I would like to tell you of the Christmases of the 1900s. Specifically from 1900 and 82 until 1900 and 96.

My grandparents had this family room with a picture window and white paneling traced with thin gold pinstripes. We’d put up the Christmas tree, which felt enormous back then, though in truth it was probably four feet tall. It sat on a stand, so it towered in the corner it occupied for the 4-5 weeks out of the year.

The tree wore those fat, fire-hazard lights. A few bulbs had liquid inside and would bubble once they warmed up. Tinsel hung in long metallic strands, imitating icicles. We would gather and eat and open presents, then head off to midnight Mass. We’d sing Silent Night by candlelight, like we will tonight. Every so often, someone’s Aquanet-fortified hairstyle would catch a spark, adding a dash of danger to the evening’s reverence.

Santa would visit sometime in the quiet hours. My sister and I half-heartedly tried to stay awake to catch him, but we never did. Early in the morning, we’d tear into presents, eat far too much sugar, and binge on movies. Time stretched out gently. It was the Christmas of my childhood.  No school. All the movies and ham we could handle. I loved this season then. I still love it now as my children keep the practice.

We hold traditions of this evening close. I’m sure you have your own Christmas memories. The warm glow of the season permeates our lives. It asks things of us. It demands things of us. Sometimes we lean too hard on the wrong things. Sometimes we need a disruption to shake us out of our comfortable patterns and into the true meaning of Christmas.

We see this in story after story. The Grinch was quite settled in his loathing of Christmas and his neighbors. Yet when Christmas arrived without its glitz and glamour, his heart awakened and discovered love.

Scrooge traveled a similar road. He treasured only his riches. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” and Scrooge’s heart had become cold and miserly. Until three spirits and one small boy opened his eyes and rerouted his life.

Magical things happen. People change. They find love. In the bleak midwinter, love keeps breaking the surface. Whether it’s a Christmas classic or the newest Hallmark confection, this magic is told again and again. Hope renewed.

My personal favorite: Charlie Brown felt weighed down by the season’s commercialism. His therapist wasn’t much help, nor was his beagle. His friend Linus stepped forward and reminded him what Christmas is all about: “I bring you tidings of great joy, which will be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

We look tonight at our Advent wreath. In Christ, hope, peace, joy, and love are born. All our movies and hymns are echoes of these promises.

In 1997, a rift opened in my family. Gone was that towering-in-memory tree with its fire-hazard lights and weeping-willow tinsel. Gone was the house with the picture window and the gold-striped paneling. Even the candlelit Silent Night service was gone for that year.

What was left of our family gathered quietly. And Christmas came anyway. Completely different. Completely the same. We were reminded of what truly mattered: the four promises spoken by our Advent candles, the hope, peace, joy, and love of Christ in and through all things can be born again in the world.

The life we had expected was gone, and with it our old hopes and dreams. That year, we found new ones.

Maybe you’ve had such a Christmas. The First Christmas After. After a loved one died. After a career vanished. After a relationship ended. After a diagnosis rearranged your world. The old things passed away. Yet behold, God did a new thing. Glad tidings were brought and Christmas came anyway. Completely different. Completely the same.

Maybe your heart grew. Maybe you softened where you had been hardened. Maybe something like an angel nudged you toward your own place in the story. Maybe you come tonight hoping for such a thing to break upon your spirit. It’s hard to see from this pulpit exactly how each of us arrives. Still, it is the task of this preacher to remind every heart of the true meaning of Christmas.

This is the Advent of God with us. When we lodge God in the sky, we end up praying to a distant orbiting deity, a cosmic inbox forever out of reach. When we lock God inside a book, we forget that the Word took on breath and heartbeat and walked our roads. And when we trap God in the past, we cut ourselves off from the pulse of Christmas itself: the holy nearness, the quiet astonishment, and the living promise of God with us.

God is born on Christmas. And God needs to be born in each of our hearts. Like any infant, that presence needs attention. We must feed our hope so that it grows. We must train for peace so we can practice it when violence shows up. We must let our joy play, learning its rhythms so that weariness cannot carry us away. And love… love is the point. Not the bargain-bin variety, but the deep, sacred, holy practice that turns strangers into friends and friends into family.

Keep Christmas in your favored way, tonight and throughout the year. And should you need a reminder, the point of church is to become a people shaped by hope, peace, joy, and love. Each of us who claims the name Christian becomes a living Advent wreath, carrying light of Christ into the world, practicing Christmas with our lives.

May it be so. May these be glad tidings of great joy. Merry Christmas, church. Amen.