus in this world and to trust him in the next.  What do you want for Christmas?

 

Let us pray:  God of life, be with us in our waiting, but be also with us in our living in faith and hope while we wait.  Help us to recognize the signs that you have already sent us a Savior.  May we share the gifts that last forever as we share Jesus with the world.  In his name we pray, Amen.