Isaiah 9:2-7 Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-14(15-20) Psalm 96

So, here we are, which leads me to assume you are “ready for Christmas.”  I never quite know how to answer that question:  Are you ready for Christmas?  Does it mean I’ve completed all the gift shopping, and wrapped all the presents, and gotten the tree up and decorated, and hung the stockings, and planned and purchased everything necessary for Christmas dinner, and placed fresh greenery on the mantel, and made the new bow for the wreath on the door, and cleared away all the clutter that all that creates, and communicated all the expectations for the traditional family gathering?  Yeah.

Actually, this year I was pretty proud of myself.  I’ve learned that if it’s going to get done, it has to be completed before the last week before Christmas, at which time the real marathon begins, ending at midnight tonight.  Then, it’s Christmas and what’s done is done and it’s time to crash and relax.  Except, that’s exactly what the drain from the upstairs bathroom decided to do.  The sound of steadily dripping water in the pantry wall didn’t blend well with the Christmas piano music.  So, we’re down one bathroom with company on the way, and God is laughing at my self-aggrandizement over my successful readiness for “Christmas.”

Our earthly creation of Christmas is quite a phenomenon.  How hard it is to stop the chatter in our heads – making our list and checking it twice over and over.  We become a real hazard to ourselves and others.

Yet, we know that we cannot “make” Christmas.  There is nothing in our human effort that creates Christmas.  Except that, with great intention, we have to turn off the chatter transmitters and turn on our receivers instead.  Christmas is not our human effort.  We can only receive Christmas; we are to receive Christmas as the gift that it is.  It is very seldom that we turn away a gift; certainly, never such a sacred gift.

And, how amazing is it that this gift comes from a tiny child?  -A newborn baby, with no town crier to announce his royal birth, with no room in the inn or even a comfortable bed for him or his young mother; only a cattle trough in a stable with cows and sheep and hay to provide warmth.  -His mother Mary who so faithfully and willingly made herself available and ready to be God’s vessel for creating and working God’s will for Good.  -The babe’s earthly father protecting and making whatever provisions that were possible in these rudimentary surroundings.  Even so, this is our gift, God’s miracle – all because God wants what it best for us – his children in need of redemption and salvation from sin – redemption and salvation, freely offered, the gift of God’s grace.

We read from Luke’s Gospel that while Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem, “the time came for her to deliver her child.”  God’s time came for the child to be delivered.  God’s time came for the child to be delivered that God might dwell among us in the human person of Jesus Christ, that God might dwell within us.  All in God’s time.

This is God’s gift – no shopping, no wrapping, no cooking required.

With the coming of Jesus Christ on that first Christmas – the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, God came to dwell in us.  When God’s time is the right time, when we set aside our misdirected earthly struggles to “make” Christmas by our own efforts and standards, only then are we ready to receive the true gift of Christmas.

Receive the gift of God dwelling in you.  As for any other treasured gift, we are eager to show it off, to share it.  When God’s time is right, and we have received the gift into our souls, it will flow out from us into the world.  As it was for the shepherds, the glory of the Lord will shine around us; we will go forth from the stable into the world glorifying and praising God.

Then, we will know the answer to that perennial question:  Are you ready for Christmas?