“The Christmas Card”

December 6, 2006

Scripture Reading:   

Rev. Dr. Carol  L. Kerr

 Blue Point Congregational Church

The Christmas Card originated in England over 150 years ago.  Sir Henry Cole who was the founder of the Victoria and Alber Museum in London had so many Christmas greetings to send that handwriting them proved to be impossible.  So he commissioned John Alcott Horsley to paint a card.  The card was to show the feeding and clothing of the poor.  However, it seems like the artist had a different idea of what Christmas was about so he made a card with three panels.  The two side panels as was requested,  had sketched in dismal grays poor people being feed and clothes.  The center panel drawn in lively colors of red , on the other hand, had a large family embracing each other, sipping wine and having a rousing party.  In fact the party was to rousing, that the card showed small children being given sips of wine too!   This first Christmas card drew a lot of criticism for “forstering the moral corruption of children.”  In spite of the criticism, the idea of the Christmas card took off soon after that, spawning the abundance and variety through the nineteenth and twentieth century to the twenty first century that we are in today.  The Hallmark card store in Falmouth Maine, December 2006.

I wandered into the Hallmark card store the other day.  And perused their Christmas cards.  I didn’t find any with kids getting drunk on any one of them.  I suppose some things have improved over the last century and a half.   None the less, there still is a lot of criticism of Christmas cards.  The other day someone said to me that they thought that the tradition of sending cards was invented by Hallmark and yet another gimmick to get people to spend money and stress out during the holiday.    I am sure Hallmark does make a ton of money off the tradition.  But, I don’t think we should cynically write off (no pun intended) Christmas cards all together.  Because as fallible as they may be, and although sometimes, even tasteless, sometimes overly sentimental, sometimes way too expensive, through it all we are trying to send a message to people.  To do the impossible, to thrust our spirits forward to them and wish them well.  To tell them that they are in our thoughts. To make them smile, sometimes laugh, get a warm feeling inside.  Show them we care.  And as Sir Henry was trying to say in spite of the artist,  sort of, to show the compassion of Christ which after all, Christmas is all about.  Christ who was so overwhelmingly concerned about the lowest and the most helpless in the society.  Which is the poor and the young and the helpless.  He could have asked for pictures of the sick, the lame, the widowed, the orphaned, the despairing.  Christ said, let your light shine before all the world,…  we are saying that in our Christmas cards,  Christ is the light of the world, and we are saying that in Christmas cards. 

Christmas cards are really a form of intercessory prayer.   And as I looked over the long line of cars, displayed line a Christmas tree, in different categories just like all the people we pray for   “General”,  Aunt, Uncle, Wife, Mother, Son, Daughter, Friend.  Like prayer cards came in as many styles and sizes and formats.   Money pockets, even cards that you open and the play a Christmas tune.  Musical cards.  Cards made out of felt and with ribbons stitched onto them.  Cards of photographs, cards of cartoons, cards with glitter sprinkled on them.  Cards that fold out like an accordion.  Boxes of cards.  Surpise packages of a variety of cards.  Aren’t our intercessory prayers like that, sent to people we love especially, but also to people we do not know so well.  Cards that seem to fit who we are and what we want to say to how they are.  Does this one say it?   

As I was researching Christmas cards I learned about one famous Christmas card artist whose name is Ellen Hattie Clapsaddle.  She was shy and delicate and loved to draw and illustrate.  She was born in 1865 in a small town in New York State.  She drew a card I just loved.  It was a simple picture of a white clay pipe, one kind you always see Santa Smoking.  The pipe lay on a green table and had a red ribbon wrapped around it.  In a poem she once wrote to her mother she said “My Heart is a child.”  And indeed to have the most fun out of looking at Hallmark cards you have to do it with a heart like a child.  Likewise, to prepare for intercessory prayer once must also open one’s heart like a child.  Jesus says, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. (Mark 10:15)

Intercessory prayer is the kind of prayer where we pray for the well being of another or for the well being of yourself, which is petition.  We intercede for that person and pray to God that God do good things for them.  There are different ways to approach intercessory prayer.  Some people insist that one way is better than another.  But, I think they are just different varieties like the cards.  Some people think of intercessory prayer as making a wish list to God.  Certainly with kids sometimes it is hard to tell an intercessory prayer to God apart from the list they wrote to Santa and send to the north pole.  One time when Gavin was five, I was going on a weekend trip away from him.  He said, “Mom when you go could you get me something from God?”  I thought this was the budding of a great and spiritual moment.  I said, “Sure Gavin I would love to get a gift from God for you.”  He then said, “Could you make sure it is a gift from God from Toys are Us!”  God this is Isabella, I would like to meet a nice friend, I would like my sister to quit bossing me around, I would like some new shoes, and a black puppy.  The card makers are not unaware of this aspect of Christmas and wishing.  I saw one card that had a girl which looked a lot like Shirley Temple very polite looking and well dressed.  She is sitting on Santa’s lap and he is leaning over listening to her.  She is saying something to him.  The bubble reads:  And if I don’t get everything on my list, my lawyer is going to contact your lawyer about a little legal issue we call “breach of contract…”

People often criticize this form of intercessory prayer as crass.  It is crass that the little girl is going to sue Santa if she doesn’t get what she wants on her wish list.  However, we all do in fact pray for things on our Christmas wish list.  God!  How come I have no money? (Did you know you could get Christmas card with a money pocket built in, for you to slip some money as the gift to go along with the card?  “Dad, I still haven’t found the perfect tree for Christmas.  You know the one with money growing on it.”   God!  It would be nice to find a great house.  God.  I really hope we win the Super bowl.  Two football teams are both praying before the Game.   People criticize this form of intercessory prayer because they say that we are trying to change the mind of God.  We are trying to change God’s attitude and intended action in the world.  But, this has biblical precedent.  One time in the old Testament God was so disgusted with the sin and debauchery that he saw going on in the city of Sodom he threatened to destroy it.  But, Abraham interceded for Sodom.  He in fact reminded God of his contract to be a just God.  Abraham came before the Lord and said,  “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?  Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city…Far be it for you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked…Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?’  (Gen. 18:25)  Guess what?  It worked.  Abraham did change the mind of God.  He did change the plan God had in mind to destroy Sodom.  God listened to Abrahams intercessory prayer/ or I should say, intercessory argument with God and conceded to a different future. 

Some people think we have intercessory prayer we voice our desires, hopes, needs and frustrations, but cannot assume we influence God.  We are completely dependent on God’s sovereign will and action.  This is like Job.  Job had terrible misfortune happen to him.  His children were killed, he lost all his property, he was inflicted with a horrible skin disease.  He flung his complaints to God.  Therefore I will not restrain my mouth.  I will speak in the anguish of my spirit.  I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.   But, in the end, God insisted on doing it his way.  Job realized that God’s creation was far bigger than he could ever imagine.  Job realized that God’s purposes were far greater and far more mysterious than his small mind could fathom.  God had a plan, indeed.  But Job could only see a small part of that  plan, like Job could only see the stars in the sky that were available from his point of view.  The total number of stars are infinite.  Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:  “who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?  Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me:  Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?  Tell me, if you understanding.  Who determined its measurements – surely you know!”  Job finally replies, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.  Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”    Job looked on the magnificence of nature, and realized that he was but a small part in the beauty of it all.  So his prayer was one of looking on the awesome wonder of nature itself.

  And there are Christmas cards which do just that.  There are some beautiful Christmas cards which sends its greeting through a wonderful picture of nature.  It could be of a snow rabbit in the pine forest, or a flock of Canadian geese on ice, or sunrise from the top of a mountain.  The intercessory prayer is embracing the wonder of nature and creation.  It is like saying when you look all around you at how beautiful the world and the heavens are, how can you not think that life is good and it will all end in a great magnificence.  If God has cared for the least of these, looking at a snow bunny, then we will care for you.  Or one favorite is the Christmas cards that show a red cardinal preached on a branch of an evergreen.  Look at the birds on the trees.  The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tee, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”  (Matthew 13:32)

Some people think intercessory prayer is sharing our positive life-energies with another persons who is mystically connected with us and all other living things, and who can therefore be directly influenced.  Could this be Winnie the Pooh ice skating with Piglet as they hold hands.  The inscription on the inside saying, My very favorite things are small.  Pooh told Piglet kindly.   Or the card of Snoopy skating with the little yellow bird, which says, Let the holiday carry you where your heart most wants to go… Or the Christmas card the husband sends to his wife which starts out, In the quiet moments when I think about what truly matters in life.  I’ll think of your gift for making the ordinary special…

The depth of intercessory prayer is when we join our hearts in love with the love of Christ the great Intercessor.  In such prayer we don’t really rely on words to tell God what we want for our friends, or for ourselves, but instead we let the presence of God be with us and the Holy Spirit pray with sigh too deep for words.  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not now how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.  And God, who searches the hart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.  (Romans 8:26)

I found of section of greeting cards where you open and a song plays.  For only$4.95, you can get Rudolph the Red nose reindeer or “Rock around the Christmas Tree”!  But, you can also get some beloved Christmas Carols.    Letting God do the praying in us is like sending a card which opens and says nothing, but we hear the tune to “Silent Night, holy night all is calm all is bright…”  Or those cards that you open up and they say only one or two words.   Peace.  Wonder.  Comfort.  They card seems to be more about holy silence than about greeting.

A few more things that I would like to say about intercessory prayer.  One is that in praying for others we change who we are two.  Sending out good intentions, deep longings, love, and peace to others and for others, we begin to transform into our prayers.  One card had a snow man with a large floppy knitted hat on his head.  Those kind that come to a point at the end with a tassled ball.  Throughout the hat the words were written, Joy on top of joy on top of joy on top of joy on top of joy…  Likewise, when we pray our minds begin to change.  Prayer centers us.  Prayer becomes like a filter through which all the darkness, the corruption, and the confusion of our lives pours through.  And our heads begin to be filled not with dark thoughts but with thoughts of light. 

When we send a Christmas card we will have an address.  And sometimes it is the wrong address.  So, like xxx million our card, with all its good intentions for the one we send it to ends up in the dead letter office of the post office.  57 million pieces of mail end up in the dead letter office a year.  Imagine all those letters that almost never find their destination.  All the human connections that are never made, images of love, hope, forgiven, affection, advice, financial reward, all undeliverable.   But, intercessory prayer is different from Christmas cards in this respect.  The prayers always get delivered by the Holy Spirit.  In this way intercessory prayer is much more like the unstoppable invitation that Harry Potter received in book one.  If you have read the book, you know that Harry Potter had never received a letter in all his life.  But this one was addressed personally to him.  Someone out there even knew that his bedroom was in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry’s mean Uncle Vernon, who had been raising him tried his best to keep Harry from receiving this letter, but despite his best efforts of destroying it, others would soon be delivered incessantly and to wherever Uncle Vernon tried to run away too.  Finally Harry received his hand-delivered invitation at Mr. H. Potter, the Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, the Sea.  There is someone out there who knows each of us, loves us, cares about our situation, and calls us each by name.  The Holy Spirit continues to seek out those who are lost and urge them to accept the prayers….

Also, the return address in intercessory prayers.  When we send Christmas letter from this church we will have the return address, Blue Point Church, 236 Pine Point Road.  P.O. box 2055, Scarborough, Me  04070-2055.  But, that is not the real address.  The real address is Blue Point Church, 236 Pine Point Road, P.O. box 20 55, Scarborough ME, the united states of America, North American, Western Hemisphere, planet earth, Milky way Galaxy, the Universe, and Mind of God, 04070-2055.  This is why the letters always get delivered.