"Laid him in a manger"-Sermon for Christmas Eve, Luke 2:1-20
Outlawed in the mid 1600’s by puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for being considered a pagan symbol and being entirely too jovial and celebratory, the Christmas tree did not become a regular part of our collective Christmas decorating experience in the United States until first popularized by Queen Victoria in the 1840’s. Victoria was a much-loved queen, and her sense of style was quickly adopted across the English-speaking world…including on our side of the pond. Thus, soon after an illustration of the queen with her family gathered around a Christmas tree was published by the London News in 1846, Christmas trees began showing up in homes in England and then on our own east coast and then they began to spread west across our country quickly…a new Christmas tradition was born. Thus, today, there is probably no symbol of Christmas more ubiquitous than the Christmas tree in our communities…from department stores, to city squares, to government buildings, to churches, to hotel lobbies, to, of course, our own homes…the ever-green tree…living or artificial…from the Charley Brown style…weak, weary, and wiry…to the giant fir tree lit up each year in New York’s Rockefeller Center…the Christmas tree has become synonymous with the season.
And I, for one, think this is a very good thing. And not only for the delight that children, young and old, take in the twinkling lights…or the snowy villages and train sets and presents joyfully placed under them…or for the novelty of bringing something that grows outside…inside…or, even, for the lovely ornaments that often provide meaningful moments of nostalgia, as we remember where each ornament was collected…or when it was made by hand…or was given to us as a gift. All of that is, indeed, to the good…I am “all in” for Christmas traditions that bring even passing moments joy to our lives. But, I would say, even beyond all of those blessings associated with our Christmas trees, that other than our Nativity Scenes, I think the Christmas tree is the most profound, life-affirming and potent Christian sign and symbol we lovingly fashion in our homes…in this most wondrous time of the year.
You see even a couple of hundred years before Queen Victoria made the Christmas tree popular in England and then America, in Germany, Christians were already bringing ever-greens branches and ever-green trees into their homes as a part of their Christmas celebrations. And they were doing so as an adaptation of pre-Christian winter traditions. In those northern European climates…when the winter was bitterly cold and snow covered the ground and crops could not grow and animals were hibernating and surviving a harsh winter was, if not fully prepared, an open question…when many living things were literally freezing to death…the ever-green tree did not lose its color…green…the color of life…of living things…of growing things. The ever-green tree thrived…even in the winter. Thus, the ever-green tree pointed to the victory of life…over the cold, life-less tomb…they promised that the spring would indeed come…that life and love, which is the warm blood that empowers our living, could not, cannot be overcome by the long, cold nights that winter brings.
And, I speak, of course, not only of the weather here…but the long, cold nights of all human suffering…death, disease, ruptured relationships, poverty, hunger, grief, wars and violence, dislocation and homelessness, bigotry and racism, and the deep social, political, and cultural divisions that have always plagued human community, even in our own age…even in our own households. Thus, when winter came, a winter that only exacerbated the great death-dealing challenges that all humans in every age face, our ancient ancestors brought ever-greens into their homes…ever-greens…that are ever green…these great symbols of life…the trees that can survive the life-spans of many generations of humans…these gifts of love that help produce the literal air we breathe…that provide the wood we burn to stay warm and cook our food and light our homes…these living things that not even the coldest winter can thwart…and that the God of love created from before time and placed into our care…they brought these God-given life-giving gifts into their homes. And I can’t imagine a more perfect, not human-made…but God-made, symbol to remind both them and us that life, and the love that fires it, will stand and be our all and all, when winter is upon us…the cold-dark nights we experience in own winter like moments. These ever-greens…including the ones standing even now in our own homes…are literally a sort of living hope.
Thus, it is no wonder, that our Christian ancestors living through the cold winters of northern Europe, without gas or electricity, and living with all the same suffering that plague the human condition today…drew for themselves and for us an important connection. A connection between the ancient tradition of bringing ever-greens into the home during the winter months and their own Christmas celebrations. For what they and we celebrate this night, just four days after the winter solstice, thus in the very darkest time of the year, is God with us, our Emmanuel, coming into our world, bringing with him the warmth of life, light and love, as a new-born baby…and placed in a manger made from, of all things, a tree. Jesus, our Emmanuel, God with us, is literally a living hope…a living promise given to our world and to us that life is stronger than death, that light overcomes the darkness, that love will conquer hate. Jesus’ birth is a sign, symbol and, more so, an eternal promise, echoing through this night and all time and space, even more wonderful and potent than our ever-green trees…for Jesus was with God…was God…in the very beginning…when sun, moon and stars…when earth, winds and waters…when animals, trees and humans were first dreamed up and breathed into being…when they were first brought to life.
Jesus, the very Babe of Bethlehem who we worship and adore this night, is nothing less than the very source of life of love that makes all things possible and that sustains them for all time and forever…sustains us in our living and in our dying…in the winter and summer alike…when the night is cold and long or, like tonight, full of song and celebration. When we suffer so much we feel like we cannot take another breath…and when we feel like if we experience any more joy our hearts might just burst wide open…Christmas, God’s choice to become human, as a baby, to live and love among us…promises us that Jesus is with us…whether in sorrow or celebration…sustaining us…breathing life into us…always and forever…in this life and in the next. Jesus, our Emmanuel, God with us, is life…the source, the very beginning, of life and love…our help in ages past and hope for all the years to come…who when not in his own mother’s arms, on that first Christmas night, slept in a manger fashioned from a tree.
So, I say again, perhaps next to the Nativity scenes we dust off and set up each Christmas, it is the ever-green tree that is the most wonderful, awe-inspiring, and potent sign and symbol of the season. For, its ever-green life, that even the winter cannot thwart, reminds us and points us to the babe it once contained…our life-giver…a literal living hope.
As the Christmas carol, written by a German organist and composer, reads:
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are thy branches!
Not only green when summer's here
But in the coldest time of year.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are thy branches!
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How sturdy God hath made thee!
Thou bid us all…place faithfully
Our trust in God, unchangingly!
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How sturdy God hath made thee!
I hope that as you and yours gather around your Christmas tree this night and in the morning and days that follow…that you will look beyond the lights and ornaments…to the simple ever-green tree that stands underneath it all…and see there not only the wonder found in a living thing…but the one to whom it points…the one to whom even the trees sing this night, with the angels and all living things, “Glory to God on high and peace to his people on earth”…the one who created the hopeful, ever-green boughs that our families gather under…Jesus, our Emmanuel, God with us, the very tree of life. For we are among the fruit his life bears…and within us he has placed the seeds of life…eternal life…that nothing can, no winter like moment can, ever…overcome. Amen.