Christmas is a time of mystery and wonder, a time of memories upon memories. If Christmas is anything, it is memories that come alive and now. Each Christmas we recall past Christmases, and each Christmas we build more Christmas memories to cherish for years to come. Christmas has a special power to touch the heart.
In our Christmas memories, we find strength to deal with the present and we find the hope and courage we need to build the future. Granted, some Christmas memories are sad memories but even a sad memory can be a source of strength. To remember a sad Christmas from the past can help us appreciate more the Christmas we have right here and now.
You have your treasury of memories and I have mine, but now I want to share with you someone else’s memory, a father who kept a box in his closet marked “the good stuff,” that contained odds and ends of personal treasures. Much of what he kept in the box would not catch a thief’s interest but to him, they were priceless.
One of the keepsakes was a small lunch size paper sack. The top was sealed with duct tape, staples and several paper clips. There was a tear through which the contents could still be seen. What a packrat! He has had this bag for more than 20 years!
One morning as he was leaving for work, Molly, his seven year old daughter, handed him two paper sacks. One contained his lunch; the other was sealed with duct tape, staples and paper clips. Mystified by its appearance, he asked her what was in the bag. Molly said, “Just some stuff, take it with you.” At lunchtime, he tore open the bag and dumped its contents on his desk: two ribbons, three small stones, a plastic dinosaur, a tiny seashell, two animal crackers, a marble, two chocolate kisses and thirteen pennies. He smiled. How charming.
After finishing his lunch, the father swept his desk clean. Into the waste basket went the contents of Molly’s bag along with the garbage from his lunch. He thought to himself, “There wasn’t anything I needed.” When he got home, Molly asked him, “Where is my bag?” “What bag?” “You know, the one I gave you this morning,” she replied.
Molly then explained, “I forgot to put this note in it. Besides, I want it back.” “Why?” “Those are my things in the bag, Daddy, the ones I really like. I thought you might like to play with them, but now I want them back. You didn’t toss the bag, did you?” she asked, her eyes filled with tears.
To him, they didn’t look like much but to Molly they were her most prized treasures. “Oh, no,” I just forgot to bring the bag home,” her father lied. As Molly hugged him, he opened the note, which said, “I love you Daddy.” Molly had given him all that a seven year old daughter held dear. Love in a paper sack. Love which he had thrown into a wastebasket because “there wasn’t anything I needed.”
After Molly went to bed, he father headed back to the office. He got there before the janitor did and managed to retrieve all her treasures from the wastebasket. The next morning, he asked her to tell him about everything in the sack. Each item had a story. By the time Molly had finished, her father could see why each piece was so important to her.
In the most unpretentious way we can imagine, the son of God was born in a stable 2000 years ago. Given what God can do, the birth of Jesus was as ordinary as the things in Molly’s sack. Does this event capture our attention only for a moment? Like Molly’s father, might we find the contents of God’s bag charming but “nothing I really need?” When the glitter of this Christmas becomes a distant memory, will we have swept aside that which is priceless to God to get on with the rest of our day’s work?
What excites us today may well be gone tomorrow, while that which is priceless to God will be around forever. No earthly delights can compare with God’s ordinary treasures. Our finest chocolates, choice wines, latest electronic gadgets and designer labels will be history someday but the treasures that God has for us, what we are celebrating in this Christmas moment is ours forever if we want it!
Isaiah tells us that people who walked in darkness have seen a great light and so we have in the person of Jesus Christ. Paul reminds Titus that Jesus appeared, training us to reject godless ways and earthly desires. Instead, we are to live temperately, justly and devoutly. These bits of wisdom may seem as common to us as thirteen pennies, but they are offered to us with much love for that is what God offers us this night/day.
In what may be his last Christmas message to us as our Archbishop, he wrote, “When the song of angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and priests are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks…The work of Christmas begins…to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild nations, to bring peace among peoples…to make music in the heart!”
May we treasure the presence of Christ in our lives not just on this day or in our memories of Christmas past, but every day to come. May we value his treasures among the “good stuff” so that our age old dream of peace on earth and good will toward all can become very real for all of us.
God bless you and may you have yourself a Christmas full of memories you will long treasure.