Christmas comes with surprise.  In no other time of year are traditions more strictly kept and predictable, but there can never be Christmas without surprise.

How is that when Christmas is so traditional?  There are formulas for everything from cookie making to gift opening.  Some families are near religious about a "real" tree.  Others can't imagine Christmas without a certain recipe for eggnog.  There is no surprise when Grandma bakes her springerle.  We won't allow her not to do it because Christmas can't be Christmas without the tradition. 

A major concession was forced on me when Sue and I were married.  Her family opened gifts Christmas Eve.  My family traditionally opened presents Christmas Day.  For the last thirty-six years we've opened on Christmas Eve. 

No surprise!

Good traditions are fine.  I'm not at all for changing them.  However, the real treasure is what is within them, and this is what should be appreciated.  Making Christmas cookies, for example, is really not about "confections" but "affections."  What matters is the warmth and love between grandmothers, moms, and grand-daughters.  It's not just about Nana's Christmas lebkuchen or stollen.  It is about preserving family roots and sharing the bonds of love. 

A tradition of getting a special ornament each year isn't just to add extra color to the tree.  In a small way it represents a living history, something deeper than just putting on a new bulb.

Christmas should never be just going through the motions, observing customs but not knowing why.  If Christmas were only a routine, a date on the calendar to be consumed and forgotten, how empty it would be.

There is much tradition in the Bible.  For example, the circumcision of John was according to a tradition.  It included ancient ritual which God Himself detailed To Abraham two thousand years before.  Every male child in Israel, free born or slave, on the eighth day after birth, was to be circumcised in the flesh.  Entrenched in the ceremonial law was this sign of the covenant between the Lord and generations of His people.  God prescribed exactly the when, who, what, and why of circumcision.  (Genesis 17:9-14) 

Therefore, it was no surprise the parents of John came to circumcise their son.  Neighbors and relatives all gathered.  Again, no surprise.  They knew exactly what to expect.  It was tradition.

That doesn't mean the guests at John's circumcision were not joyful.  They were. They were happy for Elizabeth, for the fact that she finally got to witness the circumcision of one of her own children.  Again, this is no surprise.  They credited the Lord for this blessing and rightly so. 

Now, on the eighth day tradition would be followed.  There would be no suggestion that maybe the rite could be squeezed in the evening before to oblige someone's schedule or held off a few days to allow Aunt and Uncle Lipschitz to arrive from Hebron.

No, it was tradition, and even more importantly than that, an institution of God.  The family and friends didn't expect any surprises.

On the day of circumcision a son was given his name.  This too was time-honored tradition (Gen. 21), and everyone who gathered assumed the boy, perhaps as an honor to his father, should have the family name of Zechariah.   

But all of a sudden they were surprised.

Elizabeth dropped a bombshell.  His named would be John.  Here was a shocker.  It seemed Elizabeth overrode the traditional paternal privilege of her husband to name their son.

Finding no precedent among family names, the folks turned to the boy's father who wrote on a tablet, "He shall be called John."  Here was a further surprise -- moving beyond tradition.

Suddenly, Zechariah's tongue is released from its nine-month confinement.  Surprise again!  He bursts into jubilation, giving praise and thanksgiving to God in a complete reversal of his prior unbelief.

All this would be the talk of the town and of all the hill country of Judea for days and weeks to come.  In the hearts of those who had gathered, a deeper reality than mere tradition was perceived.  God was working here.  Here was no "routine" circumcision or just the predictable dubbing of a child with his proper name.  Clearly the events this day were anything but "going through the motions."  God was active.

  That explains the force of Elizabeth's determination to see the child named John.  This was beyond custom.  It expressed her Spirit-wrought faith in the plan God intended for her son.  She was obeying the divine decree communicated to Zechariah by the Lord's angel to call him John (v. 13).

There is no suggestion in this text that the rite of circumcision for John was superior to any other circumcision.  After all, the covenant of God cannot be improved.  Other baby boys, including Jesus soon enough, were circumcised, and they too were fully united to the promise God first declared to Abraham.

In circumcision, God brought one into the covenant relationship based on faith in the coming Savior. That is what mattered in the tradition. 

  The traditions surrounding circumcision were valuable just as our Christian traditions are dear to us.  But it is the content of those traditions which are always the surprise.

Receiving a gift at Christmas is not a surprise.  But the content of the gift is.  It's not surprising God's people gather in the Lord's house on Christmas morning, but the substance of the Christmas Gospel they hear is always a surprise.  It is a surprise, not because we've never heard it before but because the scale of God's goodness to us through His Son is so astounding.

It is not exceptional to hear Christians sing Silent Night or delight in the tradition of a children's Christmas program.  But it is always amazing to contemplate that God should actually have given his only-begotten Son into the flesh for our salvation.  The Lord's good will is an everlasting surprise.  It is a never-ending source of awe that God should love the world with the Gift of His Son. 

If Christmas is ever celebrated without that surprise, that wonderment and awe at God's surpreme Gift, it is no real Christmas.  The genuine surprise that God's hand is upon his chosen ones so their lives should be blessed as He intends them to be is never ordinary. 

The ritual of participating in the Sacrament of the Altar is never a commonplace tradition.  Rather, in Christ's body and blood is the amazing revelation, more astonishing each time we receive it, that all our sins are forgiven, all our failings are forgotten, all heaven rejoices at our repentance, and all our hopes are exceeded for Jesus' sake.

 Christmas always comes with surprise because the Christ-child is not just a tradition but the living Treasure within our tradition.

Pastor Reed
© 2008