With apologies to those, who believe that it’s out of line to refer to Christmas during Advent, today I’d like to begin a series of sermons entitled, What Are You Getting for Christmas?

Except perhaps for the approach of summer vacation, there’s no time of year that kids look forward to with greater excitement than Christmas. Alas, we adults experience the approach of Christmas with a lot less unbridled expectancy than they do. That’s probably because Christmas has become identified with gifts – gifts hoped for and surprise gifts – and kids enjoy receiving gifts a lot more than adults do. For one thing we adults can usually buy our selves what we need, and what we don’t need, well, usually we’d rather choose those little luxury items and toys for ourselves, too. Besides many adults have a harder time receiving than giving.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t try to make Christmas special for our selves. We do, but usually our excitement is vicarious. We gain our enthusiasm from the joy that others feel at getting a surprise gift -- whether it’s our loved ones or people in some sort of need. Either way, surprise gifts still seem to figure prominently in the excitement of Christmas, and many of us do all we can to feel it – by providing what others might like or need. We work so hard at it that some of us wear ourselves out in all the preparations to make it happen.

We work ever so hard at making Christmas exciting for others, but God wants us to experience the thrill of Christmas, too. That’s why, according to the scripture readings from now through Christmas, God offers us four Christmas gifts that it would be unfortunate for us to miss. I’m not going to tell you what all 4 of them are today. After all, part of the thrill of Christmas is in the surprise. But I’ll unwrap one gift at a time.

Today’s Gospel reading lets us in on the first gift we’re getting for Christmas. John the Baptist tells us about it. You know John was a bit of an odd duck. From the time he was a very young man he chose to live in the Judean wilderness, as many prophets did before him. Now the Judean wilderness is all dust, rock and shale. It’s dry and mostly devoid of vegetation. Habitated by insects, carrion prey, and reptiles, there’s very little to eat, there, and none of it appetizing. Most of the year it’s hot during the day and cold at night. And except for the call of jackals and vultures, the hiss of snakes, or the sounds of creeping scorpions and reptiles, there’s only the sound of the wind. Devoid of all pleasant diversions, there’s very little appealing about it.

And that’s precisely why John went to live there. Virtually all of the famous Old Testament heroes spent their formative spiritual time in the wilderness. That’s because there were so few distractions there. That’s where they were able to hear God in the absence of other noises God. That’s where they were able to see more clearly in the absence of other visual distractions -- to see their lives, the world around them, God and His mission, message, or vision for them. You see, life is otherwise always so full of distractions that you can hardly discern God in the midst of all the other sights and sounds of routine life. So that’s where John heard God. What was the message – the mission – that John was given in that wasteland? This: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. The one, who is more powerful than I, is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

That’s the first gift that God wants to give us for Christmas – the Holy Spirit.

You know, as Christians, we talk about the Good News – the Gospel – of Jesus Christ, whose birth is, after all, what we celebrate at Christmas. But honestly, what’s such good news about Jesus? Well, He did give us the hope that this life isn’t all there is, but He also said things like this: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you’ll never enter the kingdom of heaven.” That’s hardly good news when you consider that those guys were ultra religious – scrupulous and pretty obsessive about their righteousness. How many of us actually want to live our lives that way? Is that Good News? Hardly. I mean life is hard enough as it is – coping with the day-to-day demands, the trials and tribulations of living. If you put scrupulous religiosity and moral obsession on top of that, it’s pretty unappealing. Then Christian preachers get up in the pulpit and wax on and on about loving and giving, and it seems far more than any of us can deal with – no matter how noble words like righteousness, holiness, love and justice might sound. It’s almost cruel to add those expectations on top of all the other demands of life, and that can make cause us to feel powerless – almost overwhelmed. I think that the feelings of powerlessness and overstress have reached epidemic proportions in our time. Many of us feel powerless to make a positive difference in the world, these days, and are overwhelmed by the demands of our hectic lives, and pessimistic.

Ah, but that’s where this Christmas gift comes in mighty handy. I sound almost like one of those late night TV salesmen talking about a Ginsu knife set or a Craftmatic automatic adjustable bed. It’s true, though. The gift that John’s talking about is absolutely priceless. When John says, “(The One who’s coming) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit,” this is what he means: We can be soaked in the Spirit -- in the power, the inspiration, the guidance and the love of God at work in the world. This gift – bathing in the Holy Spirit – enables us to know what God wants us to do and gives us the abilities we need to do it. This gift – the Holy Spirit drenching us – enables us to know how to love and gives us the wherewithal to do it. This gift – the Holy Spirit filling us – gives us the same inspiration that the OT heroes and NT saints had. It relieves us of the enormous weight of racking our brains to figure out what God wants and straining our hardest to do it. The Holy Spirit gives us the freedom, joy, confidence and peace that we need to live our lives in harmony with God. This gift – the Holy Spirit – is the gift that keeps on giving, one we can’t do without.

As with all gifts, though, this one also needs to be received, unwrapped and used – not just left under the tree to gather dust. The way to receive it is simply by asking God to be, as John put it, baptized – filled with God’s Spirit. Sometimes it helps to have another person pray with you in this regard, and that’s part of what priests and bishops are for. The way to unwrap it is to ask the Spirit to guide and help us, day by day, as situations arise. The way to use it is to trust – to have confidence in the Spirit’s help – and put love into action.

God sent Jesus to drench us with the Holy Spirit. That’s an exciting Christmas gift – not to be missed. It leads to the exhilarating adventure of being able to follow the One whose birth we’re preparing to celebrate. It will give the power, the peace and the guidance we need to navigate the turbulent waters of this troubled world. Make this Christmas gift yours; or rather, I should say, make your self the Holy Spirit’s, this Christmas.