Some very dear friends of mine have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter whose name is London.  The other day London told her mother that she thinks Santa Claus is kind of yucky and that she would prefer that he simply leave her presents on the porch instead of coming in the house.  Her mom isn’t sure.  But, she thinks that the Santa suit may be the problem.  All of which she is sure is that London wants what Santa has to give, she just doesn’t want anything to do with Santa.  It makes you wonder what will happen when London finds out the truth about who Santa really is.  For now, the myth is giving her trouble enough. 

Myths have a way of doing that.  Like the time my great uncle Rex told me, when I was very young, that when you are eating an apple you must be very careful not to swallow any of the seeds or apple trees will grow out of your ears.  I’m not sure when I figured out that only people who are out of their tree would ever believe you could grows trees out of your ears.  But, I’ll have to admit that every now and then, to this day, swallowing an apple seed gives me pause.  O.K., just so you’ll know that I am still somewhere up in my tree, I’m absolutely certain that it is a biological impossibility to grow a tree out of a human ear.  I’m also absolutely certain that myths, about Santa or apple seeds accidentally swallowed or anything, can play a profound role in shaping how we see the world and God and our relationship to both.

Now, a myth is simply a story.  It may or may not represent any form of truth.  Webster says that a myth is “a story that is usually of unknown origin.”  (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, G&C Merriam Co., Springfield, Mass., 1969.)  In some cases, myths can be a legitimate tool for communicating a profound truth otherwise incomprehensible.  In others, myths are just stories that entertain or scare us but that have nothing whatsoever to do with the truth.  All myths are stories.  But, not all stories are myths.  Either way, what Webster seems to be saying is that myths get passed from one generation to the next because no one is ever willing to look deeper.  As a rule, the myths that go unchallenged in our way of thinking about the world and God and our relationship to both play a profound role in the way our life’s story gets written. 

In Luke’s record, John the Baptist is defined in terms of his relationship to a story that had been passed for centuries from one generation to the next among the Jewish people.  It was the story, very real, of how God had delivered the children of Israel from slavery, in this case, Babylonian captivity.  To define his role in foreshadowing Jesus, John borrowed the language of the prophet Isaiah as he described God’s intention to deliver the children of Israel from Babylonia.  “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

In Isaiah’s day, to the Jewish people, these words literally meant that God would do whatever he must in order to free his people from captivity.  Mountains made lower, crooked ways straight, whatever it takes, God says, I’ll lead my people home.  When John used them to describe his role in the ministry of Jesus, he was saying much the same thing on a more spiritual level.  Whatever it takes, God says, I’ll lead my people from captivity to freedom, from hopelessness to hope.  The specific word that both Isaiah used and John repeated to describe this process is the word “salvation.”  And, in John’s case, that salvation would be personified in the one whose coming he was predicting, Jesus, the Messiah, the savior of all mankind.

None of us in this room can appreciate what those words must have meant to a people who had been held captive by pagans in a foreign land for generations.  The stories of captivity shape Jewish thinking and the view of Jewish people toward unfriendly foreigners to this day.  However, what these words now mean to everyone born since the day of Jesus is that Jesus has come to set all of God’s people free.  Free from whatever holds them captive.  Especially the untrue myths about who they are and who they can be in relationship to God.

The myth, for example, that what you have done is unforgivable and that you must live forever in the land of shame and despair because of your guilt.  There are sins anyone can confess because they are so common.  Childhood sins, for example, long removed in time and space.  Safe sins, in a sense, because they attach no permanent guilt in anyone’s mind.  Like the time you faked feeling bad and lied to your mother so you wouldn’t have to go to school.  Everyone has some sin story like that.  But, then there are the sins all of us carry in our memories to which no one will ever catch us confessing.  Deep, dark sins the memories of which still plague us.  Sexual sins, perhaps.  Or sins of abuse or prejudice.  Or sins of addiction or things done to feed an addiction.  Everyone has some sin story like that, too.  I’ll never forget a man, confessing adultery to me, with his face in his hands.  He was weeping over his children lost in the shuffle of marriages caused by his voracious sexual appetite that no one could satisfy.  He was weeping because he feared his children would never forgive him.  What do we do about those sins? 

Well, before we can effectively ask what we should do about our past, we ought to stop and reflect on what God has done about it already.  When Luke recorded the words of the angel spoken to Mary about the child she would bear, the angel said, “You shall name him Jesus.”  (Luke 1:31)  The name “Jesus” means, “The Lord is salvation.”  Jesus’ name is what he does.  He saves people from their sins.  Just as Isaiah prophesied that God would deliver the people of Israel from their Babylonian bondage, so the angel was saying that this baby to be born in Bethlehem had come to deliver God’s people from the bondage of sin. 

So, what God has done about our past, in the person of his son Jesus, is to take our guilt upon himself.  This Jesus, born in a manger, would later die on the cross, taking upon himself the guilt of mankind.  “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting (their sins) against them (and) He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  (2 Corinthians 5:19, 21 NASV)   

In my very first pastorate my salary was a whopping $115 per week.  Even in 1976, that wasn’t much.  One of the men wanted to help so he hired me to paint his house.  I didn’t know the first thing about painting a house professionally.  But, this man lived miles from his nearest neighbor so he must have figured that his social standing could hardly be hurt by an embarrassing paint job.  One day, while I was on the roof, I kicked a bucket of paint over and it spilled down the full length of the shingles on the front side of the house.  There was no way to miss seeing it.  So, I decided that the best way to get rid of the paint was to wash it off of the composition shingles with paint thinner.  The paint thinner got rid of most of the paint, for sure, and a fairly good portion of some of the shingles so that, now, there was a wide black streak down the front roof of this man’s house.

I felt terrible.  But, there was no hiding it.  And, when he came home I just told him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth as though the big black streak running the length of his front side shingles didn’t speak for itself.  I offered to pay for the damage but he knew that there was no way I could.   I was already working for him because I needed the money.  So, do you know what he did?  He forgave me.  He told me to forget about it and never worry about it again.  It was a gracious act on his part to say the least.  But, it was not cheap, to him. 

For the rest of the time I served that church, every time I drove by his house, I saw the black streak only to be reminded that my guilt didn’t just go away.  Someone else took the burden of it for me, at no little expense.  And, what was more amazing than all of that is that he really meant it when he forgave me.  He never again brought it to my attention.  I never got a bill for the expense of repairing the damage I had done.  And, that man became one of my best friends in that church and community.  He and his wife regularly had me in their home for meals and seemed genuinely interested in my well-being as a young, single seminary student.  Maybe they figured it was cheaper to feed me than hire me. 

Whatever else celebrating the birth of Christ may mean for you this year, know this about its deepest meaning.  Your sins have not just gone away.  God didn’t just excuse them.  Christ, the Messiah, the one sent from God, has born them for you and borne them away from you.  He is your Savior.  In Christ, you carry the guilt of what has been no more.  That you can never be forgiven is a myth.  That Jesus is the Messiah, the one sent from God to deliver the message of God’s deliverance and actually become that deliverance for you is the story that can become yours.  What you have done has been forgiven.  Every sin.  All of it. 

So, what is it that we should do about all that stuff from the past that still forces itself upon our conscience?  Well, that brings us back to our little friend, London.  The one who wants what Santa has to give but doesn’t want anything to do with Santa.  For now, she wants Santa to stay outside and just leave the gifts he brings her on the porch.  But, do you think she’ll change her tune someday when she discovers who “Santa” really is?  That “he” is “they.”  The ones who brought her into this world and love her more than their own lives.  The ones who would pay any price to protect and nurture and love her.  Don’t you think that, when she discovers who the real Santa is, behind the myth, she will want that Santa not only to come and bring her gifts but live with her, too? 

There is only one way to find out exactly what life is like once you have been set free from the myth that you can’t be forgiven.  Jesus, the one sent from God, comes bringing his gift of salvation.  But, he can’t just leave it on the porch.  If you want what Jesus has to bring, you have to want the one who brings it, too, because he is the gift.  You have to let him in, to live with you, so that you can live for him.

It’s not easy undoing the power of the old myth that you can’t be forgiven.  You will occasionally find yourself revisiting the very places where you left your sinful mark.  And, failing that, there will be others to remind you.  There will always be others who try to name you by what you’ve done.  Our cat’s name is Sophie.  It’s not a derivative of the root word for wisdom.  We don’t call her Sophie because she is wise among cats but because, when she was just a kitten and we had just rescued her from the pound, she would hide behind the cushions on the sofa as though not sure of our intentions for her.  So, we called her Sophie.  We named her for what she did.  We do that with people, too.  Adulterer.  Divorcee.  Drunk.  Convict.  The list goes on.  In this world, with some people, you may forever bear the name of what you did.  In God’s family, you get named for what you are becoming.  That’s why his word says, about this Jesus who came bringing the gift of God’s salvation, “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”  (John 1:12)  In this world, known by the myth that you are forever what you’ve done and no more.  In the Messiah’s new and coming world, known for what God is remaking you to be.

Just as John borrowed Isaiah’s words to tell us of God’s wonderful gift of salvation, if you’d like to receive it by inviting that gift off of the porch and into your home, you can borrow the words of a very old hymn.  “Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown when thou camest to earth for me; but in Bethlehem’s home was there found no room for thy holy nativity.  Thou camest, Lord, with thy Living word that should set thy people free; O come to my heart, Lord Jesus.  There is room in my heart for Thee!  O come to my heart, Lord Jesus.  There is room in my heart for Thee!” 

Amen.