Christmas at the Kitchen Table
Luke 2:1-7
December 9, 2007
Toni and I have some friends who have two daughters the same age as our youngest two children. I’m actually amazed that we’re friends because our families are so different. We are not at opposite ends of the Annual Conference and so we don’t see each other too often anymore.
When we would be invited to dinner at their place, everything would be immaculate. The table would be beautifully set. The house would be cleaned to within an inch of its life. Their two daughters were so well-behaved that we hardly knew they were there. Their family life was straight out of “Ozzie and Harriett.”
By way of contrast, when they would come to our house, it would seem like a scene right out of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” The last time we had them over for dinner, we were living in Elkhart. After dinner, the adults were talking in the living room, catching up with each other, and the kids (they were in high school at the time) were in the family room watching television.
All of a sudden we heard a loud, awful profanity issue forth from the TV. One of our boys (and I still don’t know which one) had brought home a really raunchy “R” rated video. No, they were not allowed to watch those things (at least when we had some control over it), but they obviously thought they could put one over on mom and dad, and that with company there, we wouldn’t notice. Plus, my boys being who my boys are took a real delight in scandalizing these two young ladies and went out of their way to shock them with their behavior.
When I watch our friends – and they really are friends, and have been very important to us – they always make me think of those Christmas commercials on television. You know the ones: the perfect family is gathered around the perfect dinner table with the perfectly roasted turkey and the perfectly behaved children and the perfectly jolly grandpa seated at the head of the table with the perfectly decorated Christmas tree in the background.
When I watch those things on TV, I feel a not-to-subtle pressure to live up to expectations that we will never be able to meet. We like to believe that the Christmas season is a peaceful season, but the reality is that it is a season in which we work ourselves into a frenzy with all of the decorating and cooking and cleaning and partying and shopping. It’s hard to relax when the traffic at the mall makes you want to tear your hair out, when every charity in the world wants your money, when the dog eats tinsel from the Christmas tree, and when “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” blares from your radio every time you get into the car.
My guess is that things are not too much different with young families now than they were when our family was young. When Christmas Eve rolls around, mom is dead-tired, Dad is cranky, and the kids are hopped up on sugar and red dye. I guess it’s not too surprising that the levels of depression rise during this season because the reality doesn’t live up to the expectation.
I always say that the two most important seasons of the year – Advent and Easter – are so busy around the church that it is hard to find the time to focus on their real meanings. That is especially true for the Christmas season.
I’ve told you before that among my best friends are a couple of Veterinarians who practice in Sturgis, Michigan. She specializes in small animals and he in large animals. Last week, she sent me some medication for our dogs through the mail. I e-mailed her a thank-you note and told her how crazy busy this season is around the church. I told her that it was only December 1st and already I felt like I needed a break. I asked her – jokingly - if Byron needed anybody to help him de-horn cattle or bleed hogs. I’ve helped him with both of those things before, and so have some experience. Maybe I could apply for a job.
Obviously I was joking – his work is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter and too stinky in every season. Besides, although I complain a lot, this is a crazy season for everybody, not just me. I know that my Veterinarian friends with their two teenagers are feeling the same sort of chronic busyness in their lives.
We all want to have the sort of tranquil life that could be put on a greeting card or a television commercial for eggnog, but that’s not going to happen…to any of us. Modern life is just too busy to begin with. Then we throw all of the holiday stuff into the mix, and it gets even crazier.
This is a true story; one with which I’m sure you can identify. A pastor happened to be in a grocery store near Christmas, and overheard a couple who were discussing which turkey to choose for Christmas dinner. It will not be too hard to imagine their conversation which went like this.
How about this one, honey?
It looks good to me.
Or how about this one, it’s 20 pounds instead of 19.2.
Okay.
Here’s another one. It’s 22 pounds. We may need one that big with the whole family in town.
Whatever.
And here’s one that is 22.1 pounds.
Just get the (expletive deleted) turkey and let’s get out of here.
Overhead could be heard the grocery store’s public address system playing “Joy to the World, The Lord has Come.”
But you think we’ve got it tough. Let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of Mary and Joseph. There was a census at the time Jesus was born. Everybody needed to show up in his home town. So Joseph put his incredibly pregnant wife on the back of a donkey for the seventy or so mile trip down from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
I remember the first Saturday of October 1980. I was in my final year of seminary and decided that I needed a break from studying. So Toni and I got into my jeep and set off for the Colorado high country. I had a book – still have it in fact – that gave the directions to some old ghost towns. Not all of them can be reached by paved roads. Some roads don’t really even qualify as roads. I of course, being who I am, chose the paths less traveled. I had every confidence that I and my jeep could go anywhere.
What you need to know is that Matthew was born on October 13th. You do the math. Toni was about as pregnant as anyone can get, and I was bouncing her over some of the most inhospitable roads in the Rockies. She was not impressed. She said that she understood Mary just a little better after that day.
So Joseph and Mary made what must have been an agonizing journey for her, all the way down to Bethlehem, only to discover that they couldn’t find a place to stay once they arrived. Details are pretty sketchy in the gospel story. Luke says that while they were there, the time came for Mary to deliver her child. After his birth, he was laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn.
We’re not exactly sure what Luke meant by “inn.” Perhaps it was an establishment in which pilgrims could find lodging when they were in town. Perhaps it was a guest room in someone’s house. Perhaps it was just a sleeping area in a corner of a single room Palestinian’s house. We don’t really know, except that the young couple could find no place to stay. So when the baby was born, they placed him in a feed trough. That detail has given rise to the tradition that he was born in a cave or a stable, but the gospel really doesn’t say, although that would be a good guess.
Like you, Toni and I have begun to receive Christmas greeting cards, many of which depict a manger scene on the front. We have several nativity scenes set up in our house along with the other Christmas decorations, but I’m not sure that our greeting card scenes and hand-painted nativity sets reflect reality.
You see, Jesus was born in the midst of hardship. Mary and Joseph were stressed and running out of time. They were confused. They were harried and worried. Mary’s water broke, the labor pains had begun, and they couldn’t find a place to get her off of her swollen ankles. That sort of puts a new light on our struggles when we overcook the Christmas turkey.
Yet, remember that in the midst of it all, these holy parents were surprised by God, as the angel choirs sang and the shepherds came to worship. Into the noise of the city and the confusion of the crowds came the heavenly reminder that God was dong something new in their midst. As these new parents tried to figure out just how they were going to raise this child, assurance came that they were not alone.
The Christmas scene sometimes seems like a fairy tale. But it’s not. God’s grace comes despite the distractions. God’s word comes, even in the midst of our chaotic lives.
So here’s a question for you. How can you make room for Jesus in your homes and families this holiday season? On Christmas Day, as our activities tend to center on the kitchen or dining room table, how can we notice Jesus?
Look for Christ in those special moments. Look for Jesus in the smile of a child, in the “merry Christmas” from the person who is standing with the Salvation Army bucket, in the warmth of the oven from baking cookies that remind you of the warmth of God that fills our chilly souls.
Even though your dinner table may not have a fairy tale quality about it, don’t let the season rob you of the opportunity to meet Jesus. Even though the dinner table seem like a strange place to find Jesus, I have a feeling he will be there, if you only look.
