Holiday Traditions. I love them! There are so many of them. We sort of just go through the motions without really thinking about them. All these traditions to get to this evening, Christmas Eve. Welcome, by the way. It’s lovely to be with you.

I love driving around looking at all the houses. The lights! The displays! The synchronized music and light shows. Kate and I make hot chocolate, load Sam and Eve up and hit the town. It’s been a tradition since we were dating. I remember the first time we made our way in the cold, dark night in my 1995 Geo Prizm. Don’t say I don’t know how to show a girl a good time. The radio tuned to the Christmas channel. I showed her all the best houses Tuscarawas County had to offer. Eventually, we made it to the centerpiece of my whole trip: Tuscora Park! Oh, man Kate was really in for a treat.

We drove through and she was in awe. I could just tell. She stared open- mouthed at the displays. We got to the end, and I asked what she thought and she wondered what any of what we just saw had to do with Christmas.

I was taken aback at first and had to think. Then I just laughed. The Tuscora Park display is entitled Storybook Lane. All the displays depict nursery rhymes. There’s Humpty Dumpty who wobbles on top of a brick wall. There are the three blind mice getting chased with a woman with a carving knife. The woman’s elbow rotates 360 degrees with a knife the size of a broadsword in her hand. The old woman who lived in a shoe is spanking one of her kids, because nothing says Christmas like corporal punishment. None of the displays have anything to do with Christmas now that I thought of it. But the routine, the familiarity of the display never caused me to ask that question.

I wanted to marry Kate right there and then. She had helped me see the display in a new way. It was a little absurd. Yet it was tradition.

If we’re honest, some of our Christmas traditions are a little absurd. More than a some come to think of it. There’s a tree in this room. Trees are outside things. Yet each year, some of us venture out and chop one down and haul it inside. The rest of us put up fake ones, which are probably fire hazards. We string lights on it and act like all of this is normal behavior.

Some of us hide a pickle in the branches. Like that makes sense. Looking at you, Germans!

Then there’s the whole business with a Saint or an elf, it’s not clear, but he breaks and enters our house. But instead of taking our stuff, he leaves stuff. Then flies off in a slay piloted by 8 tiny reindeer and one has a radioactive nose.

Makes perfect sense.

Since Halloween, certain radio stations have been playing the same eight songs on the radio. Yet each year, they continue to bring comfort and joy. I can’t say the same for most songs from my childhood. We watch the same movies: the forgotten kid torturing buglers. The suicidal guy who sees his impact on the world thanks to a wing-less angel. The 3 ghosts haunting a boss to pay his workers more and ironically the one with the most amount of the authors words is the one with the most amount of Muppets.[1] We love these songs and movies!

There is a certain magic in the air. All of these things seem normal. And they are. They are tradition. I’m sure you eat certain things this time of year that you don’t otherwise. There’s a certain way you gather. There are marks and events and houses you must see or else something is lost. Maybe there’s the same fruitcake from 1952 you pass down through the generations.

There is an absurdity to Christmas. It’s by design. It’s embedded in the story with all these Manger Things. I saw a meme on social media and it made everything clear why this holiday beyond all others is absurd:
“It’s an unwed woman who carries God.
It’s pagans from the east who recognize God.
It’s the workers in the field who hear from God.
It’s the marginalized neighborhood that welcomes God.
It’s God who chooses the lowly and broken to rise.
Christmas is here.
Let hope in.”

In those short words, it gets the story right. God chooses us. To be with us, raised in community, by everyday folk. It’s God who choses the lowly for the good news.

God in Jesus, is a helpless baby. Born and wrapped in swaddling cloth and laid in a manger. The manger is the feed trough, there’s no mention that they were in a stable or barn or anything. There might not have even been a roof over their heads. That’s a wild thought, isn’t it. When King Herod gets word of this birth, the holy family have to flee the country. They cross a border, like so many today, fleeing for their lives. No papers, no point of entry, for if they presented those, they could be tracked and killed. Like so many today.

At Christmas, the world feels brighter, kinder, better. We cheer for the unwed mothers, the downtrodden, the still little towns whose dark streets shineth. Love finds its way into every heart, filling even the coldest corners. We string lights on up to guide each other back to home, and drag evergreen trees indoors to create spaces for friends and family to gather.

Generosity flourishes—charitable giving soars to new heights. Strangers pay for each other’s coffee, surprise one another by covering grocery bills, and perform countless small miracles of kindness. Our town does Christmas right with the Candlelight Walk. It’s a big production. We live in a Hallmark town, with a tree and gazebo and the whole deal. We’re doing it again, a second Candlelight Walk for fellow citizens from North Carolina. On January 10 Castle Noel, Main Street Medina, Medina Chamber of Commerce and local business will bring up a few buses of folk and pay for the gas for folks in cars. They’ll stay in area hotels for free, all paid for by the generosity of others. And we’ll feed them soup[2] here in this building on January 11^th at 4:30 p.m. before they go out for a parade and fireworks. Because that’s the Promise of Christmas.[3]

Amid the bleak midwinter, art and beauty burst forth: dazzling holiday displays light up the night as we drive by, snug in our toasty cars. We rekindle traditions of neighborliness and hospitality, reminding one another what it means to belong. Every Scrooge and Grinch gets a warm invitation to let their hearts grow.

Christmas is absurd by design. For what we think of normal, really isn’t. All the war, partisan politics, callousness, and dehumanization. That’s the way the world works year-round. But at Christmas, we finally get it right and do the opposite. Peace, community, generosity, and the idea that God isn’t distant… God is right beside us in our neighbor. Within us, closer than our next breath. Bidding us to keep this absurdity going year-round.

When you accept that you’re accepted, that’s when the story of Christmas truly comes alive. It just might save your life, and the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Works Cited

[1] Home Alone, It’s A Wonderful Life, and Muppet’s Christmas Carol, of course.

[2] You can sign up for soup and more here: www.tinyurl.com/promisedsoup

[3] For more, please look here: https://castlenoel.com/promise-of-christmas/