Rejoice, For You Are an Heir

I’ve been humming this song for weeks,
(Play Elvis’s I’ll Have a Blue Christmas Without You)

I am not sure I will ever hear this song the same way again after Christmas 2020. We haven’t been to my husband’s hometown to visit his family since we rang in the New Year together completely unaware of what 2020 would bring. My family lives just a mile away, but it has been months since we sat down together to share a meal. I miss worshiping together with you in the Sanctuary, and I am tired of There are many ways I could paint Christmas 2020 as a Blue Christmas. But, the reality is that when I hear this song, from now on, I’ll remember this plastic singing and dancing Elvis and a 4 year old little boy who loves it. It was a gift to one of our day school staff members, and a church member too, who loves Elvis. Many of you can guess who she is. When she opened it, our director’s 4 year old son loved it so much that she left it in the Day School office for him to enjoy. So, every morning leading up to Christmas, I have gotten to witness his glee as he arrives to press the button and sing along with Elvis, and from now on, when I hear “I’ll have a blue Christmas without you, oo-oo-oo,” I will think of the twinkle in a little boy’s eyes above his masked smile.

I got an email from a colleague this week that said it all, “Merry strange Christmas, y’all!” I don’t know how you celebrated Christmas this year, but chances are it was not how you usually celebrate it. No Lessons and Carols, no glorious Farmington Family Christmas Reception, no soft candlelight in the Sanctuary on Christmas Eve, for us there were no Christmas parties, no family gatherings, no playing with cousins, …I could airbrush Christmases past and bring myself close to tears.

I could imagine Mary and Joseph, and a baby in the manger that doesn’t cry, that sleeps through the night, I could imagine clean hay for him to lay, I could forget to imagine childbirth on a stone cave floor, I could forget to imagine giving birth without a midwife or mother there to help, I could forget to imagine the animals’ fur, matted with dung, I could go on…and make us all even more uncomfortable with the realities of the night. Mary and Joseph, not yet married, together going through the labor and delivery together. Shepherds, strangers,
showing up, unexpected as the child is just learning to latch and Mary is just learning to nurse. It is not a cozy story.

This is the dissonance of Christmas. When we take away the tinsel and the trimmings and the bells, we have the most incredible story. Paul was the first to record its meaning for us. About 20 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, he wrote to the Gentile Christians in Galatia that “You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus…and heirs.”

Rev. Dr. Frederick Weidmann, a scholar in early Christianity, writes about the difficulty in translating Paul’s letter into English and preserving his meaning. In Greek, the same word is used for son throughout, and it is a neutral word. So, a better translation to hear what Paul is saying would be to translate it “Child”…at the same time, the word for you changes from the plural you, all y’all, to the singular…you, yes, you (point).

When the time had fully come…the hearers would have heard echoes of the prophets promising the day of the Lord’s fulfillment, and yet the Greek word Paul uses for time was not the one the prophets used to describe God’s time, the word for time that Paul uses is chronological. “At a particular moment in history, God sent his Child, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of children. Because you are children of God, God sent the Spirit of his Child into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Daddy.” So you are no longer slave, but child, and since you are child, God has made you also an heir.”

This is transformational! God had had all the Blue Christmases without us that God was going to have. The law that had been given as a way for us to live in harmony with God and one another had instead become a burden, a way to divide, to label…until God sent his Child into the messiness of our world to adopt us. All the hierarchies are gone, all the divisions are gone – no more. This is salvation: Jesus took the shackles of the law that held us as slaves and put them on himself, breaking their bonds forever. So you are no longer enslaved, but God’s own child, God’s own heir.

If we were together, here in the Sanctuary, I would point you out. Dear Andrew, I love you, you are my child. I’d have a Blue Christmas without you, God. Dear Paula, I love you, you are my child. I’d have a Blue Christmas without you, God. Dear JB, I love you, you are my child. I’d have a Blue Christmas without you, God. Dear Mia, I love you, you are my child. I’d have a Blue Christmas without you, God.

Perhaps there is even a blessing in not being here, because it is not only those who would be gathered that God addresses. Whoever you are, wherever you are, God’s message to you, delivered by Mary that night in Bethlehem so long ago and delivered by God’s Spirit to your heart today, is “I love you. You are my child, and I would have a Blue Christmas without you.”
This is the Spirit of Christmas that we keep throughout the year. It is not the spirit of hustle and bustle. It is not the spirit of eating without counting the calories. It is not the spirit of hoping everyone will get along and we can all just enjoy being together. It is the spirit of love, the love that breaks a parents’ heart when a child goes astray, the love that causes a parent to worry when a child isn’t safe at home, the love that hurts when you hurt, the love that longs to hold you close and comfort you.

This is the Spirit of Christmas – singing Blue Christmas and dancing with joy like a little child who doesn’t understand how sad those words could be – because it isn’t going to happen. “Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree won’t be the same, dear, if you’re not here with me?” Rejoice! Emmanuel is come – “God with us is born”…for you! Love has come…and you are loved!

May everyone all we encounter see the twinkle in our eyes above our masked smiles that reveals our joy, “Jesus, Emmanuel, comes to save me and you, and be with us now and forevermore.” Amen.