“All I want for Christmas… is you” was a hit for Mariah Carey in 1994. Or, you might be more familiar with an older song with a similar title. “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.” (I think that one was a hit for Count Dracula). Actually it was recorded in 1949 by Spike Jones and the City Slickers.
If you have two front teeth missing, it’s not hard to see why you would want to get them back on Christmas morning. Biting into your roast turkey calls for a decent set of top teeth, but I’ve always thought it was a bit unambitious to wish for nothing more than a set of dentures in your Christmas stocking.
What are you hoping to open tomorrow morning? I asked my family at the dinner table the other night and one said “a drum kit” (that was the cat), one said “a handbag” (that wasn’t me) and one, just to make the others feel guilty said “world peace.”
According to xmaselves.co.uk the top 10 presents for girlfriends last year included the Thornton’s I Love Chocolate hamper and Fuzzy Feet Pig Slippers.
The top 10 presents for boyfriends in 2009 included Cookery Courses with Professional Chefs (“Wow, thank you darling, that is just what you always wanted!”) and, at £9.95 each, self stirring mugs. Here’s what the maker says about them – “The Plain Lazy Self Stirring Mug is the ultimate gift for that person you know who is into DDIY (Don’t Do It Yourself)! Simply flick the switch located on the top of the handle and the mechanism will stir your cup of tea for you!”
What do you really want for Christmas? Beyond some nice new lingerie or something frivolous for the man who has everything, or what you always get – if tomorrow morning you could have anything you liked what would you choose?
The Me I Want to Be
I’m reading a book by John Ortberg called The Me I Want to Be which is about our personalities and how there are several versions of us.
The real ‘me’ is the person I am when no one is looking. This is our true self, it’s who we really are.
But there are other me’s as well.
· There’s the ‘me’ I don’t want to be.
· There’s the ‘me’ I pretend to be.
· There’s the ‘me’ I think I should be.
· There’s the ‘me’ other people want me to be.
· There’s also the ‘me’ that I want other people see.
We hope that this ‘me’ is the very best version of us there is; the smiling, laughing, popular ‘me.’ Most of us like to make sure this ‘me’ happy, intelligent, important or funny. The thing is, most of us find it hard to keep this version of us going forever – or sometimes it falls apart.
Like the army lieutenant who wanted to impress people about how important he was. So when a junior soldier knocked on his door he pretended to be on the phone with the Big Cheese so that everyone would know he really was a ‘somebody’. “OK, General, you can count on me. Goodbye Sir” and he slammed the receiver down. He then looked up. “Well Private, what do you want?” “I’ve come to connect your telephone line, Sir.”
One of our fears is that the real ‘me’ will be unmasked - and with good reason. What if Wikileaks published everything you have ever written or what if every private conversation you ever had was secretly recorded by an undercover journalist and put into the public domain?
The discomfort we feel about that is what the Bible calls ‘sin’ and that is what Jesus came to save us all from. That’s why our Gospel reading means when it says “You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Why Jesus Came
Our reading from the letter to Titus tonight talks about another ‘me.’ It’s the ‘me’ I once was. Or rather it’s the ‘me’ Saint Paul says he was. And he says “At one time we… were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.”
It’s an ugly list but I must honestly say that I would have to plead guilty to everything on that list at some time in my life - and I’m a vicar. That’s the ‘me’ I used to be… And in truth some of that still creeps into the real ‘me’ now at times.
There’s an old African American prayer I like to say when I think about all this and it goes like this: “I ain’t what I oughta be, I ain’t what I wanna to be, I ain’t what I’m gonna be but, thank God almighty, I ain’t what I used to be neither.”
What about the ‘me’ that God sees? He sees all your ‘me’s’ at once; your past, your present and your future; he was there before you were born and he knows the moment you will take your last breath. He knows you through and through, he searches the secrets of the heart, from your darkest darkness to the best you can be. And, oh how he loves you – enough to send his only Son to find you when you are most lost.
After Paul’s frank admission about his wretchedness he goes on to explain why God decided to initiate the first Christmas. He says “But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.”
Jesus did not come to save the perfect ‘me’ I want to be
or the ideal ‘me’ others want me to be,
or the false ‘me’ I pretend to be,
but the real ‘me’ – perhaps that’s the ‘me’ I don’t want to be, but it’s who I really am when no one is looking.
That’s the ‘me’ God loves. That’s the ‘me’ God is waiting to be loved by.
Ending
So when you’re opening your Fuzzy Feet Pig Slippers or Plain Lazy Self Stirring Mug tomorrow - or whatever it is you get - remember that God’s Christmas number One is the same tune every year. “All I want for Christmas… is you.”
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, December 24th 2010
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