Christmas Eve 5:30 pm Service



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 You’ve Got Mail. Children Christmas Sermon December 24, 2015 St. Luke’s

Carey and I like movies. Probably none of you remember an old movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan called “You’ve Got Mail”. You parents or grandparents may remember, however. (1998) Ice age.
Hold up letter
Does anyone here like to get mail?
What kind of mail do you like?
Hold up cell phone
Do you like to get phone calls?
What kind of calls do you like to get? Calls from someone special?
There is another old song that Stevie Wonder wrote and sang, “I just called to say I love you.” (1984) Age of the dinosaurs. It did win academy award for best original song.
I have a story about mail and phone calls.
God, the maker of this earth, especially maker of all the red birds, and purple flowers, and willow trees, and running deer, and hump backed whales also makes human beings, that is us. And after God makes us he just falls in love with us. God falls in love with You and you and you. God loves us especially because we look a little like God. Imagine, each of you looks a little like God. We are God’s signature piece.
But sometimes we forget about God and think we are God because we do look a little like God.
But like Stevie Wonder’s song, God just wants to keep telling us how much God loves us.
So first God picks up one of his phones. I wonder what God’s phones look like.. huge) and God tries calling us. God keeps getting a busy signal/ or the person on the other end hangs up.
Then God tries to write us. His letters come back, “Return to Sender.” Another old song sung by Elvis Presley. (1962) Way before age of dinosaurs.
Then God decides to email us, but the message he gets back is, “address unknown.”
Then God says, “Aha, I have seen teenagers doing this and it seems to work for them.” What do teenagers do to talk to each other? Yes! So God starts texting and twitting, and sending instagrams, but when he tries to reach us, the answers he gets back are, in-valid password, or error, in-valid number. Please resend using valid 10 digit mobile number or valid short code.
Then God thinks and thinks and even cries, because you may sometimes know what it is like to love someone who does not seem to notice you. Then one day as God is making his hospital visits, as is his custom, he hears laughter, and sees hugs, and flowers and balloons, and smiling faces, not the usual thing we always see at a hospital. God sends his Spirit to sneak around a corner to see what is going on. These very happy people, parents and grandparents, children have just had a new baby come into their lives.
And that gives God an idea. Everyone loves a baby.1 No one will hang up the phone on a baby or refuse to answer a text or refuse to read a letter or a tweet from a baby. God decides, “I will send a baby into the world to let the world know how much I love them. It will be a special baby, God with flesh on, that is really a part of God. It will be a baby that will be a part of God who can kiss, and hug, and smile, and tell us how much God loves every one of the creatures he has made, especially children.”
And so this is Christmas, Jesus, God’s phone call, God’s letter, God’s email, God’s text all rolled into a 7 pound bundle of joy, Jesus, a part of God. Jesus comes to tell us how much God loves each and every one of us.
And the willow trees swing with joy and the red birds cannot stop their singing and the whales leap for joy… and God sends Jesus to each and every one of you to say, “I love you, just as you are, as he calls you by name. (name children) Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,/ signed God. /
And so as the love of God is born in Bethlehem that night, may his love continue to be born in the manger of your hearts.
And Carey and I have a letter from God in a Christmas ornament for each of you to remind you how much God and all of us at St. Luke’s love each one of you.

1Barbara Brown Taylor, " God's Daring Plan," Bread of Angels, pp. 31-35.