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Christmas, in some ways, is like a slideshow that goes through the various stages of my life.

Songs of the First Nativity: Zechariah's Song - Luke 1: 68-80 - December 21, 2008 ­Cicero United Methodist Church ... Everett J. Bassett

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            Christmas, in some ways, is like a slideshow that goes through the various stages of my life. Did you ever feel like that? For me, there are three happy phases that stick out:

            One is a series of pictures of childhood Christmases: Santa came early to our house, so we could open our gifts on Christmas Eve, and there they would be, under the tree waiting. But my Dad rode the snow plow for the town, and seemed to always be out working every Christmas Eve; so we had to wait impatiently for him to get a break for a few minutes to rush in long enough for a brief Christmas celebration, and then we could open the presents. I have wonderful memories of those times.

            A second phase of happy pictures was when I was older, and I and my siblings had moved out, married, and most of us had kids. Christmas Day we would come together at Mom and Dad's house and sing Christmas carols and exchange gifts. My sisters would mob any unsuspecting male who inadvertently stepped under the mistletoe, and we would have wrapping paper ball wars to entertain the kids. It was wonderful to all be together.

            Then the third happy phase was more recent - it's when Sharon and I had grown children, and grandchildren coming along. And the day after Christmas was the one day in the year that all of them could get together, and for us it was the best day of the year. It was amazing how fast traditions developed - playing round-the-table ping pong, arguing over what movie to see, sharing pictures of our cross country trip. We loved it.

            And now, the kids are scattered in every direction, and it's hard to imagine we'll ever be able to do that again. And I have some sadness about that - the way I have sadness about those other snapshots of times that can't be re-lived. But who knows what the next happy picture will be in this Christmas slide show that just keeps growing and growing?

            My point in laying all this on you this morning is to illustrate that many of us find ourselves looking back at this time of year. Nostalgia is a major part of the season. If you're fortunate, you have happy scenes of childhood or later Christmases to look back on in your individual life. But we also have a cultural slide show from the past that captures how our society has observed the holiday. We look back fondly at the classic Christmas movies - White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and, more recently, A Charlie Brown Christmas, or A Christmas Story. We mark the years by special songs, like "White Christmas," "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," "Do You Hear What I Hear," and, again more recently, "And So This is Christmas" and my Mom's pretend nemesis song in her last years, "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer." We have other markers like, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus." This list could go on and on. The thing is, Christmas is many things. We always hope in the church that it is primarily about the birth of Jesus. And in our society it is a great deal about how the stores are doing, and a frenzy of gift-buying.

            But a third big part of Christmas is memories. Christmas is the most nostalgic time of the year. And that's a wonderful part of it al1- remembering the happy times of our lives, and sharing the pictures we have of the ideal Christmas markers in our society. But there are two problems I see with nostalgia - one leading to the other.

            One is that when we engage in nostalgia, we allow ourselves the luxury of engaging in selective memory. Someone said, "Nostalgia is a device by which we patch up all the potholes in memory lane." Things tend to be a lot better looking back than they actually were at the time. And I know, as I reflect back over my own life, that those happy Christmas moments were not the whole picture. In fact, there were some years that Christmas was miserable - there were lean years, and lonely years, and years of deep grief, when Christmas was something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

            And what I find is that the happy times are just there to feel blessed and thankful, and to enjoy. But the deeper lessons in my life came during the not-so-happy times. For example, in the dark times, I learned how to be more sensitive to others, and more aware of the emotional struggle of many people this time of year. In the dark times, I learned that I had the resources to survive, and what those resources were. And in the dark times, I learned that the birth of the Christ-child was real. It was more than just a story, more than just a season - it was the very best thing that had ever happened in this world. It was my assurance that God was personally interested in my hopes and dreams, in my disappointments and struggles. As nostalgic as I get this time of year, I cherish those learnings from the sadder Christmases - they are a major part of who I want to be.

            Blind nostalgia tends to pull us away from reality and its lessons. In her book entitled The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, Stephanie Coontz writes about the idealization of family life in the age of "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Leave it to Beaver" - how those ideal families we look back on often hid multiple problems our society needed to be dealing with out in the open. That's the first danger of nostalgia.

            The second danger grows out of it. When we spend so much time idealizing the past we are in danger of forgetting a major truth of our faith - and that is that the best is yet to come. Nostalgia tends to distort that picture. I read somewhere that what we now call the Good Old Days used to be called, back then, These Trying Times. And we forget that. We are very aware of the big problems we face today. We worry about the problems that are sure to come down the pipeline tomorrow. But we forget that we faced problems just as acute back in those Good Old Days. And when we use nostalgia to distort the past, we might get a notion that somehow God had His act together fifty years ago, and then He lost control - everything fell apart, because look how much worse off we are today. In fact, though, if we actually sat down and started to make a list, we would find that a lot of things are better off today than they were fifty years ago. It just doesn't feel that way to us because we've filled in the potholes in memory lane.

            If you trim away all the extras we put onto Christmas, the message comes down to this - God has great plans for this world, and he sends his Son to declare it. The best is yet to be, for the salvation of the world has been born in a manger. Consider today's scripture lesson. Last week I started preaching about the songs in Luke's nativity story. The first was Mary's Song, and I lifted up three themes of the song: Praise, Blessing, and Justice. I ran out of time for the fourth theme, but that's okay, because it fits in right here. The fourth theme is Heritage, and here's what Mary said at the end of her song:

"(God) has helped his servant Israel, in memory of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendents forever." As Mary celebrated the news of her pregnancy, she looked back on the past, but not to be nostalgic and long to go back - she looked back to claim her heritage as a child of Israel, recalling the promises God made to her people through the great patriarch Abraham.

            And this week we read Zechariah's song, where that heritage is lifted up again in words like Luke 1: 72: 'Thus (God) has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham ... " So here's Zechariah looking back on his heritage, too. But for the purpose of claiming what was promised to happen in the future, and remembering how faithful God is.

            Zechariah was an old man. He had reached an age where you might forgive his wanting to look back at the Good Old Days instead of starting new things. So when an angel informed him that his wife Elizabeth was pregnant, Zechariah protested, and the angel essentially responded, "Well, if you don't have anything good to say about this, then don't say anything." And, in the imagery that we channel-surfing men would identify with, God pushed the "Mute" button on Zechariah's remote. Zechariah stayed mute until his son John was born, and then his song poured out - a celebration of the great heritage of Abraham that Zechariah shared with all of his countrymen and women.

            But this love for the past was not nostalgia: it was a recognition that the God who had spoken in the past was speaking even louder in the present, and even louder than that in the future. And the birth of this child was an announcement of that future: "And you, child," says Zechariah, to his son who would grow up to be John the Baptist, "will be called the prophet of the most high, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people ... " And then Zechariah said, "the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." That's the heritage Zechariah was claiming - salvation and peace in the world, because the God of Abraham was still doing great and surprising things.

            And I think we need Zechariah's song to remind us that God is doing great things in this world. There's a lot of anxiety surrounding this holiday season. You know the list ­the economy; the wars; politics; racism; poverty - the list goes on. This is no time for God's people to sit around dwelling on past days. It's time for God's people to claim their heritage and join the great project that John's birth signified, and especially the great act of salvation and peace that Jesus accomplished. This is the difference between nostalgia and heritage. Nostalgia at its worse gets trapped in the past, at the expense of the present and future. Heritage at its best claims the glory of God in the past in order to line up with the great plan of God in the future. We need to claim our heritage of faith.

            By this time in the season, you've probably heard it or sung it dozens of times: "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know." But God is inviting us to dream bigger. It's not just about the ones we used to know. It's about the ones that are yet to happen. And whatever stage we're in in our lives, God still holds the dream in front of us. Even in uneasy times -- especially in uneasy times - people need to be reminded of the God of power and love who has never met a time He couldn't handle, and who reigns over all. And who chooses to be born in the most humble way to teach m the lessons of love. There are people around you every day who are looking for hope and something to believe in. And you are the messenger to those people. The Mute button is not on - we have something to say - a Savior is born! May your hopeful speech and acts of loving kindness announce to those who know you that you live by the power of a great heritage of faith, and by the promises of a wild dreaming God who has great surprises in store - great Christmas celebrations to add to the slide show. Celebrate the child, and then share His love for this hungry and tired world. The best is yet to come.