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The Very Reverend Nathan D. Baxter Dean, I want to this evening about gifts. About gifts. If you’re like me, you can barely wait till this evening, or tomorrow morning, to see how much “they really love me.” One of the great privileges and joys of my ministry here at the Cathedral is the opportunity to be Chaplain to our Elementary School, Bouvier. It means “beautiful view.” This year at our Christmas service I asked the children, “could you tell me what’s the greatest gift--the neatest gift--you could give to someone you cared about?” Well, there were chemistry sets. There were remote cars. There were flowers. One child even said, “gold.” (I wanted to get on his list! I wasn’t able to get his name in time!) But wonderful gifts they were giving to parents if they could give anything they wanted. Or to brothers or sisters or cousins. And after we had had some time of talking about these special Barbie sets, and so on, -- I see a hand that went up on the Barbie set -- two hands -- I brought out a package I had wrapped. Actually, my staff wrapped it. They saw my wrapping and decided I needed help. And I brought it out and said, “I have something that can show you what I think is the greatest gift you can give.” Well, of course, everyone was guessing what it was, and we tore the paper off, and it was a mirror! A mirror! Well, if they ever did think their priest was losing his mind, they felt it was certifiable on that day. But I said to them that at Christmas, the message is simple. That God believes that for love to be truly known and effective, it must have human form. And so Christmas is about God moving from prophets and angels to embodying Divine love in human flesh, being subject to all the vulnerabilities, all the uncertainties, all of the problems of what it means to be human, as well as the joys. And said, “I am coming to be among you and to give myself as my love for you. And if you can believe that I love you, you can be saved.” You know John 3:16? You don’t know John 3:16? Will you help me to say John 3:16? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever should believe in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” What are the things that cause us to perish? Fear, hate, revenge, prejudice, ambition, blind ambition, thinking of ourselves as being more important than others. Or as the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber so wisely said, “We are to love people and use things. But in our society we use people and love things.” Aren’t these all the kinds of things that are destroying us? Can’t we see how we and those around us are perishing because we feel we need power-over, we need to hold onto our bitterness, we allow fear to dictate our lives. And it’s all because we don’t know, we don’t believe, that God loves us just as we are. But there’s something liberating when we accept that maybe we won’t be the biggest fish in the pond, but God still loves us. That we were really hurt by that person, or by those people, but the love of God can free us so that we don’t further victimize ourselves by hate and revenge. It frees us to look down in our hearts and to ask, “what is it I really want to give to the world?”, not “what do my parents want me to give, or my profession want me to give, or what do my fantasies want me to give,” but “what is it that I really want to give?” And knowing that I’m loved by God to give that? The lesson there is that if God felt that the most important way to express love is to give it in human form, then you and I can do no less. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I’m really looking forward to the gifts I’m going to get. But you know, this year, every time you look into the mirror, remember that you’re the greatest gift you can give to others. This year when life is so uncertain, we are still trying to recover from 9/11, and the subsequent issues and experiences related to no longer being impregnable as a nation. Those of us in this metropolitan area are so mindful of the sniper, and how unsettling that was in our lives. We think about our sons and daughters who are already at war. And we think about our neighbors and our sons and daughters and spouses and others, who given the dark cloud that is over our diplomacy with Iraq, could soon be at war also. I know what it’s like, as a Vietnam veteran, to be in a far away place and walk everyday with death. And yet what gives me strength, and gave me strength, and gives so many strength, was the gift that knowing that I was loved by my wife, by my family, by others, because they told me they loved me. And as a Christian, to know that I was loved by God. So this Christmas, I know that our gifts are symbols of our love to others. But this Christmas, unwrap your gift of love from the commercial trimmings, and tell someone you love them. Children, tell your parents that you love them. Parents, tell your children that you love them. Tell those families that have loved ones who are on readiness for, or who may be in war, that you love them. And then secondly, if you are a person of faith, if you believe in the incarnation, then tell those same persons, “God loves you. God loves you.” It is the power of the Christmas message that God loves the world. He loves you. God loves me. God loves America. God loves Iraq. God loves Afghanistan. God loves Palestinians. God loves Jews. God loves Buddhists and Hindus. God loves the world. But it has to take human form. And those of us who believe must find ways to speak of the love of God, to let it be incarnate in our lives, to a rapid from the sentiments, and let the world know as we speak for peace, as we speak for reconciliation, as we speak for understanding, as we embrace the ones we love, let our love take human form this Christmas. Amen. |