Proper I, Christmas Eve, 7pm (2006): "Words Worth Treasuring"

Proper I, Christmas Eve, 7pm (2006): "Words Worth Treasuring"
Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)
Preached December 24th, 2006, by the Rev. Preston Parsons

I'd like for us to take a moment together to meditate upon what Luke meant when he said that "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart." I would like for us to meditate upon these words because these words, above all other words in our passage, make me wonder. What kinds of words are worth pondering? What kinds of words are worth treasuring?

Christmas reveals a lot to us about what we treasure, and I'll be honest up front. Some of what Christmas reveals about us is good. Some of what it reveals about us is not so good.

Many of us will spend time this Christmas with family and friends. The family is a big part of the Christmas story. The story is, after all, about a mother, a father, and a child. Families and friends are a treasured part of Christmas. Karen and I are blessed to be back in Winnipeg and among family. Many of you blessed to be among family and friends. This is something to be treasured.

Christmas is also a time of good deeds, and we find examples of good deeds in our story tonight. The shepherds do good, for all their glorifying and praising God, and telling others the good news of the birth of the Messiah. Joseph also does good. He is willing to marry Mary, covering the strange happening of her pregnancy by keeping his vow to marry her. Many of us find Christmas to be a time when we help others in a special way, offering time, or money, or food to those less fortunate. These are to be treasured too.

But Christmas also reveals to us some other things that we treasure, and if we looked closely, the season is not only about family, friends, and good deeds. If we looked honestly at the season, we would find that we find a great deal of value, and we spend a whole lot of time, rushing around consuming, buying and exchanging. This is a season with such a high pressure and expectation of consumption that the poorest among us, and probably some of us of greater means, will rack up debts that will take months to pay off. All for the sake of participating in a holiday celebrating conspicuous consumption.

At least the Magi offered gifts out of reverence to Jesus. But we are covetous and greedy, concerned more with the virtues of the marketplace, than on any particularly Christian virtue.

The holiday season tells us a lot about what we treasure. We treasure 20 billion dollars worth of toys and consumer electronics.

But I won't spend all our time tonight chiding anyone for indulging this kind of false treasure, even if it might be worthwhile for the sake of our souls, and our planet.

Rather, I would like for us to continue our meditation on Mary. Mary, that night, didn’t treasure time with family, or good deeds, nor was she spending her time coveting the gifts given to her son. Mary treasured words. And the words that Mary treasured were the ones spoken by an angel to the shepherds, words of "good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord." These are the words Mary thought to be a treasure, the words she thought were worth pondering: words telling her that salvation has visited, that the chosen one of Israel has come, that the Lord who once spoke by prophets has now arrived in the flesh.

Now I don't imagine that many of you came here tonight as a way to spend time with family and friends. There are better ways to do that. And I don't imagine you came here to do a good deed for others, either, even if it might please your mother that you came to Church. I'm also sure that none of you came here this evening to find that last minute Christmas present.

I think that if we dug far enough into your heart we would find that you came here tonight looking for something else. You came here tonight because you know that there is far greater treasure than family, or good deeds, or material success. I think you came tonight because part of you knows that Mary got it right, that the greatest treasure of all is in the words she heard that night, the word that says that the time of salvation has come, and it has been made known to us in a child wrapped in linen in Bethlehem; the truest treasure is the word that tells us that the chosen one of Israel has come, and lies in the arms of his mother; the greatest treasure is the word that speaks the good news that the great God of the heavens has found it agreeable to descend and to dwell among us. God has entered our world in weakness, in the weakness of our own humanity, entering the world just as we did, as a child, coming among us in order to save us from sin and death.

These are words worth treasuring worth taking home with you and pondering: the great God of the heavens has seen it fit to walk among us, divinity has visited us, becoming human, calling our humanity into the divine life, in order to save us.

It is this word that is the greatest treasure of all: the word of salvation in Jesus, the word of the salvation who is born to us as a child in Bethlehem.