IN THEORY:

Cookbooks wait quietly to be opened to the smudged pages of holiday cookery, gift catalogs arrive of bright new gifts arrive, decorations appear in shopping centers, holiday suggestions shout from freeway billboards bordering the freeway.

Christmas. Again. Yesterday, tomorrow, and forever. How is it that we are not weary of the whole bother: homemade presents that never look as great as they did in the magazines, lopsided trees, inedible cookies that which the children frost to death?

I have attempted to figure out why, to analyze the situation logically, and I have concluded that Christmas, like poetry, is best left undissected.

Christmas, like a poem, it should be, not mean. It is a mystery, a miracle, as personal as one’s birthday, as universal as the concept of cosmic love made visible.

We respond to the reality of God’s coming to earth as uniquely as the God within us prods the response.

As with celebrations continually renewed — the special blue of an August sky, icy tree limbs transformed into rainbows by the winter sunlight, the depth of a child’s eyes as his meet yours — you discover in Christmas a freshness in the familiarity, but light shines from a different angle to lend a new perspective. So it is with Christmas.

Christmas began without any help from us. The incarnation wasn’t dreamed of to give children a holiday.

It is difficult to register that the birth of Jesus is a gift of God to us. We can’t quite grasp its preciousness. It is like giving a string of genuine pearls to a young daughter who prefers the rosier cast of a costume jewelry choker to the muted, dull reality.

So, we often settle for the surface celebration. We give of our money and ourselves unashamedly because it feels so good! In another season, without such a legitimate crutch to grasp, we would restrain ourselves.

Christmas is a time when separation from those we love is most unbearable. We want to hold them close to our hearts as well as in our arms.

Is this sentimental rambling? It could be, since Christmas is all about a baby. Babies do possess a way of stirring our emotions.

Dross accumulates on the ornaments and tinsels the heart, if you let it. But, do not underestimate a soul’s yearning for the source of joy even while it rides the surface excitement of sentiment for it knows that there is more to Christmas than the “hey nonny nonny” of a Druid rite or the brief hesitation of the winter solstice.

Christmas is also a flexible feast. It grows in richness as we grow in openness.

Or it stands still as we stagnate.

Even though Christmas is always here near the end of December, it is never the same.

How will Christmas touch you this year?

What will you bring to it?

These would seem to be good questions for us to ponder.

Monsignor Lawrence J. Baird

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church

Newport Beach

Stop, look, listen! Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Repeat. The beauty of celebrating Advent is that it sets a pace for the season. When we count the Advent Sundays until Christmas it forces us to mark time, to slow down and be intentional. Advent reminds us that Jesus was called “Emmanuel” or “God with us,” and that God is still with us. In the chaos of our daily lives, God has not forsaken us. He is waiting patiently for us to stop, look, listen and hear His voice calling us to rest and joy and peace.

Ric Olsen

Lead Pastor, The Beacon

Each sermon I give at the end of the year is about peace being a living principle that defines behavior, attitude and choice. Each year my message includes noted authors who wrote about peace. H.L. Mencken wrote, “If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.” Henry Longfellow said, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” A life of peace must include forgiveness, gratitude, and love. Each is a message delivered to the giver upon the giver’s delivery of the message to the world. There is no world peace, only personal peace defining one’s behavior in the world.

Pastor Jim Turrell

Center For Spiritual Discovery

Costa Mesa

Christmas is not just a day, it is a state of mind. As a Christian pluralist I understand the celebration of Jesus’ birth in metaphor as light breaking forth amid darkness. Whatever your faith, we can probably all agree that our world needs enlightenment. As war, disease, genocide, hate and violence break our world, we ache for healing. As a Christian who believes in the miracle of Christmas, I believe that Jesus taught us to walk in the light, to seek peace, to heal the broken, to love the hated, to care for the poor and to stand up for the oppressed. As we celebrate Jesus’ birth we are invited to birth the light within us and then let it shine! So let’s honor Jesus’ birth by living our lives as he lived — seeking justice, loving one another and humbly walking in the light of God. Merry Christmas!

Rev. Sarah Halverson

Fairview Community Church

Costa Mesa

Christmas is God’s “I love you!” to all people everywhere. Isn’t “I love you!” the gift we most want to give and receive?

The babe born in Bethlehem is God’s Word to us about ourselves; the Christ-child makes humanity forever young.

Unwrap God’s exquisite present to you: the Incarnation, the nativity of God in skin. Like the Prince of Peace, be birthed afresh into this justice-starved world.

Our yearly “Silent Night, Holy Night” calls us together, away from the glitz of commercialism’s best season, to open our hearts to the holy presence of God with us.

Children say, “I wish I had a picture of God.” We are given exactly this in the birth of Jesus — for us, and for the whole world.

The Very Rev’d Canon Peter D. Haynes

Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar