An Adult Christmas

December 24, 2021 + Christ Mass + Pastor Craig Mueller

A year ago we were all in our homes. Who would have thought that only a small number of us would be able to gather in person tonight, while most are again online. Christmas greetings to all on this holy night, whether gathered here or in your home.

It’s probably not a Christmas song you recognize. Glen Campbell sang it decades ago. “Christmas is for children, that’s what people say. All their smiles are brighter because of Christmas day.”

It can seem that Christmas is for children, right? Touching nativity pageants. Watchful waiting for the man in the red suit to bring gifts. Wonder and excitement for the happiest day of the year.

Don’t you wish you still had that childlike innocence at Christmas? Maybe we catch a glimpse of it now and then. Other times we must come to terms with adult realities. Do you remember previous Christmases that brought disappointment or heartache? Maybe your expectations were too high. Or there were family foibles and frustrations. Or you were separated from loved ones. Or you were carrying a load of loss deep in your soul.

Or maybe it is this second Covid Christmas that deflates and exhausts your spirits. You read the news and can scarcely take it in. Are we characters in a novel? Insurrection. Pandemic. Political unrest. Weird weather. Worry and sometime panic. And as one story put it, we are sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Churches advertise that their early Christmas Eve services are for families, especially for children. 

But this late service is mostly for adults willing to stay up this late. It’s certainly past my bedtime! But I wonder: what if we actually said: for adults only. Oh, it wouldn’t mean that children aren’t welcome. But rather Christmas is also for adults who have lost their innocence. Who have rough edges due to disappointment and doubt and dashed dreams.

What is the Christmas message for us, especially this year? Sometimes the blue of Advent feels more authentic. A world still waiting. Longing for justice and healing to dawn on a world filled with inequities, cynicism, and confusion. Hoping against hope.

With our pristine manger scenes, it is easy to overlook that in the scriptures God’s people seem to always be dealing with slavery or living in exile . . . with foreign occupation or siege. Nothing about the first Christmas is ideal for Mary and Joseph. The timing is off. The birth messy. The political context unstable. 

Our Wednesday study group has been examining the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke. Scholars believe these birth stories were added later to the gospels. The end of the story—Jesus’ resurrection, and his identity as Son of God—is overlaid on the entire gospel. Even at the beginning of the story Jesus is declared divine. Even at his birth he is savior. Even in these early stories, he is rejected by those in power. Whether they are historical or not, they are gospels in miniature.

One essay by a scripture scholar has a provocative title: On putting an adult Christ back into Christmas. The story of Jesus’ birth reads back later insights of the adult Christ crucified and risen.

Most sweet Christmas carols don’t refer to the adult Christ. But a few do. “Nails, nails shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you.

On this dark night, near the winter solstice, we gather in what feels like the middle of the night. After all, sunset was six hours ago! And we sing of a birth when half-spent was the night. When all the world was still and waiting. 

O Savior, child of Mary, who felt our human woe; O Savior, king of glory, who dost our weakness know.

As Pr. Michelle said in her Blue Christmas homily, God has a fondness for what is fragile. And perhaps that is what the pandemic is teaching us. How we are interconnected we are to each other. How vulnerable we are to a virus. How fragile our planet’s ecosystems.  

Whatever disappointments you carry this night. Whatever loss or grief. Whatever expectations that cannot be met. Whatever brings tears to your eyes. Whether in this holy church or the holy space in your home where you gather online. Whether children with wonder-filled eyes, or adults just trying to hold it together.

Christ is born for you. Emmanuel, God with us. God with you. This night and in whatever is to come.