Beary Christmas to You

December 24, 2001 (Christmas Eve; 5:00 p.m. Children's Pageant)

by The Rev. Benjamin J. Newland

(From The Lectionary Page)

It is something very special, and something very different, to give gifts to very young children. And, it is something very special, and something very different to receive gifts from young children. When giving a gift to a child you are freed from the usual social niceties involved in giving other people a gift. The child may be delighted with your present and cling to it for months, or they may play with it for a few moments and then cast it aside for other toys. Either way, their feelings for you are very unlikely to change, because they somehow know intuitively that gifts are not the things given, gifts are the feelings that go with the things. They demonstrate this principle over and over again by creating crayon drawings, and clay ashtrays, and noodle art, and giving them to people they know. There is a reason why noodle art usually stays on the refrigerator and does not find its way into museums. But children know that it isn’t the noodle art they’re giving, it’s a feeling that goes with the noodles. And we, in the face of their greater insight, accept these gifts for what they are: vessels of love.

As we saw demonstrated in the Christmas Pageant earlier in the service, only a child would think of giving a cookie to the baby Jesus. And only from a child could the gift of a cookie to a baby convey the love that is meant in the giving of that gift. I am jumping ahead to even mention the wisemen, for they are not due in our lectionary until January 6th, but I am struck by how inappropriate a gift it is for wisemen to give gold, frankincense, and myrrh to a baby. A cookie coming from a child makes far more sense.

Now I would like to introduce you all to someone very special. A few of you may have seen him already, he usually resides on top of the bookshelf in my office. His name is Beary, and tonight is his birthday. He is twenty-one years old this year, because that many years ago my mom sewed him together and gave him to my five year old self for a Christmas present. During the many Christmases of my childhood I received countless toys. Transforming robots by the dozens, Lego sets by the score, science kits, bicycles, and many, many others. All of them are gone now. Given away, or lost, or broken, or simply used up. Beary remains. Not because he is more durable, for there is a hole in his head and his stuffing is flat and lumpy. Beary remains not because of his physical reality, but because of the love he represents.

If I were to find myself in the presence of the baby Jesus, I would give him Beary. Because there is very little else that I own that is more valuable, or that would be a greater sacrifice to give. And because Jesus, like a very young child, would understand what it was that I was giving him: not a stuffed bear, not a thing at all, but love. Old, well-worn, carefully cherished love.

What gift will you give the Christ Child when you meet him?