After three years in seminary followed by three years as an assistant rector, I was eager to serve in my own parish. Starting in August 2001 at a parish in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC, I found a case of embezzlement during my first week on the job. The parish was in total disarray from the reconstruction following a devastating fire that struck six months before my arrival. Next came 9/11, and a tornado hit a few weeks later. By the time Christmas rolled around, I was truly eager for some good news.

First up on Christmas Eve, the children’s pageant went off with all the chaos and charm of a Garrison Keillor story. Parents were snapping pictures. Everyone was happy. A heavy wet snow was beginning to fall outside.

Because of all the reconstruction from the fire, electricians had rewired the old parish hall and entry ways to the church just a few weeks before. Around 9 pm the junior warden organized a work crew to clean up the snow on the sidewalks and put down salt. I was inspecting the entryways when I found that a single light fixture over a darkened entry had a burned out light bulb. “No big deal changing a light bulb”, I thought to myself.

I found a bulb in the closet and realized that I could not reach the light fixture. There was a wrought iron railing on either side of the entry so I stood on the bottom rail to give myself just enough extra height to reach the light fixture. My legs pressed against the top rail wet with snow. Light bulb in hand I stretched and reached up to insert it in the fixture. Before I could insert the bulb my hand touched a metal part of the fixture. I could feel electricity coursing through by body into my hand and out through my legs touching the top of the railing. I shook violently for what seemed to be an eternity before my body reflexively threw itself off of the light fixture and railing. My back slammed into the matching rail on the other side of the entry.

Later we would determine that the electricians had wired the fixture incorrectly. My back had striped bruises that matched the railing pattern. That Christmas Eve, in a blinding flash, I got the true Spirit of Christmas .

Today we celebrate a pagan festival that was overlaid with a Christian observance in the 4th century in order to make it easier for the majority pagan Europe to convert to Christianity. People throughout Europe had partied for centuries around the winter solstice, and they were not about to give up their festivals after they converted to Christianity. The declaration by Pope Julius I that Jesus’ birth would be celebrated on December 25 was a shrewd and obviously successful move to win more converts to Christianity.

Our present-day commercial Christmas may be just another example of a good thing gone too far. Some Christian churches refuse to celebrate Christmas, and they are correct that Christmas today is way too commercial and the holiday itself did not originate with the early church. But like those European converts, we Episcopalians aren’t about to give up our Christmas festival – not to mention all the parties that go with it. In the middle of all the tinsel, the colored lights, the crowded shopping malls, the endless parties, what we need to recover and what we really need to find and celebrate IS the true spirit of Christmas. From Titus chapter 2 we heard that

… the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

If we combine this reading with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that all should not perish but have everlasting life”, we just might have all the ingredients for the true Spirit of Christmas.

In human flesh, with us, the grace of God appears on this night making spiritual health, wholeness, healing and salvation freely available to everyone. The very notion of salvation means simply “to be made whole.” In return, what are we to be and what must we do?

We should all know that we cannot DO anything to earn God’s grace. But God clearly wants us to have grateful hearts for the gift of Jesus Christ who came and lived as one of us. God wants us to be truly glad for the gifts we have received and for us to behave towards others out of our gratitude and gladness. This is what Titus means that we might be purified as a people of Christ’s own. So how are we to behave in gratitude and gladness?

In the first half of the 19th century Clement C. Moore, son of a wealthy New York family, taught ancient languages at General Seminary in New York. For years his wife roasted a dozen turkeys for distribution to the poor at their local parish. On Christmas Eve 1822, she discovered she was one bird short of the usual number so she sent her husband by a horse drawn sleigh-taxi to the butcher for another turkey. As they rode to and from the Jefferson Market (now the Bowery section of the city), Moore listened to the sound of sleigh bells and horses trotting in the snow. On this trip he penned most of the poem he titled A Visit from St. Nicholas or what we now know as The Night Before Christmas.

Professor Clement Clarke Moore and his wife were indeed zealous for good deeds. They lived the true spirit of Christmas.

So on Christmas and all the days that follow, out of your own deep gladness that Jesus Christ has come into your life, share something you have with others. Do something for other people especially those you do not know. Like the Moore family roasting turkeys for the poor, when you are “zealous for good deeds” you will find the true Spirit of Christmas.