Merry Christmas, and thank you for joining us here at Resurrection Parish. I am so happy you are here because I have something very important to talk to you about. It’s actually a critical issue that matters more today than any other day of the year: Wrapping paper.
There will likely come a day, sometime in the not-too-distant future, when we look back on wrapping paper with the kind of retrospective condescension we reserve for the most naive elements of our culture.
It’s expensive: we spend $3.2 billion dollars in wrapping paper annually. It’s wasteful: that $3.2 billion worth of wrapping paper results in 4 million tons of trash. Think about that, …it all gets thrown away. Wrapping paper is expensive, it is wasteful, it can be fussy, and at the end of the day it’s wholly unnecessary.
That said, however, wrapping paper is also pretty awesome: It can be beautiful, delightful, charming, whimsical, andmystery laden. What is inherently more interesting, attractive, what is more irresistible than a wrapped package?
Did you know wrapping paper has a long history and tradition. The first documented example of gift wrap comes from China, where paper was first developed somewhat before the time of Christ. Court officials would wrap gifts for one another in colorful paper, often with hand painted patterns
As travel and communication increased, the Chinese custom only made its way to England, in the early 19th centurywhere wrapping gifts in paper became popular with the aristocracy. During the Victorian era, as taste and style generally became more elaborate, so did wrapping paper. And, in the process, more expensive, less accessible. They wrapped gifts upstairs at Downtown Abbey, not downstairs. Wrapping paper was a high end luxury item.
That all ended in the year 1917, in the unlikely setting of Kansas City, Missouri, where wrapping paper became democratized by accident. A pair of brothers had a little stationery store
where, that Christmas of 1917, they were enjoying an exceptionally good holiday season—so good, in fact, that they were running low on most of their standard inventory. Not wanting to be hampered by their success, and miss out on this opportunity they searched their store rooms for anything they could sell.
In the process, they came across a stock of fancy French envelop liners. This paper, with its florid designs, was used in France to line the inside of envelopes. They had ordered it by mistake and never sold a single sheet. That Christmas those two brothers had the crazy idea that they could convince their frugal clientele of mid western shoppers that they should buy this paper to wrap their Christmas gifts in. They sold out.
The next Christmas they designed and printed their own paper, and sold out again. And an industry was born. The brothers? Joyce and Rollie Hall. Their store? Hallmark.
Wrapping paper isn’t the gift and yet it can be incredibly instrumental to the impact and importance of the gift giving experience. We see the wrapped boxes and packages and it creates a tension. We want to know what the paper is covering. Psychological studies have shown that we have a more favorable attitude toward wrapped gifts. It turns out, how things are wrapped can be incredibly important.
The core message of Christmas, the core message of Christianity is a beautiful, simple message, but unfortunately it has been obscured and wrapped up in a way that doesn’t always seem all that appealing, or even something you would want to open. So many times it has been poorly wrapped by a lot of church people. You may have seen Christianity as wrapped in hypocrisy. Maybe you have walked away from the Church because you’ve seen Christianity wrapped in pride; judgmental of others, divisive and unfriendly. Or maybe you have seen Christianity wrapped in religious rule keeping.
I understand all of those reasons for walking away from Christianity, and they are all valid, for sure. It’s just that none of them have anything to do with Christianity. Not really.
They might have to do with certain Christians, but that’s not the same thing as Christianity, is it? As one famous Christian writer put it, “The greatest argument against Christianity is Christians.” The best argument for it, on the other hand is the Christmas story itself.
To best understand that story, lets take a look at the Gospel of St. Luke. St. Luke tells the story of Christmas that most of us know because it is St. Luke’s Gospel that is quoted at length by that most famous of all theologians, Linus in a Charlie Brown Christmas. St. Luke writes, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled” (Luke 2:1).
St. Luke is the most poetic of the Gospels, but he goes to great efforts to show that even though he is describing miraculous, fantastic events, they’re not myth or legend, fantasy or fiction, they really happened in history. “So Joseph too went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child” (Luke 2:4-6).
So St. Luke giving us history and geography. We know when this happened and where: Joseph and Mary travel south from the town of Nazareth to the town of Bethlehem for a census because of the order of the Roman emperor.
St. Luke tells us, “While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. And there were shepherds living in the fields nearby and keeping watch over the flock by night” (Luke 2:6).
This sounds picturesque: it was not. Shepherds were the outcasts of society: These particular shepherds were not only social outcasts, they were religious outcasts too. We know exactly who these shepherds were and where these fields were too. Look at this: “And there were shepherds living in the fields nearby and keeping watch over the flock by night” (Luke 2.6).
Why would they do that? Shepherds didn’t do that. They didn’t keep their flocks in the fields at night, they brought them into enclosures. And what does “the flock” mean? As if there was only one. Does St. Luke expect us to know which flock this was anyway? Well, actually, yes. The flock St. Luke mentions in the Christmas story was a very specific flock.
This flock was the Temple flock, and these shepherds weren’t any shepherds. These shepherds weren’t watching just any sheep, they were watching the sheep that would be sold for slaughter for worship at the Temple. The lambs offered for the sins of the world. Ironically, their very job, menial, filthy work, as it was, disqualified them by the Temple authorities as unfit and unclean to even enter into the Temple.
“The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were sore afraid” (Luke 2:9). Out in the middle of nowhere, these nobodies are suddenly exposed to the reflected glory of God. The core message of Christianity is for everyone, starting with the marginalized.
Understandably, they were terrified. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10).
Today maybe the first time you have ever heard that. I mean really heard it. In your experience, Christianity has been wrapped so badly that you never thought of the idea that it could be good news, much less that it could inspire great joy.
God had sent saviors throughout history to help his people. He had sent people like Moses and Joshua and David to save people from helpless situations that seemed hopeless. That is what a Savior does. They get us out of situations we can’t solve on our own. But this Savior is someone different. This savior is: “Christ and Lord” (Luke 2:11).
Even these uneducated shepherds knew what that meant; the long awaited figure who would change everything for everyone. Suddenly there was a multitude of heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14).
God didn’t send his son into the world to condemn the world, or make us feel guilty. He didn’t do this to set up more religious rules, they already had more rules than they needed. He sent his Son to unleash his favor.
When you unwrap it, that’s the core of Christianity. And that’s what Christmas is all about.
Today though, some of you might not be feeling favor. Maybe the feeling your feeling is more like loss or doubt, fear or grief. As a church, we want you to know that we’re ready to stand with you, listen to you and even pray for you. This Christmas we pray you know favor.
It all begins with God. God is a giver, and everything is ultimately a gift from him. He has given us birth and life, friends and family, time and talent, opportunities and advancements. God is a giver. God is a generous giver.
At Christmas we celebrate that God gave us his very best. At Christmas we celebrate that God the Father gave us his Son. He gave his Son to share his favor. And that favor includes healing from hurts, peace for stress and anxiety, wisdom and hope for living. As we accept the gift of his favor, we receive all those other blessings.
Perhaps the most famous line in all of Scripture sums it up best: “For God so loved the world he GAVE his only beloved Son” (John 3:16). And then the Son loved the world so much he gave too; he gave his life for us on the cross, that we might have life in him. God loves so God gives. We believe; We receive.
It’s as simple as simply saying it in your heart and allowing it to begin to be reflected in your life. It’s as simple as the story of the shepherds. You remember how that story ends. When the angels had gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go the Bethlehem.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word about the child.
They believed the word of God as brought to them by the angel and they acted on it. And it changed their lives.
That’s God’s gift to us this Christmas, to be with us, to walk with us each day in a living loving relationship, in which he shares his favor.
When you unwrap the beautiful story of Christmas that’s what it’s all about.