Sermon Preached by Michael Cheuk
Christmas morning, December 25
John 1:1-14
It is so good to see you here this Christmas morning! Isn’t it nice to be home for Christmas? This morning, I’ve complied my “Top Ten Reasons to Stay Home for Christmas” this year. Why don’t you count down with me?
10 High gas prices
9 Not having to pack
8 No hauling gifts around
7 No fighting holiday traffic
6 No fighting kids while fighting holiday traffic
5 No one asking every ten minutes: “Are we there yet?”
4 Being able to sleep in your own bed
3 Being able to use your own remote control while watching football
2 Making other family members jealous because they have to travel
1 The number one reason to stay home for Christmas this year: so that you can attend the Christmas morning worship service at Farmville Baptist Church!
For those of you who stayed home and are here this morning for worship, I’m so glad you’re here. For those of you who traveled to visit family and friends in Farmville, I’m sorry that you’ve had to travel, but I’m so very glad that you’re here!
Home for Christmas. There’s something attractive about being home for Christmas. Perhaps it is fueled by the songs that express this longing:
“I’ll be home for Christmas”
“I’ll have a blue, blue Christmas without you . . .”
“There’s no place like home for the holidays, for the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home”
But as wonderful as it is to be home for Christmas, did you realize that almost none of the main people involved in the first Christmas were home? Almost all of them traveled long distances to get to where they needed to be.
Mary and Joseph traveled over seventy miles of winding mountain trails from Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to register for the census. The shepherds traveled from the outlying fields back into Bethlehem to see the baby in the manger. Much later, the Magi, the wise men, traveled more than 1000 miles to bring gifts to the holy family. But the one who traveled the greatest distance was God Himself.
Hear again what our Gospel Lesson from John has to say about this:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” The God who spoke time into being, this same God traveled in time in order to appear at a time when Augustus was Caesar of the Roman Empire and Quirinius was governor of Syria.
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” The God who spoke the universe into being traveled great distances to enter into that creation as one life among many.
“The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” The God who uttered, “Let there be light!” traveled to a people living in darkness to shine His light into that darkness.
“And the Word became flesh . . .” God who is infinite Spirit came in flesh and blood. It reminds me of Robin Williams as the genie in the movie “Aladdin,” commenting on the irony of his life: “Infinite power – itty-bitty living space!” How else to portray the divine irony and unlikelihood of the cosmic swirl of the creative word, smacking into the flesh of a baby?
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” The word “lived” literally means “to fix one’s tabernacle.” If you remember, the tabernacle was a tent that God told the Hebrews to set up so that His presence could live among them while they were wandering in the desert on their way to the Promised Land. And now John was saying that this same God was pitching a tent in Bethlehem in the form of a child called “Emmanuel,” “God with us.”
On that Christmas, God spanned time and space, light and darkness, spirit and flesh in order to travel and come to us. On that Christmas, God left his heavenly mansion with many rooms to make his home in a pup tent of frail humanity in order to be with us.
And yet, despite this enormous effort, John tells us that “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” How devastating that must have been, to have traveled all that distance to visit those whom he created, only to be rejected by his own people! Will we receive him, welcome him and provide him a home for Christ in our hearts and in our lives?
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Christmas is a celebration of God’s Son leaving his home and coming in order to bring true home to us. God desires to adopt us into his home, to welcome us into his family.
I heard about a story about Jerry, a businessman flying from LA to Chicago a few days before Christmas. He had just completed an important business trip, and he was bone-tired.
On the flight home, he sat next to a 6-year-old boy named Michael, flying alone. He even wore a big red tag around his neck proclaiming: Michael Wilson. Unaccompanied minor.” The man wasn’t really interested in chatting with a kid, but the boy was clearly nervous – in fact, Jerry learned that the boy’s mother had recently died. Since he had never known his father, Michael was flying to Chicago to live with his grandmother. He carried two things with him: a manila envelope that contained his custody papers, and a grocery paper sack that contained all his earthly belongings.
As they traveled across the country, the two kept chatting, and the boy grew increasingly nervous. As they neared Chicago, the boy grew quieter and quieter, and after the plane landed, his little mouth quivered. His eyes brimmed with tears.
“What’s wrong, Michael?” asked Jerry.
“What if she’s not there?” Michael asked, starting to cry. “I never even remember meeting my grandmother before. What if she doesn’t even want me?”
Jerry told the little boy, “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you until your grandmother is here.”
They walked hand-in-hand off the plane, as just as they walked off the plane, they heard a warm voice. “Is that you, baby? Come here, Michael! Grandma loves you so much! Let go of that nice man, and let me give you a hug, baby!” Michael’s grandmother knelt down and patted his skinny shoulders and started humming. Then she lifted her head and sang. Her strong, clear voice filled the passageway, “Jesus loves me—this I know.”
Michael’s gasps quieted as he let go of Jerry’s hand and reached for his grandma, who wrapped him in her arms.
As soon as she walked across the threshold into the terminal, cheers erupted. From the size of the crowd, Jerry figured family, friends, pastors, elders, deacons, choir members and most of the neighbors had come to meet Michael. They were clapping. They held signs that read “Welcome Home.” A tall man pulled off the red sign around Michael’s neck. It no longer applied.
As Jerry made his way to the luggage claim, he had a spring in his step and he barely noticed the weight of his overstuffed briefcase and laptop. A little boy was going home for Christmas. And so was he.
Home for Christmas. At Christmas and in life, we are looking for home and hearth and a place of belonging. But the only way that we can truly be Home for Christmas, is when Jesus the Christ has a home in us. Will you welcome him, a visitor, yet familiar? Will you receive him, from a place impossibly far, yet tantalizingly close? He is the light that illuminates a vision of our true home in our real family. He is the spark that touches in all of us the deep core of our need, our need for God, for salvation, for restoration. This spark is a glimmer that will grow to a bright incandescence in the glorious resurrection at Easter. But it starts here, at Christmas, in this story, at this time, in us. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
He came so far to be with us, to touch us all, to know and be known. Full of grace and truth. Welcome home, Lord Jesus! Amen.
