You know about the shepherds and the angels and the wise men from the East.

You’re familiar with Joseph and Mary and the “little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay.”

These characters are known to us all, and our visions of them leave us with a warm and wonderful feeling.

But maybe you suspect that there is more than sweetness to this story.  Scratch the surface of any Christmas card image, and you’re going to uncover greed and passion, danger and death.

How does Christmas really work?

One place to begin to answer this question is the Internet, which conveniently enough includes a site called “How Christmas Works.”  It’s a one-stop shop for all your questions about the holiday.

Questions like, “Why do people give each other presents on Christmas Day?”  Or, “Is December 25 really the day Jesus was born?”

Then there’s the mistletoe mystery.  What does it have to do with the Christmas story?  Nada.  Absolutely nothing.

And how about the 12 days of Christmas?  What’s that about?  Aren’t there like about 30 days of Christmas, from Thanksgiving until Christmas Day?

Of course there are answers to these questions for those who are truly interested.  But when we look at the whole Christmas industry, from decorated shopping malls to parties with mistletoe, we run the risk of forgetting that Christmas almost didn’t happen.  For a while, it looked as though Christmas wouldn’t work at all.

 
Dig beneath the peaceful picture of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, and you are going to find surprises.  Take a close look at the gospel of Matthew, and you’ll be stunned by the danger and death that permeate the original Christmas story.  You want to talk about catastrophe theory, you can start right here.  Christmas should never have happened.

You don’t, for example, take your pregnant wife -- nine months pregnant with the Son of God -- put her on a mule, and pack her off on a road trip.

Second, if you do, you arrange for lodging, and don’t just hope there will be a room in the inn.  I once neglected to arrange for a motel when we were traveling to Maine for vacation, and we ended up at a place in the middle of nowhere, way past midnight.  There was a sign in the bathroom saying, “Don’t clean fish in the sink.”  Nancy was not amused.

Third, the baby Jesus is born in a manger.  Think about it.  How do children survive these days?  Answer is, back then, a lot of them didn’t.  Jesus did.  It wasn’t a sterile environment to have a child.  Wasn’t your first-class birthing center at Fairfax Hospital.

And then there are the wise men who hit a roadblock as they attempt to gain access to Jesus.  Sure, the star in the sky is a big help as they make their way to Jerusalem, but once they arrive in the capital they run smack into King Herod, who’s already working on an exit strategy in case this new “king” isn’t found -- and killed.  To make sure, scores of male children are killed in what today is known as the “Slaughter of the Innocents.”

So Christmas almost didn’t come off then -- and it often doesn’t come off at all for us now.

Of course, we go through the motions. The presents, the Christmas cards, the shopping, the food, the parties, and so on.

But that’s not Christmas.  That’s the holidays.

Like the wise men, we have to take a detour around these dangers.  If we are going to gain access to Jesus, we are challenged to find another way.  The wise men protected Jesus by evading the expectations of Herod, and we should follow this same path.  Our access to Jesus may require eliminating some of the Christmas expectations that can elevate our anxiety.

Fact is, we don’t need to obsess about holiday decorations, and insist that our houses be stuffed with green holly branches and red poinsettia plants.  But even if we scale back our expectations and downsize our decorations, we’re still going to face some dangers as we make our way through the season.  Life has a way of shattering our serenity, even when we do our best to keep the chaos under control.

So how does Christmas work?

Christmas works when we shatter the false gods of materialism, and the idols of ambition, and the demons of self-importance, and set up the Christ child as the promise and priority of our lives.  When Christ is the center of our daily living, then the other demons will fade away.

There’s a moment in the film A Beautiful Mind when John Nash, played by Russell Crowe, has come to terms with his demons.  They’re still there, but he ignores them, and there’s a scene when these demons, being ignored, appear sad, and understand that they no longer exert the influence over Nash that they used to.

When we honor Christ, and not the industry of Christmas – from malls to mistletoe – then Christmas really works.  The demons, while still there, have no control over us.

We also honor Christmas when we allow it to take us to a foreign land.  The Scripture text today tells us about the flight of the holy family into Egypt.  Jesus often leads us into unknown territory, taking us into uncharted waters.  But that’s what Christmas is about, letting Jesus take our hand and lead us along our journey.

Tony Campolo tells the story about the late Mike Yaconelli, who told the story about a deacon in his church who wasn’t deaking.  You know what I mean -- he just didn’t do what he was supposed to do as a deacon.

One day Mike said to the deacon, “I have a group of young people who go to the old folks home and put on a worship service once a month.  Would you drive them to the old folks home and at least do that?”  The deacon agreed.

The first Sunday the deacon was at the old folks home, he was in the back with his arms folded as the kids were doing their thing up front.  All of a sudden, someone was tugging at his arm.  He looked down, and here was this old man in a wheelchair.  He took hold of the old man’s hand and the old man held his hand all during the service.  The next month that was repeated.  The man in the wheelchair came and held the hand of the deacon.

The next month, the next month, and the next month.

Then the old man wasn’t there.  The deacon inquired and he was told, “Oh, he’s down the hall, right hand side, third door.  He’s dying.  He’s unconscious, but if you want to go down and pray over his body that’s all right.”

The deacon went and there were tubes and wires hanging out all over the place.  The deacon took the man’s hand and prayed that God would receive the man, that God would bring this man from this life into the next and give him eternal blessings.

As soon as he finished the prayer, the old man squeezed the deacon’s hand and the deacon knew that he had been heard.  He was so moved by this that tears began to run down his cheeks.

He stumbled out of the room and as he did so he bumped into a woman, the man’s daughter.  She said, “He’s been waiting for you.  He said that he didn’t want to die until he had the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.”

The deacon was amazed at this.  He said, “What do you mean?”

She said, “Well, my father would say that once a month Jesus came to this place. ‘He would take my hand and he would hold my hand for a whole hour.  I don’t want to die until I have the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.’”

Christmas works when we let Jesus take us into unfamiliar territory -- a nursing home, a neighbor’s home, a homeless shelter.  Christmas works when we resolve to live with a generous spirit, and provide a helping hand.  Christmas works when we discover that the key to growing inwardly is to look outwardly, and meet the needs of others.   

The point is that whenever and wherever we go, we are the hand of Jesus to others, and when that happens -- Christmas really works.  Amen.