Christmas Eve

St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

Missing Jesus Found Near Dumpster

Christmas Eve, 2006 (Click the date to see the bulletin)

1. The internet news headlines simply echoed what we’ve seen all year: "Serial Robber Strikes Again!" "Fatal accident on I-44!" But the third one caught my eye: "Missing Jesus Found Near Dumpster!" By themselves, the words in this headline are quite ordinary:

MISSING – anything or anyone that is not in the place you expected to see it

JESUS – the one whose holy birth we celebrate tomorrow; the one, if we connect it to the previous word, we do NOT expect to go missing. He said he would be with us always. One who promises to be with us in spirit even after his died physically just cannot go missing! I don’t know about you, but it throws me into a bit of a panic! Jesus missing? Oh, dear!

FOUND – whew! That’s a word that brings great relief! The Bible has many stories of the lost being found: a woman who lost a coin, searched all over the house, and rejoiced when she found it; the shepherd who lost one lamb and left the other sheep to look for the lost one; the father who lost his younger son to wanton living and debauchery threw a party when we was found! Finding that which was lost is always good!

NEAR – that word’s easy! It means close to, in close proximity, right beside you

2. But the last word in that headline is a puzzle -- DUMPSTER. Dumpster?!? That’s a place to put trash – that’s where the garbage goes! I never thought I’d see MISSING JESUS FOUND NEAR and DUMPSTER in the same sentence! This time of year, especially! This time of year we expect to find Jesus in a manger, with Mary and Joseph gazing adoringly upon him – which is exactly why this event made headlines. Somebody apparently took him from his comfortable warm manger and dumped him unceremoniously near the trash can! I clicked on the headline to read the story:

Love4Life now has their baby Jesus back. The statue disappeared over the weekend from the sober living program's Nativity scene. [I think the houses in the cul-de-sac across from the park is the sober living program. They have Christmas decorations, and I saw a Channel 8 live-action-cam crew taking pictures and doing interviews earlier in the week.] The story continues: A woman, her daughter and daughter's friend found it along with five other baby Jesus statues near a dumpster at 51st and Memorial.

3. As strange as it seems, it also makes sense. Jesus was born to live among us, and isn’t that where we live? We do! We spend much of our time in the dumps, surrounded by garbage – the garbage of soured relationships; the dumps of loss; the refuse of unrealized potential; the trash of old dreams; the debris of plans gone awry. Many of us here tonight are either in the dumps right now, or will find a dumpster plopped down in our lives sometime this coming year. And yet, this headline gives us hope! The last line of the internet story reveals God’s gift to us this Christmas. The other baby Jesus statues still are not where they are supposed to be. If you know where they belong, you can contact Love4Life at 744-4387. We don’t actually need to call that number. God already knows where Jesus belongs – he belongs near us. And so we lift our voices and sing "Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay close by me forever and love me." Let us pray.

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