Tonight is Christmas Eve. See how different the church looks! The tree in the loft filled with lights, many flowers around the altar, and garlands on the walls, making everything look so festive and bright. It sure didn’t look like this the last time you came to Mass, did it? I imagine your home looks different too.
How many of you have a Christmas tree in your living room? Is your tree as big as our tree? Do you have stockings hanging over the fireplace? Do you have a nativity scene? Is it as big as the one we have near the parish hall?
Tell me, will you keep the tree up all year? I didn’t think so. Sooner or later, all of our Christmas decorations and the tree will have to come down and be put away or thrown away. After all, wouldn’t your living room look strange if you had a Christmas tree up on Easter Sunday?
Just because we put the decorations away though, doesn’t mean that we should forget about Christmas. On that day 2000 years ago, God gave us a special gift unlike any gift you will find under your Christmas tree tonight. What gift is that?
Jesus! Right on! Jesus came into the world to be one with us. Unlike our Christmas decorations, Jesus isn’t something to be boxed up and put away in the attic or out in the garage after the New Year begins. Jesus is a gift God wants us to use every day.
Jesus came to be with us because he loves us. You know what love is. Its that special feeling you have for the people close to you, like your mom and dad, your grandparents, your brothers and sisters, your friends, and your relatives. Jesus feels the same way about you that you feel about them. He loves you dearly with all his heart.
Sometimes, we don’t feel like loving some people. Instead, we can be very unloving, rude and mean toward them. That happens because we sin. Jesus cannot sin, because he is God, so he cannot stop loving us. So, think of him as a brother or friend who never wants to leave you.
A candy maker got the bright idea once to make a special candy to remind us of how much Jesus loves us. Now, you and I know that candy comes in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and flavors. First, he had to decide on the texture. Should it be soft and sticky like taffy or hard like a rock? He decided to make this candy hard to remind us that Jesus is someone we could depend on. So, he decided to make candy sticks. Now you know they come in many colors but the candy maker chose white because that reminded him that Jesus was sinless.
So, now he had a plain white stick and he thought that was too plain, so he decided to add stripes, but what color should they be? He tried black stripes, orange stripes, brown stripes, and green stripes but they didn’t look right. He even tried yellow stripes but that wouldn’t do either. Finally, he tried red stripes because they reminded him that Jesus shed much blood for us on the cross when he died.
So, now, the candy maker had a hard candy stick with red stripes, but something wasn’t right. After all, it now looked like a pole you would find in front of a barber shop.
Ah! I know! I’ll bend it a bit and make the stick look like a shepherd staff. After all, Jesus is the good shepherd, always keeping an eye on us and taking care of us. But wait, turn the stick over, and what do you get? Of course, the letter J, which is Jesus’ initial.
Now, candy must have flavor if we are going to enjoy it. After much thought, he decided on peppermint to remind us of the gift of spices that the wise men gave Jesus so long ago. So the next time you find yourself enjoying a candy cane, think about the special gift God gives you tonight: the gift of his son, Jesus, who loves you dearly.
Jesus isn’t a present to be put away in the closet when Christmas is over, but a gift to be shared everyday. He is the gift we use whenever we pray, thanking God for all the other gifts we have been given. He is the gift, unlike anything we will find under the Christmas tree, that reminds us we need never be afraid, even on the darkest night of the year, for God is with us always.