Wilmot First Presbyterian Church

Well, by the grace of God we have arrived at yet another Christmas Day! No doubt there are many homes with debris strewn about rooms and perhaps some already broken toys. Some of you may open your gifts on Christmas Eve and afforded yourselves a morning to sleep in a bit, or have things already tidied up! Whatever your tradition I hope the gifts and watching others open them have provided you with joy. If you have been keeping an Advent Calendar with the little windows in it, it’s time to open the one with the picture of baby Jesus in it.

When I was a child, Christmas Day was always the only day on our Advent Calendar which was never a surprise. That’s fitting. Christmas is the celebration of God’s Son being born into our world and into our ongoing struggle in it. There are plenty of surprises in each and every day to get our fill. It’s nice to have the consistency of that baby Jesus there each and every Christmas. There is also something new about that baby Jesus in every Christmas. It would be more truthful to say there’s nothing new about that baby, but there is something new we discover as we grow in our faith.

It’s not hard to study God. There are myriad traditions and theologians (orthodox and heretical) to make our heads dizzy but studying God and filling our heads does not make our hearts full; knowing God does. Knowing about God and knowing God are not the same things, just like studying horticulture differs from tasting a peach, juice running down your chin. If Christmas is a little stale, it may be because we have studied all about it but never bit into the fruit.

We have a set of paintings I really like. I think I would like the paintings no matter what, but what makes them valuable to me isn’t so much the art as it is knowing and loving the artist. I knew some things about him when we first met almost 40 years ago, but I didn’t know him, until we spent time together. As we continue to spend time together I learn even more. The Christmas story is a painting, a beautiful painting, but a painting captures only a portion of the depth of the real thing. A painting, even a masterpiece, can start to be taken for granted, or become stale because we know about it but lack a real relationship with it.

Some people are having a stale Christmas this year because they tell themselves they are satisfied with an Advent Calendar Jesus or the image of a baby in Bethlehem. Those people may even know the image really, really well, but they don’t spend any time with the author nor see it as an invitation to know the artist. The invitation is not to know ABOUT the artist, but to actually have a relationship WITH the artist.

We can all admire a beautiful painting, but like great literature or music, the best art asks something of us. It is an invitation to us to interact as part of a conversation rather than just recognize the beauty of the image. Like any great art, Christmas is to be seen. Like any great literature, Christmas is to be read. Like any great music, Christmas is to be heard. Like the finest banquet, Christmas is to be tasted. All of those experiences call to us to know the artist, the author, the composer, the chef…

If we leave Jesus on an Advent Calendar or in a manger 2000 years ago we may have a comforting tradition but we never see, hear, touch, nor taste the reality. There is no surprise in a still life painting or a banquet table we just look at. We need to slide up to the table and get orange juice squirted in our eye, meat on the fork, gravy spilled on our sleeve and swim in the laughter of being at the table with a living and present Host. Art is better when we know the artist. Literature is deeper when we have met the author. Music is sweeter when we know the composer. Go ahead, bite the peach.

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, be our Guest. Let these gifts to us be blessed. AMEN

Activity: If faith were a fruit, where would your fruit be? In a painting? A seed? Ripe and ready? Tasted?… Where have you tasted or most experienced the reality of your faith?