What is your favorite thing about Christmas?  In an effort to get better at technology, this week I used an app called Poll Everywhere to ask 25 people from our church to answer that question.  To test it out and make sure the poll was working, I put in my own response first.  I said my favorite thing about Christmas is getting presents!  Duh.  Of course, right?  But guess what?  None of the other 24 people who responded to my poll said anything about getting presents.  Two people said their favorite thing about Christmas is picking out presents for others and seeing the joy on other people’s faces when they open them.  Truth be told, I like those things too.  But I was surprised no one else said anything about opening presents for them.

There were a few other surprises about the responses.  One person said their favorite thing is the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show featuring the Rockettes.  Whoever wrote that, feel free to organize a field trip for us!  Another surprise for me was how long the responses were.  One person simply wrote,  “Cookies!”  But most of the responses were a full sentence, maybe even two sentences.  We have a lot of favorite things about Christmas.  Several people said their one of their favorite things about Christmas is getting to see family.  Lots of people mentioned Christmas music.  Two or three specifically said the Christmas Eve worship service, and singing Silent Night.

By and large the things that were listed most often in my little poll were things we had to do differently this past year because of the corona virus.  Seeing family—unless they were in your immediate bubble, getting together required getting creative!  We had to get creative about our music, too.  Since it wasn’t safe to sing indoors, at Lima Church we bought a set of rainbow bells so we could ring Christmas carols instead of sing them.  And Christmas Eve?  People who have never missed a Christmas Eve service stayed home for the first time in their whole lives.  Or instead of putting on their best dress or suit, they put on their best coats and boots.  About 40 of us gathered despite the cold and the rain to light candles and sing Silent Night in the church parking lot.

I guess that’s why I really wanted us to have a Christmas in July service this year—so we could get a second shot at celebrating.  There was so much we missed out on last December!  But in some ways, having to modify our practices last year because of the pandemic gave us a special gift.  It helped us to separate out the good news of Jesus’ birth from the trappings of the Christmas season.  It was a year when we by and large couldn’t do the parties and special meals and caroling and hustle and bustle.  And what we discovered is, not even a pandemic can keep us from celebrating Jesus and the difference God’s decision to send a Savior makes in our lives.  Paul wrote that Jesus is such a powerful, enduring gift, nothing in the whole world—not life, not death, not things seen or unseen—nothing can separate us from the love of God as shown in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We can find those famous words at the very end of Romans chapter 8.  But the gravity of God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ presented Paul with a problem.  What about the Jewish people who met Jesus first and by and large rejected him?  In chapter 9:2 Paul wrote, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”  He said if he could trade his own salvation so his fellow Jews could come to know Christ, he would.  He has tried and tried to be a missionary to Jews and Gentiles alike, and his ministry has been fruitful.  But by and large, the good news of Jesus’ birth did not sink in amongst the Jewish people in Israel.  Jesus’ own people remained largely unconvinced that he was the real deal.  And this has Paul heartbroken.

Paul spends all of chapters 9, 10, and 11 trying to come up with an explanation for this.  There is no doubt in his mind that Jesus is our Savior, and that God the Creator has got everything under control.  But how can this be, that the people who supposedly knew God the best, and had first crack at knowing Jesus, were somehow blocked from responding positively to him?  Was this God’s plan all along?  Paul doesn’t seem sure.  What he does know for sure is, whatever happens, God is using it for good.  Whatever happens, we can trust God with the outcome.  Whatever happens, “For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever!”  Paul ends three chapters of intellectual analysis with a doxology, with a hymn of praise.  That his own Jewish people have rejected Christ breaks his heart.  But he knows God did not sent Jesus to destroy anyone.  God sent Jesus to give life to everyone.  In the midst of a confusing and upsetting situation, Paul rests in the knowledge that God indeed does work all things together for good.

This month we’ve been memorizing Romans 8:26, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”  I think Paul’s heartbreak over the people of Israel rejecting Jesus is one of those situations where Paul needed the Spirit of God to pray on his behalf.  In Romans, he writes three chapters of wrestling with a difficult reality, but clearly this is not the first time Paul has thought about this issue!  He has been praying and wrestling and really struggling with this for many years.  But as he was writing to the Romans, Paul reached a sort of conclusion.  He still doesn’t have it all figured out, but he is suddenly led to write words of gratitude and praise.  “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out.  Who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been his counselor?  Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever!”

I think that’s how the Holy Spirit works. The Spirit is with us in our wrestling.  But the Spirit doesn’t want us to stay stuck.  The Spirit always leads us out of the muck and the mire back to a place of worship and joy. Maybe that is why three or four people who responded to my poll said that one of their favorite things about Christmas is how everyone is in a good mood.  There’s a general joy in the atmosphere that isn’t around the rest of the year.  There’s a rhythm to our calendar years.  We start off January full of hope, a week or two later the slog of daily living returns; we do our best to cope until November, and then we’re on the upswing because it’s Thanksgiving, and then it’s Christmas.  The last six weeks of the year are something of a natural doxology after all those months of regular life, and we love that!

By taking a Sunday in July to celebrate Christmas, we remind ourselves that joy was never meant to be a gift we only experience a few weeks a year.  Joy isn’t something reserved for when conditions are just right.  When Paul wrote, “to God be the glory forever and ever”, I think he was reminding himself, hey, I can live in the joy of the Lord all the time.  The joy of the Lord is my strength for daily living.  It’s fuel for coping.  It’s a place to dwell, regardless of what page of the calendar we are on or what distressing situations remain chronically unsolved.  The good news of Christ’s birth can be like an unfading halo of joy we wear all year long.  It can help us stand tall when times are tough.

On Tuesday, Phil and I went to New York City to see the Phillies play at Yankee Stadium.  We’ve been on a quest for thirty years to get to every major league baseball stadium.  We’re going at such a slow pace that some cities we’ve had to visit twice.  We were at the old Yankee stadium in 2004.  This week we got to the new Yankee stadium.  It wasn’t the best stadium experience ever.  For one thing, the Phillies lost.  But let me tell you, the Yankees know about glory.  Even though they are just above .500 this year, they have 27 World Series trophies to their name.  They have had so many famous players and so many winning moments, they have their own museum inside the stadium.  The place is awash with pride and joy.  Even when the Yankees are losing, they know they are winners.  Maybe Phil and I are just jealous, but I found it somewhat obnoxious.

Sitting behind us in the stands was a family with a little girl who was restless.  She kept bumping into Phil’s back, and they were apologetic.  Not to worry we said, no problem.  But when they realized we weren’t cheering for the Yankees, they struck up conversation with us.  Did you drive up today from Philly?  What else are you doing in New York?  What other stadiums have you been to, that kind of thing.  They were super welcoming.

The man sitting behind me told us he works for New York Presbyterian Hospital.  He’s in finance, but throughout the pandemic, it’s been all hands on deck, and every employee at times was pressed into all different kinds of jobs at the hospital.  He was at the game tonight with his family for free, because the Yankees were giving tickets away to health care workers as a thank you for all they did to help New York in the last year and a half.  We thanked him, too.  We were only in New York for the afternoon and the evening, but it is wall to wall people.  We could feel how scary the pandemic must have been in a place that is so densely populated and was hit so hard early on by the virus.  The fact that there 40,000 fans were together in the baseball stadium on Tuesday night, after only a year’s hiatus, struck me as a true miracle.

The game was exciting, but it moved pretty slowly, and about 10 pm, the family behind us decided it was time to go home.  As they were packing up, they got our attention so they could say good-bye.  They wished us a safe trip home, and then they said, “Thank you for coming.”  I wasn’t sure I heard them right, so the man said it again, “Thank you for coming.”  It was then that I noticed the cross necklace the mom was wearing.  I couldn’t believe a Yankee fan would say thank you to a Phillies fan for coming to the game.  But they weren’t talking to us as Yankee fans.  They were talking to us as brothers and sisters in Christ.  If you would have told me, Dorry, when you go to Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, you are going to see the glory of the Lord, I would not have believed you for a second.  But I did.  I saw the glory of the Lord in a family that was proud of their city, thankful for their blessings, welcoming to the stranger, and committed to the greater good—and I was reminded of how the Spirit of God is always at work behind the scenes, orchestrating blessings and gifts we could never predict but are delighted to receive.  Turns out I don’t just love receiving gifts at Christmas.  I like that all the time!

When I launched the poll, “What is your favorite thing about Christmas?”, I thought I knew what would be coming.  But I was surprised at the depth of the responses.  Studying the book of Romans is like that, too.  We already knew many famous verses from this book.  But I have been surprised by, and moved by, how Romans shows us a way to cope successfully with the unsolved mysteries of this life.  Wrestle with them, for two, three chapters at a time.  But then allow the Spirit to bring you to a place of doxology, of thanksgiving and praise.  Lament and grieve your heartaches.  But don’t let them rob you of your faith or hope.  Put your very best into understanding and serving God.  But never do that at the expense of putting your full trust in God.  Let the good news of God’s great love for all people be like an unfading halo of joy you wear all year long.  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To God be the glory forever!  Amen.