What do you want for Christmas? I hope there’s somebody
in your life who is asking that question. I am not one of those
curmudgeons who thinks we should do away with giving gifts
at Christmas. Yes, it gets out of hand. And yes, it’s all very
commercial. But still, gift-giving is a part of the joy of the
season. Let’s not throw it away. So, what do you want for
Christmas?
Those of us of a certain age can remember when the answer
to that was framed in a silly song, “All I want for Christmas is
my two front teeth!” Remember that?! Sung by a six-year-
old moppet trying to figure out what had become of her
choppers. “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my
two front teeth .. “ What a classic! And you think popular
music today is empty and pointless? That’s your opinion,
from the generation that gave us not only the “two front
teeth” song, but also such inspirational wonders as “Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and that profoundly spiritual
number, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”! So who says
they don’t write music like they used to? Thank goodness
they don’t!
But, now, really, what do you want for Christmas? I have
never been good at answering that question. I have a hard
time figuring out what to give for Christmas, but I have an
even harder time deciding what to ask for for Christmas.
Long about December 20th or so, despairing of any hints from
me, my son, my daughter, and my wife call each other up
and ask, “What does dad want?” They just despair of ever
figuring out what I want, because I don’t know myself. Part
of that is that I was trained early on not to want things we
couldn’t afford. I got introduced early to the peculiarities of
Santa Claus’s budget; I learned in my childhood that Santa
had thousands upon thousands of boys and girls all over the
world to take care of, and so his budget was suspiciously
similar to the budget of a postman trying to keep the house
warm and put clothes on his growing boys. There were no
frills in Santa’s budget! So I learned early not to want
something that was out of reach anyway.
What do I want for Christmas? One year I tried to go super-
spiritual. I said to my family, don’t give me anything. There
is nothing that I need and nothing that I want, so take what
you would have spent on me and put it in the International
Missions Offering at the church. Just give it to missions, and
I will be happy. Well, that was a struggle. First, they didn’t
think I really meant it. They knew that we say things that
sound spiritual, but we don’t really mean it. And second,
they felt that I had to have something to open, something
under the tree. A slip of paper saying we gave a hundred
dollars to missions just didn’t get it. No, they said, that won’t
work. That’s what you say you want. But come on, what do
you really want for Christmas?
Isn’t it true that what we say we want may not be what we
really want? What we think we want at the moment may not
be what we ultimately, bottom line, really want. We may find
out that down deep, beneath the surface, there is something
that we didn’t even know we wanted, but it is the best gift of
all.
Joseph found that out. Joseph, the husband of Mary, about
whom we know very little, found out that what he thought he
wanted was not what he really wanted. And found out, too,
that though he was full of hope and consumed by fear, those
hopes and those fears were met in the child of Mary.
I
For one thing, Joseph thought he wanted to be rid of an
embarrassing problem. He thought he wanted to be clear of
something that was tarnishing his reputation and holding him
up for ridicule. Joseph thought he wanted to be rid of an
embarrassing problem. But Joseph found out that what he
really wanted was to love and to be loved. All Joseph really
wanted for Christmas was the love and companionship of
someone he cherished.
You do not need to be reminded, do you, of what would have
embarrassed Joseph? A pregnant fiancé, and all the talk
around town, all the doubts and fears he must have felt. Did
one of his friends violate Mary? What were they saying
about him behind his back? Did they think him an idiot to
believe this cockamamie story about a child of the Holy
Spirit? He must have worried about Mary, too; was she
crazy? Did she really believe that stuff? Joseph had an
embarrassing problem.
Now the Scripture puts a positive spin on this when it says
that Joseph was a righteous man and was unwilling to
expose Mary to public disgrace, and so planned to dismiss
her quietly. That’s the positive spin. But I cannot help but
wonder whether much of his resolve to put Mary in the closet
had to do with his own embarrassment and his fear for his
own reputation. You know, we are complex creatures, and
almost everything we do has mixed motives in it. Was h e
concerned about Mary, or was he much more concerned
about himself? Mixed motives.
Just as the business of giving and receiving has mixed
motives in it. When we give someone a gift, it looks as
though we want that certain someone to have something
they want. But it’s more than that, a lot more than that. It’s
about our own feelings, too, isn’t it? When I give a gift, it’s
about wanting to be accepted, wanting to avoid
embarrassment, wanting to be rid of problems. When I give
you something, I say I hope you will like it. But what I really
mean is that I hope I have not done something off the wall,
so embarrassing that it will expose how fragile my ego really
is.
I don’t know about you, but I tend to do blitzkrieg shopping.
Without any real notion of what I am going for, I head into the
shopping mall determined to get something – just what, I
don’t know, but something. And to get something that is at
least not an embarrassment. Oh, one year on my blitzkrieg I
saw some gardening equipment, and decided on the spot to
buy that for my gardener, also known as my wife. At last,
after years of reactions that varied from, “Well, I guess I can
use this” to “You really don’t know my tastes, do you?”, I hit
the spot with this stuff. I was so ecstatic I went back after
Christmas and bought some more of it!
But, you see, it was all about me, wasn’t it? It was all about
my avoiding embarrassment. It was all about my getting rid
of a painful problem. There wasn’t very much there about
giving somebody something. It was all about my avoiding
embarrassment. Like Joseph, trying to figure out what to do
with this embarrassing fiancé.
But God spoke to Joseph and said, “Do not be afraid.” Do
not be afraid of what they will say. Do not be afraid of your
own resentments. Take this moment and make it a
redemptive one. Love Mary. Love her more than you love
yourself. Embrace her. She needs you. She needs you –
not quiet confinement, not the whispers of gossipy relatives,
not the contempt of self-righteous neighbors. Mary needs
you, Joseph. And so Joseph learned that although he
thought he wanted to be rid of an embarrassing problem,
God showed him that what he really wanted was to love and
be loved. God showed Joseph that what he really wanted
was the love and companionship of someone he cherished.
This wonderful story reminds me that families are
embarrassing. Family members do things we are not proud
of. But ultimately what they want and need is love; and what
you and I want and need is to give love. If anything will
change somebody who is an embarrassment, it will be love,
not denial, not hiding, not ignoring, not wishing they would go
away. But love. And guess what? That love is not only
what they want and need for Christmas. That is what you
and I want and need too. Like Joseph, we think we want to
be rid of embarrassing problems in our families; but like
Joseph again, we hear the Lord telling us that what we really
want for Christmas is to love and to be loved.
II
There’s a second thing. There’s something else Joseph
thought he wanted, but when he looked at it, he found it was
not what he really wanted at all. Joseph thought he wanted
to live out a normal life, doing what other people do, getting
by, keeping things together, just doing what other people do.
Joseph thought he wanted to live out a normal life. But
Joseph found out that what he really wanted, when he got
down to it, was to be significant. All Joseph really wanted for
Christmas was to be where God wanted him to be and to do
what God had called him to do in order to move forward
God’s plan of salvation.
As I have said, the Bible tells us almost nothing about
Joseph. It is silent about everything we would like to know.
Who were his parents, how old was he, what other interests
did he have besides carpentry, how did he handle the young
Jesus? Lots of things we would like to know, but we don’t.
Could it be that that is because he was a modest, retiring,
quiet person? An ordinary person, with nothing to distinguish
him? Just the average guy, not distinguished by feats of skill
or brawny muscle or powerful intellect? You would not have
picked him out of the crowd. You would not have turned to
him for leadership. He was just a guy named Joe, that’s all.
And maybe that’s all he wanted out of life, or thought he did.
He thought he wanted an ordinary life. He thought he
wanted home and family, wife and kids, work and three
meals on the table. Nothing special, just normal. But then
God said, Joseph, that’s not enough. I have something
special for you to do. I have a part for you to play in the plan
of salvation. Joseph, you think you want normal and
ordinary. But Joseph, if you dig down deep in your heart,
you will acknowledge, that what you really want is to be
above normal and to be extraordinary. I have something for
you, Joseph, something that has your name on it, something
to do in the plan of salvation.
Oh, friends, too many of us have settled for normal. We
have settled for being average. We don’t want to stand out.
We want to be neither more nor less than the next person.
We just want to keep the bills paid, maintain good health, get
by day by day. We have settled for everydayness. The
Pharisee in the Bible prayed and thanked God that he was
not like other men. That’s not us; we thank God that we
ARE like other men.
We have settled for ordinariness. We have not allowed
ourselves to see that down deep what we really want is to be
something special for the kingdom of God. We have not
permitted ourselves to believe that what will ultimately satisfy
us is to participate in Kingdom-building. Are we like the Old
Testament patriarch Methusaleh, who lived 969 years and he
died – so what? Almost a thousand years of ordinary?
Somebody has pointed out that tombstones give your date of
birth and date of death, with a little dash in between, and the
issue is what did you do with the little dash. Some of us
think that all we want is a little dash. We think we want to lie
low and be normal. But no, no, no! We, like Joseph, if we
listen, will hear God telling us that He has something special
for us to do. Like Joseph, if we listen, we will discover that
what we really want is to be what God needs us to be in His
Kingdom.
William Carey was a shoemaker in England, sitting at his
little bench, repairing shoes. He could have made a modest
but comfortable living for himself that way. He could have
lived on the respect of his family, the esteem of his
neighbors, and the admiration of his fellow Christians. But
above Carey’s bench he kept a map of the world, and at the
center of that map the great subcontinent of India, where
there were millions of souls who did not know Christ. As
Carey hammered on shoe soles, the Holy Spirit was
hammering on his soul, and Carey began to dream of being a
missionary. A modest man, without much education, with no
finances, with not even the support of English Baptists, who
put down his ideas, William Carey decided that what he
really wanted was not to be an ordinary shoemaker in an
English town, but to be a missionary for Christ in faraway
India. Do you know William Carey’s life motto? Do you
know what William Carey believed? “Expect great things
from God; attempt great things for God.” Say it with me; it
will destroy mere ordinariness: “Expect great things from
God; attempt great things for God.” Eight years in India
before the first convert came; years spent learning the Hindi
language, translating the Bible, writing a dictionary. But
today the world honors William Carey, not because he went
with what he thought he wanted, but because he listened to
God’s call and found what he really wanted was to be
somebody for the Kingdom.
I just wonder today what future William Carey is sitting in our
church balcony. I just wonder this morning what Carey, what
Joseph is in a pew out there or in the choir loft up here. I just
wonder who has settled for ordinariness, thinking that is what
you want: just a dash between birth and death. But if you
listen to the Spirit, what you really want for Christmas is to
be somebody in the Kingdom. What you really want is, like
Joseph, to go beyond merely average and be what God
wants you to be in His plan of salvation. There is something
special for you; just listen. Just listen.
III
But friends, in the last analysis, Joseph also thought that
what he wanted was just a few people to cherish him.
Joseph thought he needed to have just a few people to be
there for him, just a few. Not too many. He didn’t require
adoring throngs or applauding crowds. He seemed content
to live his life out in small ways, in a little village called
Nazareth, with a sweet little wife and some children to carry
on his name. Like everybody else, Joseph wanted just a
little respect, just some acceptance and fulfillment. That’s
not so much to ask for, is it? Not to be alone. For we do fear
being alone.
But look what Joseph got! Look at what Joseph received!
He got for Christmas what all of us can have, if we but know
how to ask for it – he got Emmanuel! He got God with us!
He got the very presence of the eternal God, right here, right
now, invested in his life, immersed in his world. Joseph
thought he wanted intimacy with Mary and two or three
rugrats to care for him when he got old. But Joseph found
out that what he really wanted for Christmas, for every day,
for all days, was the presence of the living God. The word
who became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and
truth.
Oh, I know that the great heart hunger of every human being
is to know God. Someone has said that we are incurably
religious. We have an aching void inside that only the love
of God can fill. We have a nobodiness that only the power of
God can take away. We have guilt that only Christ can heal,
we have shame that only He can handle. We have issues
that only the presence of the Lord can cure.
That’s where the real mess lies with the commercialism of
Christmas. We use things to reach out for a little affection,
but it does not work. We give gifts and receive them,
thinking they will make the aching voids go away, but they do
not. Someone has said that Christmas as we celebrate it is
giving things they do not need to people we do not like, paid
for with money we do not have, to gain a satisfaction we
cannot keep. How sadly true! When all we really want – all
we really want, for Christmas, for any day, for any season, is
to know that we are embraced by the love of the Father.
And that is precisely what we do have. That is our gift.
“Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, all divine.
Love came down at Christmas”. It is what we really, truly,
deep down, bottom line, want. To know God. The angel
said to Joseph, “God is with us”, and Joseph awoke from
sleep and did as the angel commanded. He got what he
really wanted for Christmas, the love that would not let him
go.
I have told you this story before, but it bears repeating. My
most memorable Christmas came when I was six years old,
almost seven. It had been a rough year in our family. My
little brother had been born in February, and right after that
our mother went into post-partum depression. She had to be
sent to a sanitarium for many months. My desperate father
did what he knew to do for his sons – he imported both
grandmothers and a great-aunt, and found that they spent as
much time arguing with one another as they did taking care
of us. It was a rough year. But what I shall never forget is
my father, exhausted not only by the turmoil of that year but
also by the demands of his work as a postman, pulling me up
on his lap next to the Christmas tree, and telling me that he
understood. That he knew there weren’t many toys and that
there wasn’t much in the stocking. But that he loved me, he
understood what I was feeling, soon mother would be home,
soon we would be all right. I do not remember all that he
said. But I do remember feeling loved. I do remember being
heard. I do know that I was understood. I do know that he
was there for me, I do know that my father was in my world.
I knew that day that he would never fail me nor forsake me.
And that is all I really wanted that Christmas. That is all any
of us really wants for any Christmas. To know that our
creator Father is God with us. To see that He understands.
To discover that He is in our world, now and forever. God
with us; Emmanuel. That’s all anybody could ever really
want for Christmas.
