Meditation on Luke 2:1–20
First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY
Pastor Karen Crawford
Christmas Eve: Dec. 24, 2024
Does everyone have their Christmas trees decorated?
This is the first time in many years that I haven’t put up a large Christmas tree! We only have a small artificial tree on a table in our entrance way this year. It just seemed the thing to do since we are leaving for Florida tomorrow to spend the holidays with my mom.
I gave some serious thought to buying a live tree – you know, a little one in a pot—before I put up the small artificial one after Thanksgiving. I could plant the live one in the yard in springtime! But I was afraid it would dry out and die while we are away. It would need to be watered every day. And besides, my cat Liam might eat it while we are gone.
I heard a devotion early this month about live-cut Christmas trees that inspired me. Our executive presbyter, the Rev. Kate Jones Calone, had read an article in the New York Times about the proper care of live-cut Christmas trees—how to keep them healthy, hydrated and green throughout the season. She made a connection with our need to keep ourselves spiritually healthy, hydrated, and green throughout Advent and Christmas. I looked for the article, found one by Jonathan Wolfe in 2016, and, sure enough, I made the same connection with the proper care of live-cut trees.
Did any of you buy a live-cut tree this year? Where did you get it? Do you know where the tree was grown? Wolfe discovered that “by the time they are cut down, the fir trees at (one seller), Wilkens Fruit and Fir Farm in Yorktown Heights, will have grown up in two states, traveled hundreds of miles and lived the equivalent of going from kindergarten to senior prom.” [1]
“That’s quite a journey to a living room,” he writes, “covered in tinsel and ornaments. The farm’s 25,000 trees started life in places like North Carolina or New Mexico, first as seeds plucked from cones. They remained in warmer climates for four years, moving to larger beds as they grew from sprouts to saplings. Then they were shipped to and planted on this 22-acre farm about 30 miles north of the city. [2] The farm’s operations manager, Randy Pratt, said that the Douglas, Fraser, and Canaan firs spend eight to 10 years at this farm, before locals and “day trippers” from the city come to cut them down.
That’s a lot of time for the trees to be nourished, nurtured, and grow to just the right size to be your Christmas tree. But it’s up to us to keep the trees hydrated, as soon as we bring them home, or you know what will happen. They will turn brown and drop all their needles on your rug. Here’s something important you may not know. Before you put it in water in a tree stand, you need to prune an inch or two off the bottom of your Christmas tree. “Sap hardens,” Randy said, “and they scab over.” [3] The fresh cut allows the tree to take in water.
Kate’s discussion questions with her devotion challenged me. The first one was, “what do you need to trim—and maybe trim, release again—to be able to receive God’s restoration in this season?” The second, “What is it that, like the water in the tree stand, restores you?” And the third, “And how can you help someone else experience God’s restoration?”
After some time of consideration, I would have to say the thing that I needed to cut away or release and release again to receive God’s restoration was to let go of expectations for myself and forgive myself when I couldn’t keep up with my ever-growing to-do list, because of course I couldn’t. Did anyone else have trouble keeping up with your expectations for yourself?
The third one, how do I help others experience God’s restoration, led me to do many calls and visits and write notes in Christmas cards to my flock. I particularly enjoyed delivering more than a dozen tins of cookies that loving hands made in our church kitchen on the First Sunday of Advent.
The second one, what restores me, led me to keep my heart open for what I want to call Christmas moments—things that happened that truly stirred me to joy and reminded me of the hope and promise of our Savior, who came to us as one of us, is coming again, and is with us now and forever.
The moment that stands out to me the most, when I felt the Lord’s presence so powerfully, was when I was one of a group of 10 people to go Christmas caroling to home and nursing home bound members. Tears flowed, hugs and cookies were given. I know we were a blessing to others, but we, too, were blessed and spiritually refreshed.
When we sang, our voices blended perfectly, as if we had help from an angel choir.
“And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and heaven and nature sing.”
On Christmas Eve, we ponder and treasure the story of Christ’s birth in the gospel of Luke. We hear about the census that interrupted the lives of people in the Roman Empire, young and old, being forced to report, all at once, to the now overcrowded towns of their ancestors, though it meant that many, not just Mary and Joseph, would not have a place to stay for the night. Luke doesn’t tell us about the long, arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. He assumes his hearers have experienced the 90 miles that was likely done on foot, despite Christmas cards and stamps showing Mary on a donkey. The journey included uphill and downhill sections, rough, unpaved trails, and a heavily forested valley. I wonder, how did they keep themselves spiritually healthy and physically strong for the four or five days or more of walking, with Mary in her 9th month of pregnancy?
When they arrived, there was little time to rest and recover. Verse 6, “While they were there (in the town of David), the time came for her to deliver her child.” There were no doctors or midwives. Not even a female relative to help. No clothes for the baby. She wrapped him in strips of cloth. A feeding trough was his bed. In this humble setting, the unexpected grace of God appeared.
This Christmas Eve, I am captivated by the song of the angels in this passage, remembering how the Christmas carols stirred the hearts of our members in need and how peaceful and happy we felt while singing them. The angels sang God’s praise as the amazed shepherds watched and listened with their flocks in the field below. “Glory to God in the highest heaven,” they sang, “and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” The shepherds’ lives are forever changed. They go with haste in hope, to see, as the angels told them, wrapped in bands of cloth, lying in a manger, in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
Mary had endured hardship during her pregnancy, being unmarried and young, and then a difficult delivery after the long, arduous journey, far from home and family. But she is a model to us of listening for God, seeking God’s will for herself and her family, especially her son. She listened intently to the shepherds’ story of the angels singing praise to God’s glory, bringing the good news, and sending them to Bethlehem to find her child.
She listened. Pondered. Believed. Then she treasured their words in her heart. Her son’s miraculous conception and birth and the prophecies regarding him would strengthen her in the years to come—all the way to the cross and empty tomb.
Well, when I began to feel weary with the busy-ness of the season, I started looking for Christmas moments in earnest. I went to four Presbyterian Women Christmas parties and was blessed with laughter, sharing meals, and swapping stories with my sisters in Christ. Helping the children prepare for their Christmas program provided an abundance of delightful moments. One rehearsal, I pointed to the empty manger and asked Natalie, the little girl who played Mary, if she had a baby doll we could use. She said, “Yes,” she had a doll, but we couldn’t use it. It didn’t look ANYTHING like Jesus! Another time, I complimented the angels in the youngest class on how cute they looked in their costumes. Bronx made a face and said, “I’m no angel!” “I know,” I said, lowering my voice as if we were sharing a secret. “But we can pretend, right?” His face said he wasn’t convinced.
Still, the songs we sang while caroling to members in need stayed with me and strengthened me in the days and weeks that followed. I remembered them when I was taking walks, doing household chores, riding in a car, just before I fell asleep at night, and when I woke up.
May the hearing and singing of the grace-filled story of Christ’s birth on this Holy Night leave you feeling refreshed and renewed—rehydrated in the faith, watered like a properly cared for live cut Christmas tree. May you depart from here in peace, releasing or trimming from your mind and life what is needed so that you experience God’s joy and restoration.
May you, on your life’s journey, near and far, be mindful of—consider, ponder, believe in and treasure— Christmas moments that our gracious God reveals, not just in December, but throughout the new year. May you know with all certainty the hope and promise of our Savior, who came to us as one of us, is coming again, and is with us now and forever.
May you hear, like the shepherds, the songs of angels. And may you be bold to sing, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, and help others experience God’s joy and restoration.
“And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and heaven and nature sing.”
Let us pray.
Loving God, thank you for the faith of Mary, giving birth to Emmanuel, God-with-us, a fragile baby in a humble setting after an arduous journey. Thank you for the greatest gift of all—a Savior for all people. Tonight, may each of us hear the songs of angels and be bold to sing along, witnessing to our faith and leading others to experience God’s joy and restoration. May everyone gathered in this place or listening on the livestream know, with all certainty, the hope and promise of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ, who came to us as one of us, is coming again, and is with us now and forever. Amen.
[1] Jonathan Wolfe, “New York Today: Keeping a Christmas Tree Green,” New York Times, Dec. 1, 2026 at https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/nyregion/new-york-today-keeping-a-christmas-tree-green.html
[2] Jonathan Wolfe, New York Times, at https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/nyregion/new-york-today-keeping-a-christmas-tree-green.html
[3] Jonathan Wolfe at https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/nyregion/new-york-today-keeping-a-christmas-tree-green.html
Sharing God's Love and Grace 