Recently I visited some extremely happy friends who had just moved into a new home. They had purchased a lot, selected the style of home they wanted, and then watched the progress of the various craftsmen who transformed the dream of a house into the reality of a home. Periodically, they would drive to the site of their future home, look at the progress and take a few pictures for their scrapbook.  When I saw them recently they had just moved into their new home and they were extremely happy because they could now look at the house and say “It is finished.”  A real sense of accomplishment!

Every year at this time of the year someone approaches me in a store or calls me on the phone to announce “I just read a real important article. The writer says we shouldn’t be celebrating Christmas on December 25. He discovered Jesus really wasn’t born on December 25.” I just shake my head. I know of no credible Christian theologian — living or dead — who has said Jesus was born on Dec. 25. While we can show the date Jesus was crucified and the date He rose from the dead, no one knows the exact date of Jesus’ birth. We do not celebrate Jesus’ birth on the anniversary of  His birth — as we used to with Washington and Lincoln or do with King. Christmas does not commemorate a specific day in history. Christmas is more than that — far more than that. Christmas is really a celebration of the meaning of Jesus’ birth in that Bethlehem cave stable — God loving all humanity enough to enter human flesh and vulnerability on our behalf and for our eternal Salvation. Along with Jesus’ death and resurrection, His birth is to Christian believers the most wondrous event in all of human history. I guess God did not want our search for the exact date to overshadow the true meaning of the event.

Twenty years ago, on the 25th anniversary of my ordination into the ministry, my wife gave me a beautiful money clip with an inscription commemorating that occasion. I have treasured that gift through the last two decades. Then two weeks ago the clip turned up missing. It is irreplaceable because of the personal meaning it held for me.
The feelings brought back memories of the time my wife Linda used her writing skills to win us a cruise to the Bahamas — a cruise that proved to be my favorite vacation. Late on Thursday evening, as our plane landed in Cleveland, the excitement of the cruise was still with us and all was right with the world. Our joy was about to be altered moments later when we went to claim our luggage.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church In America held its Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis. Gathering in convention as an international church body as they do every odd numbered year, their gathering will be similar to such gatherings as they have been held in most Protestant denominations over the past several years – focusing on debate over the liberalizing of theological and ethical doctrines within the church.
As the ELCA and other denominations meet in such conventions, I am reminded of something that took place between Guenther Tharp and his mother several years ago.