First Sunday After Christmas

John 1:1-18

“I’ll be home for Christmas/ You can count on me…”

I think we all know that song. A sad song, really. You also probably know that the song was written during WWII and was one of the top requested songs on the USO tours. I think what that song touches on is our desire to be “home” for Christmas. Whether that is at home with our parents or home with the kids. Christmas seems to pull us back to that place where we feel comfortable and welcome.

What is so sad though, is that as soon as the day of Christmas is over, everything of Christmas seems to get tossed out. Trees come down. Decorations are stored away. Stores put out Valentine’s Day décor. Christmas decorations have been out since Halloween, and now it seems like we just want to pack it all away and be done with it. I have always wondered why we wait so long for Christmas to come, and then once the day has passed, we just toss it all out and move on.

I think it has to do with that feeling of wanting to be home. We really want that “at home” feeling at Christmas. It may not necessarily be a brick and mortar home that we are looking for, but it is the comfort that represents home. Just about any Christmas movie you can think of plays on that feeling. The character may search, but eventually the character finds this “home.” Scrooge has to learn that he cannot find home in his money and George Bailey needs to learn that home is not in some far off country, but right there in Bedford Falls. That search for the ever elusive “home” is what drives the characters. And although in the movies the main character always finds their way home, quite often, we do not. So maybe the long lead-up to Christmas and then quickly moving on to the next event represents first our continued longing to find our home and then our frustration when we don’t find it in the trappings we see around us.

But really, what does it take to make a home? Is a home a place or is it something more? I used to own a home and loved Christmas there. Yes, I miss not having the roaring fire in the fireplace, but there are these really neat DVD fires that even play Christmas music! My fireplace never did that! And I missed having the big Christmas tree and a place to set the twenty-odd nativities I have collected. I even missed not being able to decorate outside. All those things were nice, and all of these things I enjoyed, but those things didn’t make the house a home. What made my house a home were the people that were there and also the cats and the dog that shared the place with us. It was not the place or the things; it was the people and the relationships.

Unfortunately, our society tells us that what makes Christmas is the stuff. There is a line from one of my favorite movies, A Christmas Story, which seems to sum the whole thing up: The mother, seeing the kids about to descend upon all the presents under the tree, says, “Now wait for Christmas to start.” The assumption is that Christmas could not occur without the presents. Our society tells us that Christmas is about the stuff and we tend to believe it. So we get out the stuff earlier and earlier. We want our stuff to make us feel at home. And then when it doesn’t live up to its promise, we pack it all away and move on.

But you know, the thing that the world tells us isn’t really what Christmas is about. Christmas is not about stuff. Yes, Christmas is about gifts, but not the gifts we see advertised in the Sunday newspaper. Those gifts are the things that seem to leave us wanting. But there is another gift, and that is the gift that defines Christmas. That defining gift is God: God in the form of a human who came to earth to be with us. As John says, “The word became flesh and lived among us.” Or we might say, “The word became flesh and made a home among us.” The gift that we are given at Christmas is the gift of Christ himself. And it is in Christ that we can find our true home.

Now, with all this talk about stuff, it may seem like I am saying that we should just ditch everything of this world. And there are some branches of Christianity that teach that we need to give up everything in the world. But in the gift of the birth of Jesus, we see that world is not something that is despised by God. God made the world and God became incarnate in the world. The world is a gift to us. But also, while the world is a gift to us, it is not to replace the giver of the gift, God. The things of the world are given as an enhancement to our relationship with Christ, not as a substitute to that relationship. But so often, we get sidetracked. We forget the true gift and work to fill our lives with what we think will give us that feeling of home. But in the end, we are left feeling empty.

The word become flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory. The word came to create a home for us. The word came so that we could feel at home. The word came to bring us grace and forgiveness. And isn’t that what we want when we go home? Don’t we want to know that we are accepted, loved, and forgiven even with all of our faults? Jesus came into the world to bring this to us! When we turn to Jesus, we are, in fact, moving toward that perfect home.

Is Jesus welcome into our homes this Christmas? Do we have room in our lives for the little baby in the manger? Do we have room in our lives for the man he would grow to be? Are we able to clear away the trappings of life and let the true light of Christmas shine into the darkness of our lives? Or are we so busy trying to find our own home that we miss the home we have been given?

I’ll be home for Christmas/ If only in my dreams…

If only in my dreams… I think that sometimes the whole Jesus coming to earth thing may feel like a dream. Maybe we think that it is too good, God couldn’t have done this for us. The love, the forgiveness, the grace, the glory! These are not dreams! These are the reality of our faith. All of these things are the Christmas gift that we are given in the birth of Jesus. These are all the things he brought when he came to live among us. These are the gifts we receive through our baptism.

The actual day of Christmas is over. And for many it is time to pack away all of the Christmas decorations for next year. But when we put the nativity back in the box, don’t put the Christ child away too. Jesus, the word, became flesh for us. The relationship established that night is still here for us. That draw we have for home can only be filled in our Savior. As we search for our place to call home, don’t be so quick to move on to the next promise of comfort. Christ our home has come to be with us. Let us clear a place in our heart where that peace of home can grow.