I want to believe that Christmas is about family, and I do believe that families ought to gather at this season of the year. Some need to gather to celebrate what they share together; others need to gather to remember what it means to be family. Some have forgotten with full-grown brothers and sisters battling with each other while bathing themselves in baskets of food and gifts, all in the same house while not in the same room. And some families like the one that I am privileged to be a part of needs to gather just to give thanks for what we enjoy. Anne has a Mom and Dad who love Jesus and are faithful to the church. They are still here away from home but doing as well as they can do. She has two sisters who are still married to their first and only husbands and both have children that are doing well. So, we should gather and we should celebrate what we share. It is good. But it is not the essence of Christmas. It is the essence of an American Christmas and is the center of the culture of the South, but it is not the center of Christmas.

Long ago and far away a very poor couple with very meager means made a journey to the town of their birth. They could not find a place to stay the night. She was fully pregnant with contractions coming more rapidly as the moon came up on that star filled night. He was fully faithful to his God and to his wife. They have travelled a long ways together. But on this night these two poor people would find lodging among the animals and she would give birth to the baby who long before had made the animals that inhabited that stall. The King of Kings was born in the middle of poverty to people who knew this pain all too well. That is why the center of Christmas to me is not family gatherings with far too much food and far too many gifts most of which are not needed at all to those to whom we give them and most of the food is tossed at the end of the day. Such gatherings cause me so much grief because they miss the point of the whole season of Advent and Christmas. I mean, who should be giving and serving more this season than those of us who serve the Savior? Who should be looking more for opportunities to give and share than us? And so many are doing that for which I give great praise to God. But so many don’t. It is much more likely that you find too many of us in the mall at Christmas than in the messy marketplace among the masses of hurting humans. I encountered one of them just today.

What a story she had to tell. She has been in and out of jail. She has been “had” by a so-called preacher. She is not old by any stretch but she has lived a long, long time already. She was free with her confession about “rippin and runnin the streets.” She has been diagnosed with sickle cell and needed some medication. A very dear friend of mine and I helped her to get it; Ithought it was funny hanging out with her at Wal-Mart as I am sure that some were wondering what I was doing with her, or maybe they were wondering what she was doing with me! But it felt like Christmas to me. What better way to celebrate Christmas than this day to serve communion to people I love, to spend some time today with a dear friend who has been a strength for me in the years that I have been here and to help a struggling soul in part by just hanging out with her for just a little while in Wal-Mart. It was for me the height of Merry Christmas!

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