What’s On Your List?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
December 17, 2006
The Third Sunday in Advent

What’s On Your List?
Isaiah 7:10-17
Matthew 1:18-25

The countdown has begun:
Eight more days.
Eight days till Christmas,
but only seven shopping days left.
That is how we measure the final week till Christmas,
till we celebrate the birth of our Lord:
feeling like the sands of time are running out on us.

The stress level rises for everyone in this last week.
We find ourselves wading into crowded malls with sharp elbows,
driving from store to store with a “take-no-prisoners” attitude.
All this in an effort to try to find the perfect gift,
or as time runs out, at least to find something,…anything.

I can remember when I was a boy growing up in Buffalo,
there were no such things as malls;
no Wal-Marts, no Kohls, no Targets.
Downtown was where everyone went to shop.
We’d drive downtown and park the car
and then walk into the central part of the shopping district,
where the sidewalks were crowded,
storefronts dressed for the holidays,
silver bells ringing as Salvation Army Santas worked
to fill their kettles and stay warm.

There were two big department stores
where we did most of our shopping:
Hengerers, and A,M,&A’s
Each was a city all to itself,
with floor upon floor of goods.
Hengerers was my favorite store:
seven floors of wonder for a child at Christmas time.
I could find something for everyone on my list:
Grandma, and Grandpa,
Mom and Dad,
and, with more than little encouragement from my parents,
something for each of my sisters.

We’d start on the ground floor and work our way up,
riding the escalators, ascending in spirit as well as height,
until we found ourselves on the 6th floor.
That was as close to the North Pole
as a child could get in Buffalo,
for that was where the toy department was.
Lionel trains and Eldon race cars,
models of Chris Craft boats,
Mickey Mantle baseball gloves, Johnny Unitas footballs,
games by the dozens: Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble
Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Mousetrap.
It was a place filled with joy,
a place filled with wonder.

I still find joy and wonder as I shop at Christmas,
although I must admit that I find malls too big
and the big-box stores too crowded.
I do more and more of my shopping each year
over the Internet.
Point, click, and the box arrives a few days later
on my doorstep, as though Santa himself had delivered it
without the bother of the chimney.

However we each go about our shopping,
we all share a common problem:
getting just the right gift for each person on our lists.
Most of us put a great deal of thought
into our gift buying and giving,
and we are thrilled when we give someone a gift
and they respond, “It’s just what I always wanted!”

The trickier part though isn’t getting someone the right gift;
it is trying to react with excitement
when we’ve been given a gift
that wasn’t on our own list.
You know the feeling:
A loved one or a friend hands you a box --
it’s large and it’s heavy.
The person handing you the box beams with delight,
and you find yourself filled with a sense of anticipation.
Could this be what you had been hinting about
for the past few months?
The gift that had been at the top of your list?
You talked about it, you pointed it out in catalogs,
and newspaper advertisements.
Yes, this must be it!
You tear away the wrappings,
and open the top of the box
and you know immediately: …
it isn’t what you wanted.
It isn’t what you hinted at all those weeks.
You lift the gift out of the box,
force a smile and turn to the gift-giver,
who can barely contain his excitement,
as you squeeze out the words,
“You really shouldn’t have”.

You try your best to show your gratitude.
You leave the gift on display under the tree
until it’s time to put the Christmas decorations away.
After that, it gets tucked away, in the back of the closet,
in the basement or attic,
or that cupboard above the refrigerator,
the cupboard that is in every kitchen,
the cupboard into which things go
never to be seen or used again.

More than 700 years before the birth of Christ,
more than a thousand years before the first
celebration of Christmas,
King Ahaz, the king we heard about in our first lesson,
had just that problem:
what to do with a gift given him
that he really didn’t want,
that had not even been on his list,
much less at the top.
What Ahaz wanted was an army:
swords, horses, soldiers, and chariots.
the military might he needed to fight off
the combined kingdoms of Aram and Ephraim.

God knew that Ahaz had his wish list,
so God instructed the prophet Isaiah to go to Ahaz
and tell him not to worry, that God would take care of everything.
“Take heed,” said God through the prophet,
“Be quiet, and do not fear.”
You could almost imagine Ahaz’s excitement:
Christmas was going to come to Ahaz:
he was going to get everything on his gift list, all from God:
All the military might he was going to need
to fend off the vicious attackers
who threatened the lives and land of God’s children in Judah.

Then the prophet told Ahaz the wonderful gift
he was going to receive from God:
“look the young woman is with child and shall bear a son,
and shall name him Immanuel.”

Ahaz was stunned by these words.
“the young woman is with child and shall bear a son??”
Ahaz wanted soldiers;
he needed soldiers;
he had asked for soldiers.
And God was going to give him a baby?

Ah, but sometimes the best gift is the one we didn’t expect,
the one that wasn’t on our list,
the gift that doesn’t fill us with joy when we first open it,
first take a look at what’s beneath the wrappings.

God does this to each of us all the time:
Gives us gifts that we don’t ask for,
gifts that we don’t appreciate,
gifts that we don’t recognize,
gifts we don’t even realize come from God.
As William Willimon, a Bishop in the Methodist Church,
has observed,
“This is often the way God loves us:
with gifts we thought we didn’t need.”

Who would have thought we needed beauty?
Who would have thought we needed happiness?
Who would have thought we needed joy?
Who would have thought we needed hope?
Who would have thought we needed laughter?
Community? Family? Friends?

Who would have thought we needed a baby?
Who would have thought we needed God to be with us?

But that’s the gift God promised Ahaz,
and that’s the gift God has given to you and me.
In the word “Immanuel” we have such an extraordinary gift,
a gift we never thought about needing or wanting:
God with us.
God no longer distant in the highest heavens;
no longer hidden in the smokey darkness
of the holy of holies in the Temple;
no longer accessible only to the chief priests;
God we can look upon without fear.

God with us.
Look, the young woman is with child
and that child is Christ our Lord,
our Immanuel, God with us.
In the baby born in the stable, God gives us himself
The baby whose birthday we will celebrate in 8 days
was born for us.
A gift from God given to us.
Don’t you remember what the angel said to the shepherds?
“I bring YOU good news, of great joy,
For to YOU is born this day a Savior.”
(Luke 2:10)
This is a gift for the shepherds, the wise men,
for you and for me!

This is not a gift likely to be found on most Christmas lists.
lists that tend to be filled with things like
plasma televisions,
electronic game systems,
food processors,
iPods, books, clothing.

God gives us this gift to fill us with joy,
joy not just in this festive season,
but joy throughout our lives,
joy even in the most difficult times,
joy because in our Immanuel
we have God’s unconditional love,
God’s unwavering presence.

God also gives us this gift to transform us,
for that is what God has on his Christmas list every year:
that we might become even a little more Christ-like
in the coming year: a little more loving,
a little more forgiving, a little less judgmental,
a little more merciful.

C. S. Lewis once wrote,
In the birth of Jesus, the coming of our Immanuel
“God descends to re-ascend,
comes down, down from the heights…
into humanity, comes down to come up again
and bring the whole ruined world with him.”
(C.S. Lewis, The Grand Miracle. Miracles, p. 179)

This is the gift given us:
our salvation,
life eternal,
love eternal.
God descended as our Immanuel
and in Christ, through Christ and with Christ,
groans to lift the world back into the light,
the world that always seems to teeter
on the edge of darkness.

This gift was something unexpected, something radical:
The Messiah, the incarnation of God,
the incarnation that is the hope for our transformation.

On Christmas morning, the gift will be there,
under the tree, over to the side.
It won’t be wrapped in bright paper,
it won’t require batteries,
it will be just the right size,
a gift that will bring you joy
long after every other gift has been forgotten.

Will you see it?
Will you know it?
Will you appreciate it for what it is?
Will you sit quietly after you open it
and say, “I can ask for no other gift,
for a child has been born for me,
my Immanuel.”
Glory to God in the highest!

Amen