T he feast

Christmas Day was less than one week ago, Tuesday, Dec. 25.

According to the retail stores, the Christmas season begins a few days before the Halloween candy appears on the shelves, sometime in early October.

And on a side note, apparently Valentine’s Day begins a week before Christmas. I kid you not, Dollar General’s Christmas candy section was three-fourths full of heart-shaped boxes of Russell Stover two weeks ago. It was hard to find any of those Christmas-packaged chocolate-covered cherries that day.

During the time we often think of as the Christmas season, the church celebrates Advent. On the four Sundays before Christmas, we read scriptures about the coming of the Christ child, and lighted Advent wreath candles as we looked forward to both the birth of Christ and the time when Christ will return.

In the church calendar, Christmas Day actually marks the first day of the 12 days of Christmas. This period of time is not a biblically based actual period of time, but a time that our church ancestors set aside to celebrate the birth of Christ and the time before Epiphany, when we celebrate the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ to the Magi. But Pastor Keith will have more on that for us next Sunday.

Now according to “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song, we can expect six geese a-laying anytime today.

When we gathered around the Christmas tree on Christmas day, many of us thought that day was the last day of the Christmas season. By then, many of us were wiped out, exhausted by all the preparations for Christmas.

We’d shopped for gifts — although the Internet has cut back on some of the driving around and being on our feet shopping, purchased paper and wrapped gifts, deep-cleaned the house because Aunt Judi is coming and we want everything to look just right, or, packed up the kids, the gifts, the turkey, and the clothes to drive long distances to be with family or friends — who are probably tired out from deep-cleaning because you are coming and they want everything to look just so!

And we sat down for 20 minutes to eat a meal that took 20 hours to prepare, only to be pulled from the table by the children who can’t wait another moment to open another package. After which, of course, we gathered up all that wrapping paper, put the food away, cleaned the kitchen, opened more gifts, made a few phone calls, sent a few texts, and plopped down on the couch — smiling broadly at how truly wonderful a Christmas it has been.

Or, sitting alone in a recliner, missing a loved one who has died. Or having spent the day with or without loved one — because they were at work, or they are in heaven, or they are in prison, or they are too far away or too ill to travel to be together. Or because we are the ones to ill or too far away to travel.

Either way, the feast is over. It’s all over but standing in the exchange line.

Or so we think. It’s actually the beginning. The beginning of the Christmas season.

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Christmas
Christmas, or the Mass of Christ, is the celebration of Christ’s birth. We celebrate that God came to us as a baby and lived among us, Christmas is Emmanuel — God with us.

As Presbyterians we do not believe that Jesus was born on Dec. 25. We don’t believe that the Bible tells us the date that he was born. The first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on Dec. 25 was in 336. We do not celebrate the day that Christ was born, but we celebrate that Christ was born!

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Christmas is every day
Growing up, my dad worked for spare board for the railroad — on call. He missed many a Christmas dinner with us, and I remember him saying that every day is Christmas

That was when Christmas was primarily about packages, Santa, and decorating sugar cookies with my mom and sister. It wasn’t until my mid 30’s that I began to believe that Christmas is when we celebrate God with us. Emmanuel. The birth of Christ. God made man to walk among us.

And here at Swift, we celebrate that on Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. But in truth, my dad was right. (He’s not able to be here today, but I’m going to let him know!). Christmas is every day, for God is with us every day.

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After the feast
In today’s scripture, Jesus as a 12-year-old boy with his parents had traveled to the annual Passover Feast. (I wonder if someone deep-cleaned before they arrived?)

Scripture says, ‘as they did every year,’ so we know they were devout in their faith. After the festival, people headed home. Not on planes or in rental cars, but walking along in large groups of people. We know Jesus came up missing. One might question if he was lost, or if Joseph and Mary were the lost ones. Mull that over next time you read through the scripture.

Anyway, we know that Joseph and Mary did double back and find Jesus; Mary questioned her 12-year-old son about causing her such worry, and Jesus the 12-year-old son — the Son of God — calmly explained that they should have known where he was.

Today we focus on just one portion of one verse of what may be a familiar scripture.

After the feast. verse 43 begins, “after the feast.”

By verse 46, we learn that Jesus has been sitting among the religious teachers, listening and learning.

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The bumblebee — look up, look to others
A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

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What will we do after the feast?
We are still in the Christmas season. After the tree is put way, the gifts are exchanged for a different size or color, the furniture is moved, the thank-you notes are sent. After we see the delight in the eyes of children, our own or those we see in Facebook posts, or strangers sitting nearby in a coffee shop.

After the assigned day and date to celebrate God coming into the world, incarnate.

We can reveal in the reality that indeed, every day is Christmas! After the day we call Christmas — it is still Christmas. Karl with a “K” was right.

And we can, like Jesus, not leave the feast behind us, but delve deeper into that reality. Look up to the Father. Celebrate that God is with us. Every day.

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After the feast is over, we are to look up, and look around to others
Did you have a “good” Christmas? Do you know what others are going through around you?

Look up, and then look around.

And, after the feast is over, we are to help others to look up when they can’t seem to see beyond their problems, or struggles, or frustrations. (Remember the bumblebee.)

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Around Swift
Christmas week, with someone in ER for simple X-ray — with good results — overheard that there had been at least two wrecks that afternoon. What are we here for? To pray for this waiting room full of family and friends whose loved ones were in these wrecks.

On Christmas Eve, couple living on Swift Church Road — our neighbors — performed CPR on a friend staying with them who fell into shallow water in a ditch on the side of the road. Philip and I and another couple from church stopped. Professionals came shortly after. What were we there for? We prayed, we held the women close, we cautiously asked her husband what we might do to help. And we continued on to worship with you. And God was with us, as we worshiped with you. And God was with the couple as their friend was taken away by ambulance.

A few days after Christmas, as my niece and my dad had visions of Stacey’s ice cream treats dancing around in their heads, a man driving a Ford F-150 backed out of a parking spot into the lane of traffic where my extremely cautious niece was driving. Shaken up but not injured, my niece called me, and God was with me as I drove. And God was with my niece and my dad. And with the very kind, apologetic, men’s ministry leader of another congregation.

And church members will drive to UAB tomorrow, again, for more cancer treatment, chemo, and decisions. And God will be with them. Another with cancer also has pneumonia, and God is with him.

And Nancy celebrated Christmas without Ronnie, and Christmas day came and went for husbands without wives, wives who have lost their husbands, parents whose young children and grandchildren have been gone for years. And God is with them.

A church member broke her hip on Christmas morning, and she is cheering up the hospital staff. God is with her.

A family is struggling to understand their adult child’s decisions. And God is with all of them.

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God is with us
After the day we call Christmas — it is still Christmas.

After the feast is over … sit at God’s feet and listen and learn. Look up, and look around.

God is with us. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are with us. So it seems, every day IS Christmas, isn’t it? Thanks, Dad, for all I’ve learned sitting at your feet. Most of the time, I was listening ….

As I look around at you, the congregation, I am thankful for every one of you, for you have helped me listen and learn from Our Father. Amen.

Merry Christmas today! Amen.

— Jody Beth Melton