"Every time I remember you"-A Sermon for Advent 2, Philippians 1:3-11
“When you care enough to send the very best” is, of course, Hallmark’s familiar marketing tag line for their greeting card business. Americans will send out over 2 billion Christmas cards in this holiday season and 500 million more electronically. The lore is that Christmas cards began in 19th century England by children, as a hand writing exercise in school, that were then given to their parents. And, the first commercial Christmas card was commissioned in London in 1843 featuring the art work of John Callcott Horsley. There are now more than 3000 greeting card companies in America, and the total sales of greeting cards annually is about $8 billion…25% bought in the Christmas season. And I think of all the gifts purchased, sent and shared in the holiday season, Christmas cards are among the most special…the most thoughtful and caring. For they take some real time and attention to actually do…to pick out or even to make by hand…to attach a heartfelt message…to purchase postage and deal with a bustling post office to begin their route to the one they are intended to bless…to the one or ones who will receive them…read them…and then know that they are remembered…thought of…that they are cared for, appreciated, and loved.
I mentioned in my Christmas Eve sermon last year, that each holiday season my wife, Ashely, begins to collect all the cards we receive on a ring. After we have each had a chance to read the kind messages and enjoy the images on the card, which are often some sort of family photo, she punches a hole in the corner of each card and places them on the ring…and then throughout the season we add to them…and the collection grows. Then we actually keep it going throughout the year adding cards to the ring as we receive other sorts of cards and invitation and announcements even after the holidays, from births to weddings to thank you cards. I find myself, whether in December or July, flipping through the collection on the ring that sits on our living room coffee table…looking at the smiling faces and warm messages and new additions to the families of those we are so blessed to share a life with…and it fills me up…reminds me that I am remembered…thought of…that I am cared for, appreciated, and loved. Once again, we began this year’s collection with a Thanksgiving card we received from our own Pat and Nancy Nance.
And I suppose my Christmas card musing is to suggest this: Christmas, which is coming soon and very soon, reminds us that we worship an incarnational God…a God who dwells in human flesh…not a distant God who lives separate from the creation…not the proverbial clock maker, who sort of sets the pendulum of time/space swinging, and then withdraws from all that is made to some sort of cosmic dwelling far from human life…unreachable, untouchable, distant and disconnected…none of that. Instead, we worship a God, who is entirely present in the very minutiae of human life…the small moments and the great…the sad moments and the joy-filled, when feeling lost and lonely and when surrounded by those we love. Jesus was birthed into the world as vulnerable baby…a flesh and blood human…born into all the sorrow and joys that pervade human life…to remind us that God is with us…God’s love lives in the midst of human life…entirely reachable and touchable…a part of our everyday lived experience as humans…not distant and disconnected…but present and connected…for God’s love lives in our hearts and bones…and in the hearts and bones of those we are blessed to share our own human journey alongside. I think of Mary holding her new born baby…the God of life and love…contained in such a small package…held in her own arms…zero degrees of separation…close human contact…skin to skin…heart to heart…God’s love present in the midst of human connection.
And this is what moves me about the tradition of sending cards to each other…for as we hold them in our hands, see the faces that are on them, read the loving message of hope and gratitude contained within them…they become signs of our life connected with each other…symbols of the love we share with each other…they remind us that we indeed care enough, care a whole lot, for each other…thus we give one another our very best, which is the love of God incarnate in our own lives…for we have nothing better to share with one another than our love, God’s own love, incarnate in the human lives we live…this love, which is entirely manifest in and through our lives, is the air we breathe and the food that feeds our souls…the necessary and required life-giving substance that makes life worth living…that provides meaning and direction for the good life that we are made for and to which we are called.
Now, I believe that I have personally and intimately, within my own body…my own heart and mind…experienced God’s love, God’s presence in me. What I might call a mystical, even ecstatic, personal revelation of God’s life personally within me. God and me united for all time and forever. I am so grateful for those experiences. I hope them for everyone. For, as I reflect on them, I am reminded that God’s love is present in and among us…that God’s love is incarnate even within in the profound brokenness and glory that is the life that I live. But the truth is that 99.9% of the time, almost all of the time, and just as meaningfully and impactfully as anything I might describe as mystical, I experience the love of God, not through personal moments of transcendence, but through you…through the flesh and blood people who love me and I love in return. Those, like each of you, in whom God’s love is incarnate and overflows into my own life through the care and attention and accountability and wisdom and forgiveness and companionship that we human’s share so generously with each other.
The word advent means most literally “come”. Thus, in the Season of Advent we remember that God comes to us…that God’s love comes to us and fills us and is incarnate in the life we live even now. Yes, Jesus comes to us each year in our Christmas celebrations just as he came to us in flesh and blood some two thousand years ago. And, yes, Jesus will come again, in the fullness of time to set this world and the whole creation to rights once and for all. Jesus is, indeed, the once and future King. But, Advent, reminds us also that Jesus comes to us even now…right now…filling us with his love, incarnate in our lives, that then overflows into the lives of those who surround us…our friends, acquaintances, companions, even strangers…who we are blessed to share our journey with. And the cards sent in this season, the gifts exchange in this season, the occasions to gather with friends and family in church and in other festive settings, are small, but not insignificant expressions of the love we share, God’s own love that lives in our lives, that we share. And so, I commend doing all the above and doing so often…but with great intentionality. For they are not only occasion to feast on food…but feast on the love that each person brings to the table. Opportunities to not just demonstrate our purchasing power and creative gift giving abilities…but to purchase or make gifts that say I love you, I know you, and I appreciate what you are interested in and enjoy…to send Christmas cards not out of social obligation…but to share our heartfelt hope for the joy those we love will experience in this season…most especially a deep connection with the God of love who comes to us, is incarnate in us, at all time and in all places.
Which takes me to a pretty awesome example of what this sort of self-giving love can look like in this season…particularly the sort of self-giving love that is expressed in words…like the Christmas cards and letters we send. Our New Testament lesson today come from the beginning of Philippians. And Philippians, like most of the books of the New Testament that are attributed to Paul, is not really a book or an essay or teaching series or a narrative story…it is what I would describe as a love letter. The Philippians are the folk that make up the church that Paul planted, with them and with God’s help, in the Greco-Roman city of Philippi. Paul has moved on from this church to other missionary work of planting Christian communities in the world in which he lived. Communities that would incarnate the love of God in the lives of those who participated in them and overflow into the lives of all the people who they lived among. So, in a sense we are like Paul, church planters in our own age and context. And though Paul has been called forward in his work and moved on from Philippi, he has not forgotten them and his love for them has not diminished.
So, like many of us who are separated for whatever reason from the ones we love, he has written them a letter, and he says to them with all of his heart, “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you…I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God's grace with me…For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best…for the glory and praise of God.” Not bad…right! Granted it may not fit on the front of Christmas card…but maybe such things are worth saying in our own way…in person or in ink…to those we love and are remembering in this season.
For, just as I see it, Advent and the 12 days of Christmas that follow provide us a holy opportunity if willing to take it…to care enough to send our very best…to those we love and those we are gifted to care for, which includes both friends and strangers…to claim, once again, the love of God incarnate in our own lives…a love that is alive and active…and to share it…with each other…in word and in deed. 99.9% of the time, almost all of time, I experience God’s love though you…through human touch and words of affection. God’s love, incarnate in our lives, that we share with each other in great intentionality, is life-saving…it the reason for which we are given to each other…the reason for the gift of the companionship we enjoy and the community we share…both those in this room and those we love and care for beyond it.
It is no overstatement when I say, God’s love, incarnate in our lives, that we share is entirely necessary for living of our days. And, I can think of no greater words of grace and comfort and appreciation to share with one another in the days and nights that lie before us in this Holy season than…I thank my God every time I remember you. You are always in my prayers with joy. Thank you for holding me in your heart. I long for you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. My prayer for you is that your love my overflow more and more…to the glory and praise of God. Amen.