Christmas Day

Nancy Hill, in her book, Actual Factuals, tells an interesting story about a man who profited greatly because of a Christmas card. Clinton Odell heard of a chemist who had become ill and moved to Arizona for his health. The year was 1924. It was Christmastime, so Clinton sent the chemist $25 and an encouraging note. A year later, the chemist, Carl Noren, appeared at the Odell house saying, “I’m here and I’m well, and what can I do for you?”

Clinton had an idea he wanted Carl to help him with. He felt there was a market for brushless shaving cream. So Carl started to work on it and eventually invented the stuff.

Now Clinton had to let the world know about their new product. His son had noticed that some gas stations located on highways advertised gas, oil, and clean rest rooms with a series of signs. That was it, Clinton decided. Beginning with an advertising budget of $200, the family painted crude signs, hurrying to hammer them into the ground before they froze. And something quite encouraging happened. Orders started coming in from druggists whose customers traveled the two roads where the signs had been planted.

Some examples of these innovative signs are:

“The bearded lady Tried a jar She’s now A famous Movie star Burma-Shave.”

“Fisherman! For a lucky strike Show the pike A face They’ll like Burma-Shave.”

“If you dislike Big traffic fines Slow down Till you Can read These signs Burma-Shave.”

“No lady likes To snuggle Or dine Accompanied by A Porcupine Burma-Shave”

Now you know the origin of the quaint Burma Shave signs that once graced our nation’s highways. They were the result of one man’s kindness at Christmastime.

Christmas is a surprising time, isn’t it? It’s a time when we might send a card to someone who is down on their luck. It’s a time when we feel more charitable, more decent, more loving. Christmas at its best is a reflection of the love of God.

“In the beginning was the Word,” John says in his prologue, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came in to being.” Later in John’s prologue we learn that the Word that was with God in the beginning was Jesus. So, you see, Christmas was God’s purpose right from the very beginning.

When God said, “Let there be light,” it was for the purpose of sharing His love. When He separated the earth from the waters, it was for the purpose of creating beings upon whom He could pour His beneficence.

Love is the reason behind the universe. We find evidence of God’s love throughout the Old Testament, but it was the coming of Christ that brought the matter home. God had always loved us, but we never knew how much until the babe was born in Bethlehem. But there is a second thing we need to see.

Christmas is the victory of light over darkness. We live in such a brilliantly lit world that we can’t appreciate the imagery of a world of darkness. Imagine a world with no street lamps or illuminated signs. Imagine that you’re a stranger traveling on foot or donkey. Now don’t assume that crime wasn’t a problem in Jesus’ time. It was a problem, and the darkness held many terrors.

Then into this world of darkness there shone a great light. John continues his prologue: “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

There is no more meaningful imagery in Scripture to describe what Christ’s coming into the world meant than the imagery of light overcoming darkness.

Viktor Frankl, the father of Logo therapy, was interned by the Nazis for being a Jew. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl tells how a distant light helped him through the darkness of his incarceration. The camp in which he was held was cruel and ugly beyond belief. He lived in a squalid dormitory. And surrounding him were other human beings living in the most wretched of conditions. The apparent hopelessness of the situation took its toll on many, driving them to end their lives. But Frankl discovered that if you have a purpose for life, you can endure.

In the distance, there was a house surrounded by trees. Early in the morning on cold winter days, the glow emitting from that farmhouse served as a beacon of hope. Frankl envisioned a normal family gathered around the hearth. Deep in his heart he knew that the lights had not gone out in all the world and one day the present darkness would be overcome.

And that is Christ’s promise to us. The present darkness will be overcome. Light has come into our world. That light is Christ himself.

In the Metropolitan Diary feature of The New York Times, a reader recalled an incident that took place when he was working on a popular soap opera, one which ran for 72 years on radio and then television. A subway strike was in progress and the producers of the “soap” provided a bus to the studio. At one of the stops on the bus’s schedule, an expected rider was nowhere to be seen. Then the driver noticed a man standing on the corner, looking uptown, then downtown, on tiptoe. The driver stopped, got out of the bus, walked up to the man and said, “Are you looking for The Guiding Light?” The man’s face glazed. “I have no time for fanatics,” he said, then backed away and made a hasty retreat across Broadway.

Are you looking for the guiding light? Christ is our guiding light. In him we can see love that can transform the world. Christmas was God’s purpose from the beginning. Christmas is the celebration of light coming into a dark and unfriendly world. But one more thing:

Christmas is the unfinished business of those who follow Jesus. John writes: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”

That is who we are. Because Christ has come into our world, we have become children of God. And as children of God, we are involved in the unfinished business of Christmas. We are those who carry the light into the dark places of the world. We are agents of the peace, hope, and joy of Christmas.

Singer Mel Torme told about driving one excessively hot afternoon out to a songwriter’s house in Toluca Lake for a work session. The San Fernando Valley, always at least ten degrees warmer than the rest of Los Angeles, blistered in the July sun. The songwriter lived in a beautiful home, but even it was oppressive in those pre-airconditioned days. Mel opened the front door and walked in. He called for his friend, the songwriter. No answer. Mel walked over to the piano. A writing pad rested on the music board. Written in pencil on the open page were four lines of verse:

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir And folks dressed up like Eskimos

When his friend finally appeared, Mel asked him about the little poem. His friend was dressed sensibly in tennis shorts and a white Tshirt, but he still looked uncomfortably warm.

“It was so hot today,” he said, “I thought I’d write something to cool myself off. All I could think of was Christmas and cold weather.”

Mel took another look at his handiwork. “You know, this just might make a song.”

So they sat down together at the piano and, improbable though it may sound, “The Christmas Song” was completed about 45 minutes later. Excitedly, they sped into Hollywood to play it for some well-known people in the music business, including Nat King Cole, who fell in love with the tune. Nat’s recording of it came out in the late fall of 1946; and the rest, as they say, is history.

What if Mel hadn’t come by that day? What if he hadn’t noticed the poem scribbled on a pad? What if he hadn’t helped his friend complete what he had started? The world would have been deprived of one of its favorite secular Christmas tunes. In the same way, we are those called to help Christ in his unfinished work.

The light has come into the world, John tells us – the light of peace, love and joy. But that was just the beginning. We are like those angels who sang over the Bethlehem stable. But the song is unfinished. Now we leave to sing Christ’s tune to our dark world as well. Go and share the Light of Christ. And have a blessed and joyous Christmas.