I walk into Starbucks. Set my bag on a chair and remove the lid from my refillable cup and set it on a tall table to save my spot. Then get in line. There, I fumble with my phone to bring up my membership app. I want to be ready to pay for my iced coffee and start looking ahead. Another Sunday coming, another sermon.
Marvin’s smiling face greets me and asks:
Did you have a good Christmas?
My reply
We sure did!
He asks about Santa and presents. We talk about being sleep-deprived and getting back at it.
Joy filled the exchange. The excitement, the energy of our season of new birth and gratitude still radiates.
But I lacked the courage to say what I wanted to say.
To say
I’m having a good Christmas!
That Christmas isn’t over–it’s only begun.
To say these things and not be a liturgical snob or that kind of nasty Christian.
Responding with true sincerity and love that yes, Christmas Day was truly remarkable, but it is still going and I’m feeling great about it!
I wanted to name, not only the difference with our culture’s approach to the day, but to embrace the joy and generosity of the season itself. To love in a way that actually feels like love.
It needs to be both.
I don’t want to be right and be a jerk.
Or be wrong and miss the power of the season.
I want to share the truth that I know–
the joy of the incarnation!
–isn’t left to a single day.
While embracing the joy in all my interactions. I want to share the intimacy of a Christ in the human form of a baby and the joy of celebrating such a profound gift.
I want to be a source of Christ’s love. Not just because of Christmas or my baptism decades ago, but because I sincerely believe this all means something.
To help people know that this too is Christmas.
Today. Let three french hens and two turtle doves be our reminder.
Our speaking of presents and a need to catch up on sleep and our love for our families and friends is the holy embodiment of Christmas. Our family friend, my friend back at work, on Christmas. Christmas’s second day.
Perhaps we let our Boxing Day be our return to the world with the spirit of joy.
In spite of all the trees at the curb and the sudden absence of seasonally-appropriate music, it is still Christmas. Hearing adult contemporary and ’80s hits at Kroger is a sign of our return to normal. As the world sheds its holiday glow.
These signs are of a return to normal so fixed and rigid they cut our emotions off at the knees.
Our begging knees and our praising knees.
Maybe these are the perfect reminders for our divine reclamation project.
That the world doesn’t really understand that Christmas is a celebration that is supposed to last throughout the year. With we as the incarnate ones. Children of God with the Son of God. The lovers and the builders of the new normal Jesus calls the Kingdom of God.
And further, that this is only the beginning of our year, not its end. The beginning of our ministry, not its culmination. And the time of our great joy in the love of Christ, not just some gift giving and a few days off of work and school.
Christmas is our reminder of the beginning. Not then, but now. In life and love as Jesus’s agents of transformation. Because God’s new normal isn’t going to build itself.
And some of us will need plenty of coffee.