Carol Our Christmas

"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" Col 1:17

Do you remember the song we just sang?  It's a song about Christmas.

Carol our Christmas, an upside down Christmas,

Snow is not falling and trees are not bare,

Carol the summer, and welcome the Christ child,

Warm in our sunshine and sweetness of air

 The song is probably confusing.  Yes, it's summer.  Yes, the snow is not falling. 

 Yes, the trees are not bare.  But is this really the day to welcome the Christ child and Carol our Christmas? 

The carol was written by Shirley Murray.  She lives in New Zealand where it is warm and summery at Christmas and cold and wintry in July.  So the song makes sense to sing in December.  But why sing it in August?  Haven't we sort of got it set in our minds that Christmas is a day we celebrate on December 25--regardless of the weather out side and regardless of the hemisphere in which we reside?.

Maybe the way you answer that question depends on what Christmas means to you.  If Christmas is only about the manger scene and the birth of a baby--then maybe we should just confine our carols and Christmas stories to a few weeks in December.  We put up our Christmas tree, give our gifts, then take down our Christmas tree, pack up the ornaments, put the manger scene back in a box and have it over and done with till next year.  

 

 But the way I see it---Christmas is something much bigger.  The real meaning of Christmas is that whole great big deed that God did:   And that deed is called Jesus.  God sent Jesus into this world.  God sent Jesus to live among us as a human being.  Jesus died on the cross for our sins.  Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day.  Jesus went back to God. 

In just a minute or two we will look at our text and see what the Apostle Paul said about this wonderful deed that God did.  We might say this text is Paul's Christmas story.  But first I need to make one thing perfectly clear --No actually I need to make four things perfectly clear about Christmas.

Clear thing number one: We have no historical record of the date of the birth day of Jesus.  He might have been born on December 25 or he might have been born on July 12.  But more than likely, the shepherds would have been out in the fields sometimes in the spring. 

Clear thing number two: Not all Christians observe December 25th as Christmas.  The Eastern Church observes January 6

Clear thing number three: Christmas was not the first religious holiday of the Christians church--Easter was.  The celebration of Easter on December 25 did not begin until our year 336.

 

And clear thing number four: Not every body who wrote the New Testament made a big point of Christmas.  Case in point, the Apostle Paul.  Paul, the earliest writer of the New Testament and the most prolific writer of the New Testament says absolutely nothing about the virgin birth, absolutely nothing about Bethlehem or the scene in the manger and absolutely nothing about Mary and Joseph. 

But the one thing that the Apostle Paul does say an awful lot about is Jesus the Christ.  And that is what is happening in our text from the book of Colossians.

          He is the image of the invisible God

The firstborn of all creation

For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created---

All things have been created through him and for him.

"He (Jesus) is before all things and in him all things hold together." in

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell

And through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.

.

We don't know what day it was when Paul dictated those words to Timothy.  It might have been December 25 or August 26.  What we do know is that Paul is celebrating Christ, but Paul is not celebrating Christmas—or at least Paul is not celebrating Christmas as we usually think of the word.  Paul is not coming back home from a Christmas Eve service.  He is not getting ready to open Christmas gifts.  He is not admiring the lights of a Christmas tree or worry how long it will take to take down the tree.

Paul is in prison.  When Paul talks about "all things," he has to think about all the things of his confinement.  The chains.  The confining space.  The restrictions on his movement.  His declining health.  All the things of the world and the universe now seemed reduced to one small prison cell.  All things this great apostle has planned are now put on hold--or maybe doomed forever.  All things now seem more and more like no things.

But Paul, even though his eyesight may have been failing, Paul is not a person of limited vision.  Paul also knows that all things now include Timothy and Timothy has access to Paul's prison cell.  Timothy can take dictation and write this letter.  And in spite of what may or may not happen to Paul, the apostle knows that Timothy will deliver his letter to the people of the Colossian church.

 

But there is more.  Paul knows the one who holds all things together.  And even though there are passing references in this epistle about Paul's confinement--this epistle is not about Paul's confinement--it's about Jesus.  Jesus is the one before all things--the one who existed in the image of God.  Jesus is the one who acted with God in creation--in him all things in heaven and on earth were created.

And this same one, the one who was part of God at creation--this one has also come to Paul and to you and me.  He came into our broken world and put all things together--he reconciled human beings to God--even as his own human body was broken apart on the cross.

Now Paul can say that he rejoices in his own sufferings.

We don't know the circumstance of Paul's confinement.  Some have suggested that Paul was in a Roman prison or under house arrest in Rome when this epistle was written.  If that was the case, Paul was probably not released from prison.  Instead we believe that he was beheaded by Nero around the year 64.  However, others believe that this epistle was written earlier in his ministry.  Perhaps Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus, for a short while.  If that's the case, he was later released and continued his ministry.

We don't know the circumstances of Paul's imprisonment.  But we do know who Paul's Lord is.  Paul's Lord is the one who holds all things together, in prison and or out, when the snow is white or the grass is green.

Today is the 26^th of August.   It's not really Christmas.  But the one, who holds all things together--including Christmas day, is also the one who holds our own day together   He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

 

And yet on August 26 and on Christmas day and on so many others days there are so many things that do not seem held together. 

Our bodies don't hold it together--they see after time to fall apart and break down--sometimes sooner, sometimes later.  We face illness and surgeries and pain.  Sometimes it's an illness that has no cure.  Sometimes, like the apostle Paul, we face a thorn in the flesh.  We don't know the name of Paul's "thorn in the flesh."  Scholar's have speculated about ailment—and no one knows can find enough clues to make any kind of diagnosis—except to say that Paul had some physical ailment that tormented, but did not terminate his ministry.  Today we have a lot more names to attach to illness, but having names does not diminish their pain, their hurt, and sometimes their deadliness.  Yes, sometimes our bodies don't hold it together. 

Other times it seems that life itself doesn't hold together.  It seems that all we read about is tragedy.  6 miners dead in a mine in Utah.  172 miners drowned in a min flood in China.  Over 200 Iraqis killed in a car bomb.  Over 400 Peruvians killed in an earthquake.  One American mother planning her daughter's funeral as her daughter's body comes back from Iraq and wondering what it must be like to be in the White House planning your daughter's wedding.

Some times we understand the cause of tragic death.  Sometimes we do not.  Yet, the effect seems the same.  Friends torn from friends.  Families leaf over photographs and stare at empty chairs.  Grief is Grief—in China, in Peru, in the United States.  And all the things that matter, seem ripped asunder.

 

Then there is that immense probably of human sin.  The way God sees things it is the whole human race that has not held all things together.  We've all gone astray and followed the devices of our own heart.  We've all done the things we should not do and left undone the things we should.  We've allowed anger to boil into hatred.  We've harden our hearts against the hurt of others.  We've learn to love possessions and use other people.

That's the way all things are today, August 26, 2007 and that's the way all things were long ago as Paul, the apostle sat in a prison cell dictating a letter.  I can imagine that a lot of things are on Paul's mind, thrones in the flesh, prison conditions, conditions in the Colossian church and all the things that break the human race apart from each other and apart from God.  Yet as Paul thinks of all the things that break us apart, he gets another perspective on all these things.  Jesus Christ is the One more important than all these things.  Jesus Christ is the One before all things.  Jesus Christ is the One in whom all things hold together and through him God was pleased to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.  Paul doesn't really know Christmas.  Paul knows Christ. 

And that's the meaning of Christmas.  That God came to us long ago in this baby boy born in Bethlehem, that God lived with us in this man of Nazareth.  And when we human beings nailed him to the cross, God did not condemn us, instead God made peace. 

On December 25 and on August 26.  On days when the sun shines, and on days when the snow falls;   On days when our bodies are racked with pain and on days when our bodies float like the breeze; On days when heart is torn apart and on days when we feel on top of the world In Christmas day---on days like these we remember that Jesus is before all things and in Jesus Christ all things hold together.

And so on days like these

Wise ones make journeys, whatever the season,

Hope is the Jesus gift, love is the offering,

Everywhere, anywhere, here on the earth.

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