Back when I was in college, my roommate and I had a little tradition that I’ve maintained every year since: whenever the first snowflake falls from the sky, I watch a Christmas movie classic: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
While it’s not White Christmas or It's A Wonderful Life, it has become a kind of modern-day holiday classic, so most of you probably know the story. Clark Griswold wants nothing more than to host a big old-fashioned family Christmas. But his wife Ellen is a little skeptical. “You set standards that no family can live up to,” she tells her husband.
And sure enough, as the story unfolds, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Crazy cousin-in-law Eddie shows up un-announced, the Christmas lights won’t light, the turkey is overcooked, and the Christmas tree catches on fire. Ellen sums it all up when she says, “I don't know what to say, except it's Christmas and we're all in misery.”
I think one of the reasons this movie has become so popular is that so many of us recognize at least a little of our own holiday experiences in its storyline. We all have high hopes for the holidays, and put a lot of effort into making everything just right for ourselves and for our families.
But then, something or everything goes wrong. Not all the Christmas cards or shopping gets done in time, the cookies burn in the oven and then the cousins fight at the dinner table. Our families and holidays don’t live up to our high hopes and expectations, and so we feel as if we’re shutout of the joy and peace this season is supposed to bring.
Our Gospel reading this evening makes clear that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Matthew introduces his version of the Nativity by relating the genealogy of Jesus from God’s revelation to Abraham, all the way to Joseph, the guardian of the Lord.
Because we don’t know our Scripture the way we could, we miss one of the central points of this genealogy and hear it as merely a list of obscure and unpronounceable names. But one of the reasons to relate this genealogy is to make the point that even the family tree of the Messiah was a dysfunctional mess!
For just one example, think about King David “who became the father of Solomon.” St. Matthew very nicely says that Solomon’s mother had been the wife of Uriah. In fact, as you may remember, David takes Bathsheba as his mistress while Uriah is still alive – and then David has Uriah killed so that he can marry the women now pregnant with his son. And this, friends, is the great King David whose throne God has promised to re-establish through Jesus Christ!
The rest of the list of ancestors isn’t much better. The family tree is filled with more of the same messiness and sinfulness – and that’s precisely why Matthew includes it in his Nativity story. It’s not into a perfect world, into the world that we hope for or imagine that Jesus is born – it’s into the world as it is, often sinful and broken, that the Lord enters at Christmas.
That’s the same point St. Francis tried to remind us of when he gave us the Christmas crèche. Every year, we set up beautiful hand-carved pieces and imagine that it’s a touching beautiful scene. But in reality, it was a God-awful mess! Jesus was born in a barn, and laid in an animal’s feeding trough, because His parents were far from home: their country was occupied by a brutal army, Joseph’s relatives in Bethlehem wouldn’t have them, no one else had any room, and before long King Herod would be out to kill the child and Joseph would have to take his family to exile in Egypt.
Friends, it’s precisely into this world – into the messiness, sinfulness and imperfections of our lives – that the Lord is born. But please don’t think that God’s Son merely comes to make us feel better about ourselves; to tell us that everything is okay; that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up too much or have unrealistic expectations.
Much more than that, as St. Matthew tells us in tonight’s Gospel, the child is given the name Jesus “because He will save His people from their sins.” That’s what the name Jesus means in Hebrew: “God saves.”
On this Christmas night, we don’t simply relive our memories of a sweet children’s story – we wonder at the miracle of God become flesh – we rejoice that His coming, and His sharing our human weakness, is all for the purpose of saving us!
We can truly rejoice and know God’s peace at Christmas, not because our lives, or our families, or our holidays are so perfect, but because we recognize in the tiny child of Bethlehem the One who saves us from every sin and suffering – and that is indeed reason to join the angels in singing: “Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace and goodwill to men.”
I think one of the reasons this movie has become so popular is that so many of us recognize at least a little of our own holiday experiences in its storyline. We all have high hopes for the holidays, and put a lot of effort into making everything just right for ourselves and for our families.
But then, something or everything goes wrong. Not all the Christmas cards or shopping gets done in time, the cookies burn in the oven and then the cousins fight at the dinner table. Our families and holidays don’t live up to our high hopes and expectations, and so we feel as if we’re shutout of the joy and peace this season is supposed to bring.
Our Gospel reading this evening makes clear that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Matthew introduces his version of the Nativity by relating the genealogy of Jesus from God’s revelation to Abraham, all the way to Joseph, the guardian of the Lord.
Because we don’t know our Scripture the way we could, we miss one of the central points of this genealogy and hear it as merely a list of obscure and unpronounceable names. But one of the reasons to relate this genealogy is to make the point that even the family tree of the Messiah was a dysfunctional mess!
For just one example, think about King David “who became the father of Solomon.” St. Matthew very nicely says that Solomon’s mother had been the wife of Uriah. In fact, as you may remember, David takes Bathsheba as his mistress while Uriah is still alive – and then David has Uriah killed so that he can marry the women now pregnant with his son. And this, friends, is the great King David whose throne God has promised to re-establish through Jesus Christ!
The rest of the list of ancestors isn’t much better. The family tree is filled with more of the same messiness and sinfulness – and that’s precisely why Matthew includes it in his Nativity story. It’s not into a perfect world, into the world that we hope for or imagine that Jesus is born – it’s into the world as it is, often sinful and broken, that the Lord enters at Christmas.
That’s the same point St. Francis tried to remind us of when he gave us the Christmas crèche. Every year, we set up beautiful hand-carved pieces and imagine that it’s a touching beautiful scene. But in reality, it was a God-awful mess! Jesus was born in a barn, and laid in an animal’s feeding trough, because His parents were far from home: their country was occupied by a brutal army, Joseph’s relatives in Bethlehem wouldn’t have them, no one else had any room, and before long King Herod would be out to kill the child and Joseph would have to take his family to exile in Egypt.
Friends, it’s precisely into this world – into the messiness, sinfulness and imperfections of our lives – that the Lord is born. But please don’t think that God’s Son merely comes to make us feel better about ourselves; to tell us that everything is okay; that we shouldn’t beat ourselves up too much or have unrealistic expectations.
Much more than that, as St. Matthew tells us in tonight’s Gospel, the child is given the name Jesus “because He will save His people from their sins.” That’s what the name Jesus means in Hebrew: “God saves.”
On this Christmas night, we don’t simply relive our memories of a sweet children’s story – we wonder at the miracle of God become flesh – we rejoice that His coming, and His sharing our human weakness, is all for the purpose of saving us!
We can truly rejoice and know God’s peace at Christmas, not because our lives, or our families, or our holidays are so perfect, but because we recognize in the tiny child of Bethlehem the One who saves us from every sin and suffering – and that is indeed reason to join the angels in singing: “Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace and goodwill to men.”
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