H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
4 December 2005
SENDING CARDS
Isaiah 49:15-16
Last year almost two billion Christmas cards went through the U. S. mail. The words inside the cards
vary wildly. There’s the comic approach, the reverent message, and the ever-popular, “Happy holiday,”
offering generic good will for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid, Festivus, or the birthday of Elvis.
And yet, whether the verse is poignant or pointed, whether the card is adorned with flying angels or
flying reindeer, in a sense every card communicates the same message. What is that message? Well, it’
s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? In one way or another, every card says, “I haven’t forgotten you. Maybe we
haven’t kept in touch this year. Maybe we haven’t seen each other since the last century. Maybe this
annual postal greeting is the only contact we have left, but I haven’t forgotten you. You’re in my thoughts,
maybe even in my heart. Maybe there’s a gulf between us—a gulf of miles or years or
misunderstandings—but I still haven’t forgotten you.”
According to the people who study such things, the first Christmas cards originated in 1843 in
England, the invention of a fellow named John Horsley. With due respect, that’s all wrong. God has been
sending Christmas cards for thousands of years. If Christmas cards are a way to say, “I haven’t forgotten
you,” then God has been doing that a long time. How does the letter to the Hebrews put it? “Long ago
God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets…” (Hebrews 1:1). Sure, many
prophets speaking in many and various ways, but always the same message.
Through the prophet Hosea, God said, “You’ve been unfaithful to me in every way and you’ve broken
my heart more than I can tell you, but I haven’t forgotten the promises we both made. I still remember,
and I’m coming to bring you home.”
Through Jeremiah, God said, “Because of your sins, terrible things are coming and you’ll think I’ve
turned my back. But I haven’t. You are never out of my thoughts and when you’re ready to look for me, I’ll
make sure you find me.”
Through Ezekiel, God said, “You think your hopes and dreams and possibilities are as dead as old
dry bones, but my heart remembers you and I will give you new life.”
Perhaps my favorite prophetic Christmas card is from the nameless prophet whose words are
preserved in the second section of Isaiah where God says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or
show no compassion on the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I
have inscribed you on the palms of my hands,” (Isaiah 49:15-16).
Yet as great as the prophets are, compared to Jesus, the prophets are just cheap box cards, the kind
you find on a discount table at Walgreen’s. “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various
ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son,” (Hebrews 1:1-2). Jesus is
the deluxe Christmas card, one of a kind, chosen just for you and me, the kind Kristy Seither makes.
And there’s a long letter tucked into this card. Not one of those Xeroxed letters about what a great
year it’s been and how Mr. Smith was appointed an ambassador to the Vatican back in March and Mrs.
Smith has been commissioned to repaint the Sistine Chapel and little Smitty Junior has just been
awarded a Nobel Prize for his ninth-grade essay on world peace. Nah, God doesn’t send out generic
greetings.
If Jesus is a Christmas card, he’s a hand-written letter with a personal message just for you. If Jesus
is a Christmas card, he’s a photo card, a snapshot of God smiling bigger than life. There’s a hint of
sadness around the eyes, a touch of wistfulness, but it doesn’t take away from the smile. God’s arms
are spread wide open, and the expression on the divine face says, “I think about you a hundred times a
day. Even when you forget me, I still remember you.”
A little corny, sure, a little hokey, but the kind of card you hang onto after the holidays because you just
can’t bring yourself to throw it away along with the torn wrapping paper and the brown, shedding tree.
And the photo on the card is a little blurry, but if you look closely at the snapshot of God with arms
reaching out, you notice there’s something funny about those hands, something on the palms. In one
light it looks like scars maybe, but if you turn the picture another way it looks like a tattoo, like a name
carved there in God’s flesh. In fact, it looks like your name right there where God continually sees it.
Every time God puts a star in place or spreads a rainbow or catches a falling sparrow, there’s your name
like a reminder.
I thought about getting a tattoo to celebrate my fiftieth birthday. I didn’t. I got my ear pierced instead.
The whole tattoo thing just put me off. Compared to an earring, a tattoo costs a lot more, it hurts a lot
more, and it’s so permanent. You can take an earring out, but a tattoo? Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it for
good.
So you have to figure that if God’s hands are tattooed with your name and mine, then God is pretty
serious about this relationship, pretty committed. And who knows, maybe even God has to pry the price
for tattoos like that. Even if you’re God, it must hurt to have your palms pierced.
If it seems to you that this sermon is a bit fanciful, that photo-greetings from God and heavenly
Christmas cards are a little far-fetched—okay, I plead guilty. Comparing Jesus to a Christmas card
doesn’t begin to delve the profound mystery of the incarnation.
But the comparison does capture a little piece of what God did at Bethlehem. When you and I want to
touch someone far away, when we want to affirm the ties of friendship or even love, sending a
Christmas card isn’t such a bad way to go about it.
By the same token, when God wanted to reach out to you and me, wanted to reach across that great
distance between heaven and earth, wanted to send along a message too important to entrust it to a
prophet or even an angel, when God cared enough to send the very best, God sent Jesus. God sent that
first and best of all Christmas cards special delivery to a stable in Bethlehem so that, even amid the
disappointments and the let-downs and the unanswered questions of life, we might be certain of at
least this much: that God loves us forever and God forgets us never.
Soli Deo Gloria!