I have two basic settings for conversation: meaningless nonsense and probably too deep. Both of them could also be described as “straight to awkward.” Like you might walk up to me and say, “How are you doing?” and I might say, “Well, if I get to grade myself, I’m gonna say I’m amazing.” Or, Angel might come into my office and say, “Mom said you wanted to ask me something.” And I would search my mind for the most absurd question I can come up with—last night it was “Yeah, I was wondering how many kneecaps you were planning on using this Christmas.” He’s used to it, last night he just said “two” but he’s just as likely to say “your father was a kneecap.” Or I might be in line at the grocery store and start talking a little too loud to Kim, saying something like “Okay, so did you get all the ingredients for the peanut butter mustard cakes? We need boiled peanuts, mustard sauce, chocolate syrup, pickle juice, brown sugar, mayonnaise, …” I’ll keep going until somebody turns around and looks to see what kind of crazy person makes chocolate mustard cakes. Sometimes people say they can’t tell when I’m kidding and when I’m not—I say it’s easy. Just ask yourself if what I said was funny.
Kim says that’s not gonna work. Something about not everyone gets my humor. Whatever, won’t stop me from trying.
So I’m usually kidding. Unless I’m not. But when I’m not, I’m usually too serious. There’s not much in the middle. You ask me how it’s going and if I don’t say something ridiculous, then without any warning I might jump into an existential crisis of how life is meaningless and completely hopeless without faith. I’m not great at small talk.
Which brings us to this week’s edition of the Gospel According to XMAS—today we’re looking at Elf. A movie that’s as silly as it gets but also has layers of deeper meaning.
It’s the story about an adopted elf named Buddy who was raised in the North Pole working in Santa’s toy factory for 30 years, finds out he’s really a human and goes to New York in search of his real father. To get there he hops on an iceberg, walks through the seven layers of the Candy Cane Forest, past the sea of Twirly Swirly Gumdrops, and miraculously emerges from the Lincoln Tunnel. He finds his dad, eats spaghetti with maple syrup, works in a shiny mail-room with ex-convicts, and eventually saves Christmas. Will Ferrel plays Buddy as a wide-eyed, very kind but mentally unbalanced man-child. We root for him but we also cringe at his naive sincerity.
There’s a lot of directions I could go with this today—different Gospel themes that are really strong in the movie. There’s the stranger in a strange land theme: How we, as Christians, are in the world but not of it, we’re called to be different, a peculiar people, this world is not our home—people aren’t going to understand us. It’s also a great picture of adoption, how we’re beloved children of God—adopted and loved unconditionally. It’s a great picture of “father hunger” and how the Gospel will “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers.” It’s a story of faith—because everything about Santa and his ability to bring Christmas to people all over the world is based on their ability to “believe” and have “Christmas spirit.” It’s Christmas spirit that powers the sleigh and allows the reindeer to fly. But in a world that has grown cynical, where belief and Christmas spirit are in short supply—almost gone—what’s it gonna take to help people believe again? There’s a great line when a young boy says to Santa, “we should get TV cameras and you should go on Television, that way people will have to believe!” but Santa said, “No, that wouldn’t work. Believing is not seeing.” It’s a pretty good reflection on what faith is.
It’s a silly movie but there’s a lot going on. I think the idea that pulls all these things together is the most famous line from the movie: “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” How it’s our participation in the song that builds our faith, and at the same time spreads our faith to other people.
Prayer: Father in heaven, please take this time and use it to build our faith and encourage us to be who You want us to be. Help us to believe, and help us to live like believers. In Christ’s name, AMEN.
There were three rules that the elves lived by: Treat every day like Christmas. There’s room for everyone on the nice list. And the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. Those aren’t bad rules for us either, by the way—we could do worse. These were the rules for the elves who made toys in Santa’s workshop—which was actually a pretty high pressure place to work. Buddy, since he was a mere human, couldn’t keep up with the magical elves. A typical elf could make a couple hundred toys in a day but Buddy could only manage about 85. Made him feel like a “cotton headed ninny muggins.” An outcast. A failure. But it’s a story of transformation: He was human but he was raised as an elf—elves who eat nothing but sugar and sleep less than 40 minutes a night. He couldn’t keep up with them in some ways but in other ways he became a lot like them. At the end of the movie, with Christmas on the line, Santa looks at Buddy and says, “I need an elf’s help.” But Buddy says, “I’m not an elf, I can’t do anything right.” So Santa looks him in the eye and says, “You’re more of an elf than anyone I ever met.”
Which is another way this movie points us to the Gospel: the way God both changes us slowly from the sinful worldly creatures we used to be, into the image of His Son—and He also justifies us and validates us with His Word immediately. The Gospel is both of these things; immediate justification and slow sanctification. He tells us who we are in Christ and we’re changed. Because of Jesus, your sins are forgiven and you are a beloved child of God. As soon as you hear that, it becomes reality. Justification. Then the Holy Spirit works slowly in our life—as we start doing the things He tells us to do. Faith becomes faithfulness. Obedience becomes sanctification. Both of these things are the Holy Spirit working in us because of Jesus.
So Buddy is a picture of this. He lived his life by the elf code: Treat every day like Christmas. There’s room for everyone on the nice list. And the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. He lived with elves, worked with elves, ate elf food—all these things slowly changed him more and more into the person he wanted to be. But until Santa looked in his eyes and said he believed in him, he didn’t have any peace. Maybe you need to hear that, too. Not from Santa, but Jesus believes in you. That’s why He chose you and saved you by grace through faith. Jesus believes in you. He believes you can actually do what He saved you and called you to do.
For us it happens the other way around. First Jesus says that you are forgiven and justified, that you are a beloved child of God. First you are justified. Then, you are slowly sanctified into the Christian that He called you to be. Like it says in Ephesians chapter 2: you were saved by grace through faith, so that you could do the good things that God prepared in advance for you to walk in.
But you have to actually start walking. You have to actually do it. The life of faith doesn’t just happen behind our eyes and between our ears. It’s not a mere intellectual exercise. We have to actually sing the song. Not just listen to it. Not just hear it. Not just learn it. It’s not enough to say we have faith, we have to be faithful.
It’s pretty common at Christmas to hear people say something like, “it’s the thought that counts.” Right? Hmm
I don’t know if there’s a better text for Christmas than James 2:14-26. When we think of Christmas, don’t we think of doing good for other people? Being generous? Helping the needy? James says this:
“What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.”
In other words—it’s not the thought that counts. It’s not just saying “Merry Christmas” that counts. You have to actually do something for it to mean anything. Otherwise it’s like, “Hey I thought about getting you that thing you really wanted, that thing you really need, for Christmas. I thought about it. I really did. I thought and thought. But I didn’t do it. I bought something for myself instead.” It’s the thought that counts!
No. This is why this is the best Christmas verse: Jesus didn’t just think about coming to earth and saving you. He actually did it. And it cost Him everything. It’s not the thought that counts, it really is the gift that matters. Believing something without doing anything about it is useless.
So when Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” He’s talking about actually doing what He says. Faith without doing something with it is dead. It’s not faith. It’s faithlessness.
Christmas is faith in action So Christmas is a pretty good picture of Christian faith in action. At least the parts of it that are about generosity and love. There’s an abundance of joy and well-wishing at Christmas. Like Christmas cards—Christmas cards are awesome. Something we love to do around here is pick up a stack of them and write notes of love and encouragement, then pass them out to our friends here at church. A bunch of us have done this for the last couple years, please do it again this year. Get some cards, think about the people you appreciate here at NewChurch, write them a little note and hand them the card next Sunday or on Christmas Eve. Christmas is the perfect time to do something like that—when else are you gonna do it? The way Americans do Christmas is a wonderful picture of the Gospel.
The best parts of Christmas are tiny glimpses of the Gospel in action: We think about the people we love and try to come up with something special for them—we put a lot of thought into our gifts. And it’s not just about our friends and family, we tend to be more generous and willing to help all kinds of people at Christmastime—it brings out the best in us. Ignoring the corporate greed and consumerism gone wild darker aspects of Christmas fever—there’s a lot about this time of year that’s beautiful and worth celebrating. Probably why rule number one is treat everyday like Christmas. This is how the world ought to be.
But in a world that has grown cynical, where belief and Christmas spirit are in short supply—almost gone—what’s it gonna take to help people believe again?
The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. We have to sing along—not just listen, not just learn the words, not just move our lips.
So Buddy the Elf goes to New York and finds his biological father, Walter Hobbes—he tragically finds out that Walter is on the naughty list. He’s a terrible person, a horrible father, an absent husband. He’s cynical and jaded and has no interest in his long lost son who psychotically thinks he was raised by elves at the North Pole.
But Buddy’s goodness gets through to him. The world looks like a different place through Buddy’s eyes. When people see the world like he does, they see wonder and magic they didn’t see before. It changes them. People see something in Buddy that they don’t see in other people. Childlike faith, hope, mad etch-a-sketch skills, the ability to throw snowballs like a machine gun with the accuracy of a well trained sniper.
Even bio-dad Walter Hobbes, naughty list and proud of it, a complete unbeliever—even he slowly changes throughout the story. In the final scene, when Buddy’s new girlfriend Jovi stands up and starts leading the crowd in “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”—trying to help spread Christmas cheer so the sleigh can fly and save Christmas. Everyone starts singing. Children and news reporters and bikers in bars—Everyone except for Walter Hobbes. He just stands there moving his lips. His younger son calls him out on it, says “Dad, why aren’t you singing? You’re just moving your lips.” So Walter starts to sing for real and at that moment Santa and the sleigh and the reindeer come whooshing over his head. But not a moment before he started actually singing.
Listening to people sing may or may not cheer you up, depending on how well they sing and what song it is—but if you start singing yourself, out loud—I don’t care who you are or what song you choose, it will improve your disposition. You could sing “Gloom, despair and agony on me” and it’d probably do you some good.
Imagine how much better it’d be if you sang the kind of song that God tells you to sing.
Psalm 40 says this:
“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.”
He has given me a new song. To sing. And it’s not just a suggestion.
Psalm 96:1 says “Sing to the LORD a new song.” That’s an order.
Psalm 33:3 is our NewChurch life verse: “Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a loud noise.” That sounds pretty good, also it’s a command.
Psalm 98:1 is another one: “sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonderful things.” Psalm 148:1, Isaiah 42:10, Psalm 144:9—even in Revelation, where we have a glimpse of worship in heaven, 5:9 says “and they sang a new song, saying “worthy are You ... for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” and in 14:3, “And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one could learn the song except the ones who had been purchased from the earth.”
Did you know that you’ve been purchased by the cross of Jesus? Do you believe that? Then you can learn the song, and once you learn it, you need to actually sing it.
Singing is a big deal to God. When we sing His Word and His promises—it does something to us. It puts His Word and promises in our heart and mind. It builds our faith. It allows us to praise Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. When we sing together, it unifies us in prayer and worship in a way that nothing else can do. When we all sing together, out loud, so that the whole world can hear us proclaiming the things we believe—the promises of the kingdom of God, the Gospel. It’s the best way to spread Christmas cheer. It’s our participation in the song that builds our faith, and at the same time spreads our faith to other people.
So we have to sing along—not just listen, not just move our lips. It becomes a new song when we make it new and alive in us. When it’s alive in us and we express that life by singing out loud… that’s how the Gospel is shared with other people. We don’t argue them into faith. We don’t teach them into faith by showing them how they’re wrong and we’re right. Seeing isn’t believing. We sing them into faith. Believing is seeing. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth sings. I will sing unto the Lord a new song, many will see and hear. The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear. Do you feel like you’re on the naughty list? Sing to Jesus. There’s room on the nice list for you. Do you feel stressed and overwhelmed? Sing to Jesus. Do you feel hopeless and tired and sad? Sing to Jesus. Learn the song, then sing it. Out loud. For everyone to hear.
What was it the angels sang when Jesus was born? “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
His favor rests on you. Do you hear me? Then believe it. And sing along.
donna schulz
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