Reflections on "The Perfect Ending" Luke 3: 1-6; Zephaniah 3: 14-2

the tinsel story  connected with several people in the congregation.  Of course, the problem with stories people connect to is that sometimes the point to which the story points gets lost in the story.  I don't know if that happened.

Originally, I had planned to take the tinsel story and build on how the story was transformed from a horrible Christmas memory to a joyful Christmas memory by focusing on how Christ's meets us in the imperfection of our lives and transforms us.  somehow I lost that theme during the week.  

“The Perfect Ending” 2nd Advent; 12/6/15; Zephaniah 3: 14-20; Luke 3: 1-6

Introduction: In a few days, I will return from picking up one of my daughters from college, and shortly thereafter my other college-aged daughter will return home. With them, will come a new sign that Christmas is comingI The DVR will be busy as they record seemingly every Christmas movie on TV.

Then a pattern will emerge. When I come home at lunch, my daughters are sprawled on the couch watching a Christmas movie. When I pass through the TV room when I come home from work, daughters still sprawled on the couch watching a Christmas move. When I go to bed, they are still on the couch watching a Christmas movie. Funny, they are not there when I get up and go to work!

When I pass through the room and see the movie, within seconds I can tell you what's happening. All the Christmas movies seem to have the same two or three themes. Either children are setting their parents up with a stranger, someone is bringing home the person pretending to be their boyfriend or girlfriend, or long lost family members are reunited.

What is your favorite Christmas movie? I have lots of favorite Christmas movies.  Classics like White Christmas with Bing Crosby singing and dancing his way into the heart of his woman and the climactic finish when she returns to join him on stage and it begins to snow, all the while saving the retired General's business at the inn. Or It's a Wonderful with Clarence getting his wings.

Comedies like Christmas Vacation or Home Alone in which we laugh as all the issues get resolved. We have not joined the Clevelanders in watching A Christmas Story each year.

Sometimes I watch action Christmas movies, but usually I have to do that alone.

We generally do not watch animated movies, which rules out watching The Grinch, Frosty, or Rudolph.  

What’s your favorite Christmas movie? Does it have the perfect ending? Probably.

Move 1: we have a tendency to want Christmas to be perfect.

a. Tinsel “Christmas is a domestic crisis event, in which everything must be flawless, from greenery to stocking treatments to wrappings to elaborate meals” (Stuever, 24).

1. We have this sense that if we can make the family gathering perfect, than maybe the family relationships will be perfect as well.

2. or if we can have that perfect Christmas day, then we somehow will not miss the loved ones who are not with us to celebrate.

b. Part of the stress, part of craziness of the holiday season is our pursuit of perfection.

1. We want to create that magical Christmas movie of our own lives.

2. and we discover again and again that we cannot. Our lives were not created and lived out on the Hallmark channel.

Move 2: If we look closely at the Christmas story at told in the biblical texts, we discover it was a far cry from a Hallmark Christmas movie as well.

a. We hear the prophets like Zephaniah call the people to rejoice, not because life has magically gotten better, but because they have hope in the God who is coming to save them.

1. The story of God's saving power will not be wrapped up in 120 minutes like a movie plot, but God is coming to save them.

2. The biblical story begins with a word of hope for what God will do.

b. God's story will not be played out in the movie theaters, but in the reality of the world in which we live.

1. we hear Luke give a date stamp for the birth of Christ.

2. God will arrive in real time and place during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, and in a real place.

         3.w e do not have to escape our real lives to find God's Son because Christ comes to be with us.

100. The plot of the biblical Christmas story is little more complicated than a Christmas movie.

1. John the Baptist will soon call people to repentance, to change their ways.

2. Baby Jesus will grow up to be the one who calls people to give up their lives and follow him.

3. The Christmas story is complicated because it is about being changed and transformed.

500. The bible story of Christ's birth deals with fear.

1. remember that every time and angel talks to a person or group, the angel begins with “Do not be afraid.”

2. Being a young mother in a strange town when it's time to give birth is scary. Being transformed is scary.

3. committing to following Christ is scary.

4. throw in King Herod and his threatening power that seeks to kill all the male babies because he is afraid of Jesus, and there is lot of fear in the Christmas story.

500. The Christmas movies are easier because they provide a simple plot that avoids reality.

 Move 3: The Christmas story we discover in the in the biblical text brings a word of hope in the midst of our reality.

a. The hopes for the coming of Christ involve more than fairy tale themes, they speak of God acting decisively to change the world and save God's people.

1.  The coming of Christ is not an excuse to escape the reality of the world, but the call to engage in God's saving work in the world.

2. to hope in the God who acts to redeem us.

2. To hope in the God who calls us to right relationship with one another.

b. One of my favorite Christmas movies, the Gathering. starring Ed Asner and Maureen Stapleton, is no longer  It is not longer shown each Christmas.

In the last year or two it has become available on DVD, but until them the only way you could watch is was to buy the exorbitantly priced VHS collectible of it.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:#2,335 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

No wonder it is not shown every year -- it deals with dying, divorce, and broken relationships.  At the end of the movie, most of those issues are still there, although there is sense of hope that the future holds promise for real change in the reality of their lives.

That's more like the first Christmas story – a story that is played out in the real world, dealing with real issues, a story that invites us into the future where God's redeeming grace will continue to be at work.  

Conclusion: Went home with one of my college suite mates. Invited to stay for the family Christmas party. Silly games.

Their Christmas tree was the biggest one I have ever seen in a house. They had cathedral ceilings, and the tree reached the top of the ceilings and was just as wide. Decorated with ornaments.

Grande finale for the evening was to put tinsel on the tree. We didn't do tinsel at my house growing up. I suppose it was too messy. We don't do tinsel at my house now. I suppose it's still too messy.

At my suite mate’s house, they did tinsel. But before the tinsel, the story was told. His father had always hated Christmas growing up. Christmas with his perfectionist dad was miserable. The epitome of their misery in pursuit of perfection was the tinsel. The tinsel had to be put on strand by strand under the demanding instruction of his perfectionist father. Thus, my friend's father hated Christmas.

When he got married, he married a woman who loved Christmas. It was quite a collision those first few Christmases.

Until they found a way to rewrite the story of tinsel perfection to tinsel imperfection. That's what they celebrated that night. There were bags and bags of tinsel. And blow dryers at every plug. At the appointed time, everyone start5ed throwing and blowing tinsel onto the tree. People in the loft blew and threw from up way; young kids ran toward the tree to launch their tinsel. By the time the tinsel tossing ended, you could hardly see the tree for all the tinsel.

And there was his father with a huge smile on his face. The imperfect tinsel.

As we move through Advent, we do not pursue the perfect Christmas, but we go to meet the perfect One, Jesus Christ, the one born in the manger.

The one born in the reality of our lives; the one who calls us to be transformed by the power of God's love that sends Christ into our world.  Amen.