Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them.  Take our minds and think with them.  Take our hearts and set them in fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

Hallmark, the world’s leading greeting card manufacturer, wraps up its mission statement with the familiar phrase, “When you care enough to send the very best.”  Well it’s that time of year again, the Christmas season, when people all over the world, particularly in the West, will be bending over backwards to send their very best to the people in their lives.  We’ll buy and wrap presents for friends and family, mail packages of goodies to loved ones living at a distance, plan trips to be with those we care for, and, perhaps, even be more apt to do a good deed like giving a basket of food to a needy family or buying a an extra gift for a child who would not receive one otherwise. 

One tradition of the season that has sort of come and gone over the years in my own life is sending out Christmas cards.  In fact, the Christmas season is a very good time for those in the greeting card business.  Some sources suggest that greeting card sales range anywhere from four to seven billion dollars annually with the Christmas season being the time of greatest profit.  My favorite Christmas card that I remember receiving had on the front a cartoon drawing of the three wise men riding on camels across a desert in a single file line.  The first two wise men are looking back at the third with looks of disgust and frustration on their faces.  When you opened the card the caption read, “No, we are not going back for your toothbrush.”  Whether it’s the seriously religious themed cards or the off-color humorous variety, at Christmas time, stores are full of people trying to find the perfect card that puts into words what perhaps they cannot pen for themselves—a message of hope and love that reaches their loved one’s innermost being, their heart and soul.

In today’s New Testament lesson from I Thessalonians, Paul pens his own greeting card of sorts—a message of hope and love with which he intends to reach his readers’ innermost being, their hearts and souls. He writes, “How can we thank God enough for you...”  Imagine that’s on the face of the card.  Open it up and he continues: “Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.  And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.  And may he so strengthen you hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”  Perhaps Paul should have begun his own greeting card business. 

Paul’s words are seasoned with hope and love—a hope that the Thessalonians love for others will ever increase, a hope that he will eventually visit them, and a hope that they will experience the presence and love of Christ in their lives.  Moreover, though it is not clear in the reading we heard, Paul’s words of hope and love are offered to the Thessalonians while they are in the midst of suffering hardship and persecution.  Therefore Paul’s message of hope and love must have been all the more welcome—speaking deeply to the readers’ hearts and souls.   

For many in our world today, the Christmas season is also a time of hardship.  For some the holidays are more like hollow-days.  The word “hollow” means without substance, worth or character…a cavity, hole or space, a void.  Psychologists call the phenomenon Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD.  For some it’s just the winter blues brought on by something such as missing a loved who is not going to be with you for Christmas.  For others, it is a subtype of major depressive episode.  Perhaps you or a loved one you know gets sad during the Christmas season for whatever reason? 

The truth is clinically diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder is linked to issues of light and length of day, not hearing “Jingle Bells” every time you visit the mall.  Still, no other holiday can elicit feelings of sadness and loneliness like the Christmas season.  Being surrounded by presents and families only makes the absence of one or both in a person’s life all the more painful.  All five of the human senses go into overdrive during this time of year.  It might be a favorite carol or Christmas hymn, the smell of food or pine, the sight of decorations, the memory of a loved one, exhaustion or a host of other things that can trigger a paralyzing grip on a person’s emotions or attitude.

Now no one loves all the warm and fuzzy things about our cultural expression of Christmas more than I do.  My tree was up and decorated along with my entire house the day after Thanksgiving.  An electric train surrounds the base of my Christmas tree and lights are hanging on the bushes in front of my house.  This is a little embarrassing but I even have magic 95.5 programmed on my car stereo—you know the cheesy 24 hour Christmas music station.  The emphasis during Christmas time on decorations and presents, family and fuzzy feelings, caroling and candy—are not in and of themselves bad or problematic.  However, if they become our reason for the season Christmas can become a hollow-day not a holiday and lead some people to weariness and despair.

Today, in the church year, we begin the season of Advent. And perhaps Advent, in a small way, can offer us and those around us a remedy to the sadness, whether slight or serious, that so many people experience this time of year.  Perhaps Advent can once again make this season for many a holiday and not a hollow-day.  You see the word Advent means come.  Advent reminds us that Christ came to us two thousand years ago as the Babe of Bethlehem and that Christ will come again in the fullness of time to usher in God’s kingdom of peace and love.  But that’s not all.  Advent also reminds us that Christ comes to us each day and in every moment as a glad and active presence in our lives. 

When Paul says in his greeting to the Thessalonians, “That you may be blameless before our God,” the key phrase is “before our God.”  You see we are always before our God because God in Christ always comes to us each day and in every moment.  Christ is with us.  Jesus is here. God in Christ lives in the present situations of our lives. Christ comes to us and fills our innermost being—our hearts and minds—with hope and love. 

If we can remember in this season that Christ comes to us each day and in every moment, perhaps Advent and Christmas can be for us a holy time, not a hollow time.  We all know the real reason for the season—that Christ came into our world and continues to come into our lives each day and in every moment.

And let me take this thought a step further.  Perhaps during Advent and Christmas we can share the good news with those who are filled with sadness and hollowness that Christ comes to them as well.  How?  By paying special attention to those who are vulnerable and those who will spend this season sad.  Like Paul, by writing letters or sending cards with messages of hope and love to people who are suffering because they are separated from loved ones by death, disease, or distance.  By reaching out this Advent and Christmas to the lost, lonely, forgotten, abused and oppressed people with whom we live each and every day.  By letting Christ use us to come into a person’s innermost being with his hope and love.

Care enough to send the very best this Advent and Christmas by letting Christ use you as a living greeting card—a messenger who comes into a person’s innermost being to fill their hearts and souls with hope and love—right now when they need it most.  Amen.

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