I would be remiss if I were to talk about Christmas without mentioning the red bicycle. The red bicycle was a Schwinn with 20 inch tires, the kind of bicycle that was soon to be in high demand for converting into a stingray with a banana seat and butterfly handlebars. At the time I had not ridden a bicycle and so pretty promptly my older brother was riding it around and around the driveway, but I did learn with some help and training wheels. That was one of the great Christmas presents. There were certainly others that at the time were more highly valued, but that was one of the most challenging, even daunting, to absorb.
Of course, the most daunting Christmas gift to absorb is the one we are all given this morning as we are every Christmas morning and that is the birth of Christ.
This morning, with the help of Linus and the Peanuts gang, we are reminded of the words we have just heard that we will hear again whenever we open the king James Bible, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, and listen to the words from the gospel of Luke chapter 2, that introduce us to the introduction of our savior into the world.
As Leo Tolstoy put it when describing another mother giving birth, this is the world's most solemn mystery now unfolding: when Mary, the mother of Jesus, in an unexpected accommodation, is giving birth to her firstborn son.
Soon, according to some accounts, there would be a lot more of a fuss, but at the time, shepherds aside, and them the least of these the children of men, there was not much of a celebration. There was not much to mark this birth out from the birth of any other child.
His parents had some mysterious stories to be told, both by Joseph and by Mary, and so did her cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah.
I don’t think the stories had spread very widely by the time. This little child was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, a city, small yet not least among the cities of Judah, for in it was born this child who was to be king of the Jews and crucified as such.
I hope that isn’t jumping ahead too far in our story— it certainly isn’t jumping to the end, which is yet to be told or known or experienced.
And so we have the story which tells itself in our hearts, but also bears repeating for every Christmas and beyond.
Some people call the Episcopal Church a Christmas church because our emphasis is so much on the Incarnation; more than on the crucifixion which some Roman Catholics may be accused of dwelling upon too much, or on the resurrection and Easter, which are often the province of other denominations more inclined to look beyond Good Friday to the happy ending of the resurrection.
But we know the happy ending was there at the beginning, not just the "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" beginning, but the "in the beginning was the Word" beginning.
For Jesus, this little child, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell comes for us, the fullest expression of God, of God’s will, of God’s grace, of God’s presence, of God’s love. that we can imagine or experience in our lives.
This child, yes, born 2000 and more years ago on the far side of the world in a small town, somehow becomes present to us and brings present to us the love of God, and that is what we celebrate today.
Merry Christmas.
https://lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/Christmas/ChrsDay1_RCL.html
https://ctktucson.org/
"The world's most solemn mystery was now being slowly enacted."
[Sounds like the Nativity... it's from "War and Peace", as Andrei's wife gives birth. (Vol. 2, Part 1, Ch. 8.)]
