Skipping the holidays.

It’s kinda tempting, don’t you think?  There’s absolutely no way that I am ready for this holiday season.  It’s a hectic period – with personal, professional, and religious obligations – and I’m still digging out from the pile of work that was waiting for me when I returned from Honduras.  If I haven’t returned your email, I’m sorry.  I had over 200 of them. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to disappear this Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and then reappear on Sunday, January the 2nd?  We could avoid the holiday hoopla, in its entirety.  No crowded malls, no crazy office parties, no midnight Christmas card composition, no anxiety about finding the perfect gifts, no stretched-to-the-limit credit cards.  Best of all, no fruitcakes.

By leaping over this stressful season, we’ll actually have a shot at finding peace on earth, goodwill to all, and maybe even a Silent Night.

But alas … no technology for this kind of seasonal time travel currently exists.  Not even in the Sharper Image catalog.  About the best we can do is buy a ticket to the multiplex and escape into the movie “Christmas with the Kranks.”  It opens this week, starring Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Dan Aykroyd, and it promises to be a major holiday hit.

Tim Allen plays Luther Krank, a man who is incensed that his family spent over $6000 on the previous Christmas, and now they have nothing to show for it.  With his daughter in the Peace Corps, he convinces his wife to skip Christmas for a year, and to put the money into a cruise.  They decide to do no parties, no tree, no lights, no Christmas Eve bash, and no participation in the neighborhood decorating contest – one in which all the neighbors put an identical Frosty the Snowman on their roofs.  The story is about how the neighbors react, in particular the Dan Aykroyd character – a man who organizes the street's Christmas lights, and who gets mad at the Kranks for not participating.

But is it easy -- or even possible -- to skip Christmas?  The Kranks discover that their decision unleashes enormous consequences.  One of the biggest involves the surprise arrival of their daughter, who expects them to be celebrating the holidays as usual. 

Apparently Christmas is like Mother’s Day.  You ignore it at great personal risk.

The movie promises to be fine family fun, but it does raise the question of what really matters during the holiday season.  Like it or not, most of us are going to do the mall thing, the Christmas tree thing, the present thing and the decorations thing – but in the midst of all this frantic activity, are we going to end up skipping Christmas?

Are we going to miss what this holiday is really all about?

In the book of Jeremiah, God laments the loss of good shepherds to watch over Israel.  He is especially disappointed in King Jehoiakim, a monarch who lived 600 years before the time of Christ.  Jehoiakim abused his people through misrule, unrighteousness, injustice and economic oppression.  When the powerful pharaoh of Egypt demanded that his nation pay a hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold, Jehoiakim raised this money by levying a tax on the whole land (2 Kings 23:35).  Worst of all, he kept some of this money for his own personal use.

He was a bad, bad shepherd. 

“It is you who have scattered my flock,” charges the Lord, “and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.  So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:2).  God promises to gather the remnant of his flock, and to put his people under the care of a new generation of kings – kings who will be good shepherds, and will watch over their people, protect them, and keep them from getting lost.

Best of all, God will “raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (v. 5).  This righteous Branch is none other than Jesus the Christ, the one born at Christmas as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Jesus comes to reign with justice and righteousness, and to provide safety for all of God’s people.  And this is the name by which he will be called, says Jeremiah, “The LORD is our righteousness” (v. 6).

The LORD is our righteousness.  It’s an odd name … an unexpected name.  It’s not as well-known as the other names we encounter during the holidays, not as likely to appear in Christmas cards and carols and decorations.  But if we miss it, we might end up skipping the true meaning of Christmas.

For starters, let’s get clear about names.  Jesus is not a “Frosty the Snowman.”  Sure, you could argue that he is something like Frosty in that he surprises us by showing up one day, but he doesn’t do this as a “jolly, happy soul / With a corncob pipe and a button nose / And two eyes made out of coal.”  Jesus is not a person who runs and laughs and plays, but then melts away at the first blast of heat or adversity.

Our Jesus is steadfast … not temperature-sensitive.  He is with us when things get really hot.  Jesus has been with this church during times of conflict and loss.  I have seen him with many of you in hospital rooms and funeral homes.  Jesus has been with me when I’ve been accused of errors in judgment and failures in leadership.  Jesus will always stand with us; he never melts away.

At the same time, Jesus Christ is not Santa Claus.  He’s not a ho-ho-ing, gift-giving, “right jolly old elf.”  He doesn’t come down our chimneys to shower us with expensive toys and treasures, nor does he do his duty by doling out good stuff to good people and lumps of coal to naughty people.  If we believe that piles of presents are a sign of Christ’s favor, then we have missed a key component of the character of our king.

Jesus is a Shepherd, you see, not a Santa.  He gives more attention to lost sheep than to lambs that are safely at home in the flock.  His joy does not come from seeing 99 people exchanging gifts – instead, he rejoices when he sees one solitary sinner repent.      

Take away Frosty and Santa, and you are left with the name given by Jeremiah: “The LORD is our righteousness.”  There’s nothing cute or cheerful about it, and it may not fit our fantasies about what goes into “the Christmas spirit.”  But if we ignore the role of righteousness in who Jesus was – and is – then we run a huge risk of missing the true meaning of Christmas.    

Jesus is all about righteousness.  He came to this earth to make a connection between people and God, and to help people see that their righteousness comes from God.  This LORD-righteousness is the exact opposite of the self-righteousness that so dominates our society today – it is so different from the self-centered smugness that leads us to believe that we somehow deserve our good fortune, along with piles of presents under our Christmas trees.  The problem with so many of us is that we make the assumption that doing well is synonymous with doing good.  We are born on third base, and we go through life believing we have hit a triple.

In the face of this self-delusion, Jesus reminds us that our righteousness comes from God alone.  It is God who makes us righteous, and he does this through Jesus.  Being just, honorable, and free from guilt is not a human achievement, but instead it comes to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Only the LORD is our righteousness … not our nationality, our political party, our class, our race, our denomination, or our alumni association.  This iron-clad connection between righteousness and Jesus is at the very heart of the meaning of Christmas.

It’s simply too good to skip.

So let’s look ahead to Christmas, and open our hearts to what Jesus brings us.  He comes to us as a sign of God’s great love for each and every one of us, and he offers us the gifts of forgiveness, new life, and the righteousness of our loving LORD.  He comes to earth at Christmas to put us back into a right relationship with God – a right relationship that contains all the elements of a righteous life.  The coming of Jesus is not about religion – it’s not about us finding God.  Instead, his coming is about relationship – it’s about God finding us. 

The message of the season is this: Righteous living is a relationship with God.  Nothing more, nothing less.  And to help you grow deeper in this relationship, we are going to be offering some times of peace and quiet in our worship services between now and Christmas.  Instead of adding all kinds of Christmas stuff, we are going to give you an object for meditation each Sunday, and a time of silence.  We’ll light the Advent candles, and sing a quiet opening hymn.  In these simple and uncluttered ways, we want you to be drawn deeper and deeper into a close and personal relationship with God. 

So, go ahead: Put your Frosty on the roof, and clear a path for Santa.  But don’t miss the opportunities you’ll have here at church to focus your attention on the coming of Jesus, the one who shows us that the LORD is our righteousness.      

If you miss it, you’ll be skipping Christmas.  Amen.