Sermon:
December 7, 1997

Scripture:
Jeremiah 31:1-4

Most of you know I'm the mother of three teenagers. Well, that's not exactly true. Were my oldest child here he would quickly tell you he's twenty-one and that means he's out of the teenage years. But he's a college student, so I think you'll understand that puts him kind of in the same group with his middle sister who is a freshman in college and his younger sister who is a freshman in high school. And so just knowing that news, that I have three youngsters that age, I know you can begin to imagine some of the music that is always playing in the Arlington parsonage. And there is music always going. It's what you and I would call the pop variety. Now I love music. I love it. But I've got to tell you there are some songs that I come in, find playing and I listen closer to the words and to get some real meaning out of them. Or I try to hear and just understand the words. You know what I'm talking about. The other day I walked in (Amanda really likes country music), and I realized I could make out the words of the song and the refrain that went over and over again. Some of you have heard it. It's "Is This What I Shaved My Legs For?" It's a pop tune, it's really out there!

What does it mean to say something is a "pop" tune? Well, I guess it would mean it's a popular song. right? But we have to say there's a difference between a pop tune being popular and a "hit" tune. A hit tune is a song that's really made it. Popular music is out there for Christmas. You think of things like "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," "Chestnuts Roasting by an Open Fire," or "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." But there is also "pop" music that never became popular, and that's why I think we have to talk about what is a "hit" as well.

What makes a hit tune? What is it? Is it because there is a particular quality of beauty, or something catchy? Is it that it's an easy tune to dance to or march to or a tune that you like to whistle, or sing or that has wonderful words? I'm not sure. And sometimes, I confess to you, I think there are a lot of observers of the modem pop scene that would say, "Well, I'm not sure quality has anything to do with it." Like that song I was listening to the other day, "Is This What I Shaved My Legs For?" Sometimes there are good tunes with attractive lyrics which become popular, but sometimes there are those that are something else entirely. Do you know that old joke about the music publisher? The music publisher came rushing in to see his assistant with a brand new manuscript in his hand and he said very excitedly, "Never, never in all of my life have I heard such a stupid, such a tired, such a mockish tune! Never have I read such banal, insipid, meaningless lyrics! My gosh, have we got a hit on our hands!" And that's the way it seems to go. And then why is it when there is something of quality, something of beauty, something that does demonstrate a hit, well, we're told that it probably has more to do with luck than anything else. It was something that was lucky enough to be used in a popular motion picture as a theme, or perhaps it was played often by a fairly prominent disc-jockey on the radio or it was lucky enough to be recorded by an artist or a group that's "in" at the particular time.

Now, what's all this a preface to? All this is a preface this morning to my sharing with you words of a pop Christmas tune that didn't make it. And I suppose it never will. The song's about 20 years old now. I heard it back that long ago, and I still have the words. But when I've tried the last couple of weeks to get either a copy of the sheet music so someone could sing it for us or the recording so I could play it over the PA system, it is not to be found anywhere.. You won't find it. It was recorded by one artist, but a pretty obscure singer and he stuck it in the middle of a recording he made that, well, didn't really make it. So why do I share it with you this morning? I share it with you this morning with no apologies because I present it to you in the same manner that Jesus used the secular in his life as well as the sacred. He was reaching out to use anything that would grab the attention of his people, secular as well as sacred, and use it to illustrate his message. And I think this song does exactly that. And particularly, when you compare it with some of the pop Christmas music out there, it's a perfect example of the secular expression of the sacred meaning of Christmas if I can put it that way. .. . appropriate to the Christmas season in every sense of that word. So listen to the words won't you? Some of you may from twenty years past even begin to remember the tune. The lyrics went like this:

"What can I give you this Christmas?
Something sparkling to go with your eyes?
I'll give you the light of a Yuletide star
from the cold December sky.
What can I give you this Christmas?
Something soft like the sound of your name?
I'll give you the hush of the falling snow
as it settles on the ground.
There isn't much that a boy like me can give to a girl like you.
I've searched the Christmas shop windows and now I know it's true.
What can I give you this Christmas?
Not a thing that I've seen will do.
So I'll give you my heart and my own true love
that will last the whole year through."

Hold those words and hear this interpretation.

And there were in the same country husbands and fathers keeping watch over their homes by night, but going to work every morning to make lots of money. And lo the smooth voiced TV announcer came upon them and the glories of many fine possessions shone out at them and they were sore afraid that they would never be able to buy all the things their families would want. And the TV announcer said to them, "Fear not for I bring you good tidings of great joy that you'll be to all parents, fathers, mothers, children and relatives. For unto you there is this day in the city where our store is the savior who is our credit manager. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find this wonderful one wrapped in red clothing with a big stomach and sporting white whiskers and called Santa Claus. He will be in our credit department where you can charge everything with no payments until February." And suddenly there was with the TV announcer a multitude of TV actors praising the store and saying. "Glory to Santa the mostest and on earth lots of presents to all. And we're open `til 9:00 p.m. every night and all day Sunday until Christmas." And it came to pass that the TV actors faded into the blood and gore of the highly rated children's programs. And the fathers and mothers said to one another, "Let us go now even to the store which the TV announcer has made known to us." And they came with haste and found glittering watches, fur coats, transistor radios, electric can openers, new dresses and also the wondrous one dressed in red with those fake whiskers and a truly happy smile as he sat by the cash register saying. "Ho, ho, ho." And when they made their purchases they made known among all their neighbors how they were going to have the best Christmas ever. But Santa Claus, the credit manager that is, kept all the contracts in his safe and pondered all the interest he was going to collect.

My friends, the season is upon us.. You hear it one way m the words of that pop, not secular, song about the meaning of Christmas. You hear it another way in what Lindsay shared with us about all that's going on in our midst. I heard the suggestion the other day on the radio that you could buy your wife Hawaii for Christmas. She'll look great in Hawaii, and so will you. And then there's that store m Texas that sends you the catalog of the unusual gifts for the person who has everything. The one that interests me is the golf putter with the solid gold head, or a silver one depending on what you can afford. But this year did you know the specialty is his and her jaguars? Hers is a coat, his is something that you drive. And we read in our newspaper about the weeping and wailing of our people in commercial ventures who are so unhappy because they don't see the great outpouring of buying-power yet. Oh, you hear it every year. But you see, that's what I want to remind you. It's no problem for me throughout the years to assemble a sheaf of articles about people who are bemoaning what Christmas has become in our world. People who write as secular writers but have titles like this, "Christmas Leaves Me Cold", or "I Hate Christmas," or "Christmas Depressing for Many." That last title was written by Dr. Joyce Brothers and appeared just a couple of weeks ago in our Detroit paper. She explains the meaning of that title in her article very simply. She said, "Psychologically Christmas is a depressing time for many, many people." In fact, psychologists would tell us more people are depressed now at this time of year than any other. And the reason according to Dr. Brothers is very simple. She says people think they ought to be happy at Christmas. All about them they see the glitter and the glow, all the lights, all the decorations and they think if they just stand still, somehow some of that magic will rub off on them. Only it doesn't happen. Problems in their lives don't disappear and so, Dr. Brothers goes on to say, we've placed such a tremendous emphasis on the external symbols of Christmas that we've lost the personal involvement of Christmas, and that alone, she says, is where the joy can come from. You know it. The author who wrote the article, "Christmas Leaves Me Cold," his perspective is that he says, "I don't like what I call the shopping spree shivers, and I have them already. I play Russian roulette with revolving doors, and I'm already suffering from elephantitis of the ear which comes to me after I've heard so many carols blurted out from every source of sound both at home and on the street. I've heard Silent Night already so many times that that's what I long for... .a silent night. The person who wrote the article, "I Hate Christmas," gives a list of the people who do... .the hurried, harassed, petite department store clerk, the postal employee, the housewife who for years looked forward to baking a few cookies but now has discovered she's lost all control over the way the list of people she's going to give those cookies to has grown so that now she has to have something for the lawn man, and the mailman, and the newspaper person, and the person who parks her car, and all the neighbors, and all the relatives, and this person and that person until she sighs a sigh of relief when Christmas is over.

Now there's another side of Christmas. At least-there can be. What I found fascinating when I read all three of those articles written by secular writers was that none of them left if there. Depressing as their titles were, and most of the article was a litany of the things about Christmas that, well, we don't enjoy at all, all three of them ended on a different note. Dr. Joyce Brothers ended this way. She says, "If you would give yourself to others, therein lies the joy of Christmas." The person who wrote, "Christmas Leaves Me Cold" says this, "If we could safeguard the sacredness, tell the glad tidings, keep Christ in Christmas, then we'd be able to say from the heart, all is calm, all is bright. And the "I Hate Christmas" article concludes this way, "Yes, I hate Christmas unless it includes the star and the stable and the King.

You see, I think you're here this-morning because you figured this out. Some of you figured it out like little Mallory when you were five, some of us are slower learners and-we're- 47- or 57 or 62 when we finally get the hang of it, when we finally are ready to unplug the Christmas machine and all the other words that are out there to tell us how to leave some of that and to focus in on what is found not only in the Christmas story itself but really is found in the whole gospel. Because the whole gospel is the Christmas story. It's found in the most beloved, most familiar verse of the Bible when Jesus explained what it all meant. He said simply, `God so loved the whole world, you and me, that he gave his only begotten son.' That's the Christmas message. That's the verse we need to make sure we read at Christmastime, not just the story as it's recreated in the gospels for us about the birth and the manger and the wise men and the stars. The Christmas message is in that line, `God so loved you and me that he gave...' God so loved.

Three weeks ago Wednesday, I was sitting in my study upstairs and I received a telephone call: I had someone in my office, but Linda Howell came to the door and she said, "Melody, you have a long distance call and they say it's an emergency. It's from Findlay, Ohio." And when she told me that, I knew what the call would be about. Back when I was finishing high school a young woman came and lived with my family for a couple of years so she could begin attending college in the Chicago area. We were separated in age by just a couple of years. Her father was a minister and they didn't have very many resources so she lived with us for awhile, and she and I became very dear friends. As a junior in the college she began attending in the Chicago area she met a young guy, actually a big huge young guy, a red-headed guy who was playing on the school basketball team. His name was Warrren Anderson. She and Warren eventually married. Warren went on to seminary, he went on to pastor churches, and over the last probably more than twenty-five years they've been doing that, a lot of it out in California and then finally in Ohio. They had five children, five darling children. The last one, now not quite three years old, I baptized just a couple of summers ago when she was two weeks old. It was the last time I'd seen little Krissy. But over the last year I've been in touch almost weekly with Vita, this young woman, just a little bit older than me, and her husband, Warren, because about a year ago came the news that Warren wasn't feeling well and they thought he had mononucleosis. After about six weeks of not being able to get a handle on that disease, Warren getting worse not better, they finally realized that what he had instead was chronic leukemia. And so, through this year it's been a year of unbelievable suffering as Warren's physical life has degenerated. Finally, I knew when Linda stepped to my door that the call was to tell me that Warren wasn't in the world anymore. I listened to Vita when we- spoke and she ended the message exactly the way I wanted her to end the message. She said, "Melody, will you come and will you do the service?" And I wanted to do that. And so on a Friday afternoon I drove down to Findlay and then Saturday morning at 11:00 in this little church that Warren had been serving until the time of his illness we celebrated his life together. And here in the front pew, right in front of me, was Vita. She's a tiny little thing, and all five of her children. Randy's a freshman in college, Cheryl's a senior in high school, Beth is a seventh grader, and on they went, all the little children, ending finally with little Bobby. The only one that wasn't there was little Krissy, the three-year old. I stood in that sanctuary and I looked at this family that I love and I wondered, "What on earth am I going to say?" And I really wasn't sure before I stood up in that pulpit even though I had some notes before me. But as I stood in that pulpit somehow I knew exactly what I would say for my sake as well as for theirs. This is how I started.

I said, "You know we Christians are really a very peculiar -people because it's when our hearts are-the most broken that we most enthusiastically sing our- songs of praise. It's when our minds are the- -most weighted down with sorrow-that we fervently offer our prayers of thanksgiving. It's when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death that we most believe in life." "Are those contradictions?" I asked. No, I don't think so. I don't think they're contradictions at all. It's simply that we know, those of us who are in this room this morning, as well as those who sat in that little church in Findlay a couple of weeks ago, we know a secret the world doesn't know. The basic fact of life is ours, the fact without which life has no ultimate meaning or significance. We know there is a God who created us, who sustains us, who is lovingly involved in every single incident in our lives from the very beginning to the very end, a God who is involved in our birth and a God who is involved in our death. And I suggested to- that packed church- that we not permit any stranger who knew not of our faith to misunderstand where we stood. If some doubter would have asked me three weeks ago last Saturday where was my God now, I would have said, "He's in this front row with his arms around those children." How do I know that? I know it because in the middle of a dark night one time:

`in the deep mid-winter when frosty wind made known,
when earth stood hard as iron and water like a stone,
when snow had fallen, snow on snow,
in that deep mid-winter so long ago heaven could not hold him.'

And so he entered life unprotected by the providence of heaven, unprotected by even the shields that you and I are able to create, unprotected by wealth, or position, or prestige and so he came to be born the same way you were born and I was born only in a humbler station. And so he lived and he taught and he died that we, you and I, might know the love of God and then he rose again from the dead that we might understand the ultimate victory of God and we might know that we are loved. And that's Christmas. And we can respond with love. That is Christmas. I think we Christians have done a wonderful job of going out into the world and telling everyone just how much you have to sacrifice to be a Christian, but we've done a lousy job of telling people the tremendous joy of knowing the love of God and of loving him and of our being the source of his love to his people in the world. You see, this morning you're in the one place where it really matters, where you can be so important because you are loved. God loves you.

You are important to God. You're somebody. And your response to his love, to him and his people, what that can mean, that's what Christmas is about. That's what it's about.

Don't you know what that love really means? I told you little Krissy wasn't at the funeral service a couple of weeks ago and she wasn't. On Friday when I got to Findlay I went to the Anderson home and I knocked on the door of this small little home. The door was opened by someone else and all of a sudden flying at me was a thunderbolt of a little person who wrapped her arms around my leg. Now remember, the only time I've seen this child she was two weeks old when I baptized her, so obviously she didn't remember that event and she doesn't remember me, but she had been told who I was and knew that I was coming. And she literally had me in a grip around my legs and I looked down at this little tow-head and then she kind of took a second thought and maybe thought, well maybe I've been too impulsive. She stepped back for just a moment and she looked up into my face and she said, "Are you Melody?"- And-I said, -"Yes,- Krissy, I'm Melody." And she - said, "Then kiss me." All this little one knew was the-kind of pain in her heart and the hearts of the people she loved, -and she knew the only thing that would give meaning to her was love. And so that little one was an unbelievable conduit of love as well.

Someone's written it this way. They've written it without putting his or her name to it so that it's capitalized what at Christmastime this love might mean. And so I think we assume that it's the voice of Christ himself. Listen to this,

"I greet you because it's my birthday,
I wonder what this means to you.
Is it star and tinsel, snow and toys,
Family parties, carols and noise?
I greet you today not because of earthy things.
Not because of angels who sing.
Not because of magi who bring gifts from afar
I greet you today because I come like one of you
For all of you to be with you, my people.
I greet you as your King, your Savior, your Friend
And I come to be your Brother.
I love you."

Through the Advent season we're halfway to the manger. Oh I could have left out the pop tune that I started with this morning and used just things to illustrate that we consider sacred. I could have taken the last verse of my favorite carol,

"What can I give him poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man I would do my part.
And what I can I give him?
Give him my heart."

Same message. There is an old gospel hymn you might know that says it too.

"Give me thy heart says the father above,
No gift so precious to him as our love,
Softly he whispers wherever thou art
Gratefully trust me and give me thy heart.
Give me thy heart, give me thy heart,
Hear this soft whisper wherever thou art.
From this dark world he would draw thee apart,
Speaking so tenderly, give me thy heart."

But I still like that pop tune that didn't make it.

"What can I give you this Christmas?
Something sparkling to go with your eyes?
I'll give you the light of the Yuletide star
From the cold December sky.
What can I give you this Christmas?
Something soft like the sound of your name?
I'll give you the hush of the falling snow
As it settles on the ground.
There isn't much that a girl like me
can give to a boy like you.
I searched the Christmas shop windows
and now I know it's true.
What can I give you this Christmas?
Not a thing that I've seen will do.
So I'll give you my heart and my own true love
That will last the whole year through."

And so may it be for you.