It's Christmas Day, and it's so wonderfully quiet on the streets.  The hectic schedules of the season have come to a complete stop today.  Yes, some have to work the Christmas shift, and there are holiday dinners to be observed, but the pace of life has slowed and the traffic is all but gone for one precious day.  Tomorrow there will be time for that second busiest day in retail sales.  But today St. John tells us, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."  The Word is Jesus Christ, and the dwelling is our hearts.  The "Word Made Flesh" has brought most of the western world to a standstill and that's as it should be for at least one day.

          The quietness of Christmas Day is a great gift from God.  I plan this afternoon to take a little walk.  If I'm brave, I'll do a couple of miles, or maybe just a mile and then home.  But whatever the distance, it will feel good, because I will do it for the exercise.  Not like Mary and Joseph's long trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem, eighty miles over six days.  That was done of necessity, and brought about by order of Caesar Augustus.  Augustus had been alarmed by the declining Roman population and so he implemented several laws designed to increase the number of Romans.  His Imperial Census at the time of Christ was to gauge the results of his reforms and it brought the holy family from Nazareth down to Bethlehem.

          When I come back from my walk today, I will return to a warm home and a sleepy family.  The holy family also rested that day in the stable or perhaps the Inn, now that there was finally room.  Or perhaps they were given a borrowed room from a generous local who heard of the poor couple from Galilee giving birth in a stable.  Whatever the case, the first Christmas day was more quiet than the day before.

          St. John's Gospel tells us, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  And we have seen his glory."  There is a glory in this holiday that cannot be taken away.  Nothing can remove it.  Not school board rules against Christmas, not local laws against nativity scenes on public property, not local committees renaming Christmas "Winter Festival" lest anyone be offended.  The glory of Christmas comes from the Son of God, the "Word made flesh who dwelt among us."

          When Joseph and Mary awoke that first morning as parents, it was a new beginning for them, and for their baby, and for the whole world.  Everything had changed for them months before when they were told they'd be part of a miraculous birth.  It took an angel to convince them the expected child would be the Son of God.  But they did believe the angel and God made good on His promise, as He always does.  One of the miracles of Christmas was the faith of Mary and Joseph.  They believed the angel and they believed God.  It must not have been easy to do.

          The birth of Christ was a new beginning for the whole world because this child was the "Word," God's message in human form.  Most messages are merely spoken, but the really important ones require a living Messenger.  Yeshua, the child born of the Virgin Mary, is God's Living Word to all people of every nation, every tongue.  He is God's word of eternal love and salvation to all mankind.  "He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."  Profound words about the Living Word, "Yeshua Meshiach," Jesus the Messiah.  Tradition tells us Mary and Joseph moved from the stable into a house where they lived several months before the Magi came for their famous visit.

          We have so many traditions about Christmas.  Take, for example, the date of December 25 - who chose it?  In the late 300s, Christians began celebrating Christ's birth on the pagan festival of Saturnalia, on Dec. 25.  It became official in the 8th century, a secular festival "baptized" with a sacred meaning.

          Christmas trees - ever wonder where they came from?  Historians say the 7th century English monk Boniface went to teach the Word of God in Thuringia, the area where Luther was later born.  Legend has it Boniface used the triangular shape of the many fir tree to describe the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Early converts began to revere the fir tree as God's Tree, as they had previously revered the Oak.  By the 12th century the Fir tree was hung upside-down from ceilings at Christmas time as a symbol of a Christian home.

          Medieval dramas often featured "paradise trees" decorated with apples (symbolizing the fall into sin), so soon fruit decorated the early Christmas trees, and later ornaments made of marzipan, glass, and wood were added.  Even communion wafers appeared on some early Christmas trees, as well as cloth and paper flowers, metal shapes, nuts and sweets.

          The first decorated tree known for certain was in Latvia in 1510, but the person commonly credited with bringing the first Christmas tree inside the home is Martin Luther who decorated it with candles to symbolize stars.  Today only a few rare traditional homes in Europe will have lighted candles on their Christmas tree, for candles have been replaced with electric lights.  Fire Departments rightfully frown on lighted candles on Fir trees today.

          The Twelve Days of Christmas:  Is it just a fun song?  The Twelfth day after Christmas is Jan. 6, Epiphany Day, which is still observed as Christmas Day for Eastern Orthodoxy.  But Epiphany is not the focus of this song - it's all about religious intolerance.  After King Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic church, from the mid-1500s to the mid-1800s, Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly.  So some unknown person during that era wrote this fun Christmas Carol as a catechism song, a method of teaching young Catholics about their faith.

•  Twelve drummers are the 12 points of Christian belief in the Creed.
•  Eleven pipers piping are the eleven disciples (excluding Judas.)
•  Ten lords a-leaping represent the Ten Commandments.
•  Nine ladies dancing are the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.
•  Eight maids a-milking are the eight beatitudes.
•  Seven swans a-swimming are the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit.
•  Six geese a-laying are the six days of creation.
•  Five golden rings stand for the first five books of the Old Testament.
•  Four calling birds are four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
•  Three French hens stand for Faith, Hope and Charity.
•  Two turtle doves are the Old and New Testaments.
•  The partridge in a pear tree is, of course, Jesus Christ.

          Hanukkah and Kwanzaa:  Hanukkah is a Jewish historic festival commemorating the victory of the Maccabean Jews over the Greeks in 175 BC.  Kwanzaa was invented less than 40 years ago in 1966 by a professor of Black Studies at Cal State, Long Beach.  Kwanzaa is a mix of African harvest festivals and sixties radicalism.  The faith Kwanzaa speaks of is not faith in any God, but in what people can do for each other.

          We bring much tradition to this holy time of year.  But it all still rotates around the truth that "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."  The child born to Mary is God's Word to the world that salvation is at hand.  The child born in the manger is the reason for all we do now, all the worship, the tradition, the wonder this season brings us.

          In the very place where the sheep were sheltered and fed, sheep to be sacrificed for sins in the temple, in that very place the Lamb of God was born.  He who was born among the animals would be the sacrificial Lamb for the sins of all.  The baby named Yeshua, deliverer, was the Lamb of God who delivered the world from sin.  He is the Good Shepherd who leads His lambs to green pastures.  He is our Lord.  On this quiet day, before life begins its headlong rush once again, O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!  amen.

Copyright © 2003 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.