Last year in our annual Advent preparations for Christmas, we spent a little sermon time remembering some of the popular songs of the season and we discovered together that many of our favorite songs reveal some very deep things to us about the true meaning of the season. We looked at It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas and we remembered that Christmas really looks like the love that God sent to us Jesus. We looked at Santa Claus is Coming to Town and we noted that even though Santa is into rewarding good behavior, God is into loving and forgiving us even when we haven’t been so good. We looked at All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth and we decided that what we all really want for Christmas is so much more than that; what we want is the completeness and fulfillment of knowing God. And we sang together the very first song, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, and we remembered that our true home is with God.

This year we are going to remember some more of the popular songs of Christmas. To start us off, how many of us can forget that great little ditty sung originally by a nasal-voiced little kid, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus? Here are the words that Tommy Connor wrote in 1952:

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath the mistletoe last night.
She didn’t see me creep
Down the stairs to have a peep;
She thought that I was tucked
Up in my bedroom fast asleep.
Then, I saw Mommy tickle Santa Claus
Underneath his beard so snowy white;
Oh, what a laugh it would have been
If Daddy had only seen
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night.

Christmas is a season full of secrets. The biggest secret of all is the secret of Santa Claus. Just who is Santa, and how does he manage to deliver the right toys to all those little girls and boys? More than one little urchin has crept down the stairs, I suspect, in the attempt to catch Santa in the act, and more than one Mommy has probably been spotted giving the red-robed fulfiller of fantasies a kiss. But there are other secrets, other mysteries of Christmas. Many people don’t understand the mystery of why other people actually like fruitcake. And pretty much everyone goes around buying presents and hiding them in secret places until they can be wrapped and put under the tree. How many of you will admit sneaking into your parents’ hiding place and taking a look at your presents before Christmas? And how many of you will admit actually unwrapping your presents even after they’re under the tree and then wrapping them back again?

In a sense, the true story of Christmas has to do with the revealing of a secret, the unveiling of a mystery. The mystery was this: who is God and what is God like? That is a question that has occupied the minds of men ever since we were given minds. Who is God and what is he like? When the Apostle John sat down to write his answer to that great question, he began to talk about the Word of God. To the Greek audience to whom John was apparently writing, the Word was the Divine Mind, the Eternal Principle of Order that shaped the universe, the Power that gave force and energy to all things. It was one way that they tried to explain God. For them, the Word was the beginning point and the center point of all things, the fundamental reality, the creator of life. Discover the essence and nature and will of the Word, and you have learned the most important secret of the universe.

The Apostle John reported that there was another man named John, the one called “the Baptist,” who preached that the essence and nature of God were no longer secret, for indeed, God himself had revealed himself in the form of a man. John the Baptist proclaimed that the Word of God, the Light that overcomes all darkness, was coming into the world. The mystery was being revealed, the secret was being told.

The Apostle John reported and lamented the fact that, for the most part, the world did not understand the mystery that was being revealed; it did not comprehend the secret that was being told. In John’s time, most people still were looking for other answers, other explanations. And that seems true in our time as well. So many people today look for the secrets of the universe in the fabric of the universe itself, rather than in the One who made the universe. Or they look for meaning in the philosophies of man, or in the various religions of man that focus on trying to be better people. And many people have given up in their quest for God and simply decided that God cannot be known, so you may as well make the most of life as best you can, and then hope for the best when life ends.

But, John says, some people have in fact paid attention and learned the secret and they have understood the mystery. “We have seen his glory,” John says, and “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” The Word, the Center and Beginning and Purpose and Meaning of it All is no longer a secret. You can know who God is and what God is like. God has sent the One who is close to his heart to reveal to us what his heart is like.

Why do we want to know God and what he is like? Because when we know the reality about the beginning, the center, the purpose and meaning, then we know what to make of everything else. Is life good or bad? It is good, because God is good. Is life worth living or just a big, useless charade? It is worth living, because God loves us. Am I important, or does my life count for nothing? I am important, because God made me and even came to die for me. Can I be at peace with myself and with the world, or is life just one long battle? I can be at peace, because God came and proclaimed peace to me. When all is said and done, should I be happy or sad? Happy, because God’s angels came and said that they brought good news about great joy that was being given to all people. When I die, shall I be afraid or shall I be confident that on the other side of death I will still be me and I will be okay? When I die, I’ll be okay, because I have known God’s only Son, who has already died for me, and he has helped me to be born again into a new and eternal life.

The mystery of all mysteries, the secret of all secrets, is finally known. Who is God and what is God like? You don’t have to creep down the stairs to find out. You don’t have to sneak a peek under the wrapping paper. You don’t have to wonder any more. God has come to us in Jesus, and Jesus loves you and me.

Amen.

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