When We Know Forgiveness, We Know Salvation

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston

December 8, 2024
2 Advent, C
Philippians 1:3-11
Canticle 16
Luke 3:1-6

Have you ever felt guilty about something you did? Ever felt bad about hurting someone, even if they didn’t know it, you lied or cheated, and betrayed someone’s trust or love? Have you then ever been forgiven by the one you’ve harmed for the things you’ve done?

If so, then you know the immense release that comes with forgiveness. The healing that goes on inside of us when we are forgiven, and our guilt recedes, and a weight is lifted because the one we have harmed has restored us to being ok. We’re no longer wracked with guilt. We’re no longer separated from one another. We’ve been restored to the possibility of love between one another. That is salvation.

The problem we see that needs fixing, from the Eden onward, is our disconnection from God and disconnection from one another. As we hurt one another, we pull away from one another, we put up barriers and shields to keep us safe. We walk around with anger in our hearts, showing others that we’re tougher than are so they won’t hurt us. We walk around with fear in our hearts pulling away from others before they have a chance to hurt us.

We see one another as threats, knowing that we’re often right, that others are threats, but mostly because they see us as threats.

We compete with one another out of scarcity for money, jobs, food, shelter. Since we feel we can’t trust others, we tend to go for winner take all, the American Dream of being billionaires while others work for them without enough to pay rent. Even further disconnection.

In our disconnection and mistrust, we turn to drugs, sex, alcohol, and anything else we can in order to feel better or not to feel at all. Those things don’t help, but they disconnect us even further. Angry, afraid, disconnected lives, seeing others as enemies to be feared or conquered…does that sound to anyone like Hell on Earth? That's because it is.

Disconnection is the Hell on Earth we know all too well. Salvation, then, is reconnection, reconnection with God and reconnection with one another.

John the Baptist went out into the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and we are told that John did this so that people would know salvation through forgiveness of their sins.

Forgiveness brings us reconnection, and reconnection is salvation from the Hell on Earth that we so often live. When we are restored to one another through repentance and forgiveness, we’re no longer separated from one another, and we are restored to the possibility of love between one another. That is salvation.

When we know forgiveness, we know salvation. 

So, as followers of Jesus, our way of life is the way of forgiveness. Ideally, we follow the way of forgiveness because we actually know the healing and salvation that forgiveness bring. Some folks maybe don’t.

Some folks might say, “no,” to the question, have they ever felt guilty about something they did. Some may be too afraid to face it or admit it. Some are so self-absorbed that they fail to recognize the harm they’ve caused, and some may even be so self-important that they wouldn’t even care much about the harm they’ve done to others even if they did recognize it.

In any case, for folks who refuse to feel guilt or who won’t or are just too unaware to feel guilt, it may be hard to really understand the salvation given by God. Perhaps that’s why John’s baptism wasn’t just a baptism of forgiveness, but a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

With repentance, we first have to understand the harm we’ve done, actually care about those we’ve harmed. Then, we repent. We change our ways. We seek to make amends and bring healing where we can to those we’ve hurt. Repentance and then forgiveness of sins. That brings about healing and restoration. Repentance and forgiveness together are our way of life, the way of healing and love.

Unfortunately, it often feels like we’ve largely divorced repentance and God’s forgiveness from this life and made it all about avoiding punishment after this life. Then we’ve further made rules out of Jesus forgiveness. Don’t feel guilty about anything you’ve done in this life? No problem. Just believe in Jesus, and he’ll forgive you. Don’t believe in Jesus, but you seek to bring about healing through repentance and forgiveness? Well, too bad, since you don’t believe in Jesus, God is going to punish you anyway.

Here's the deal with Jesus and God’s forgiveness. Yes, God forgives us. Yes, we are given forgiveness through Jesus. Yes, we are assured of punishment for the wicked, and at the same time, yes, we get to rest secure in God’s love for us and God’s forgiveness of us. How do we fit God’s punishment of the wicked together with God’s forgiveness and love? We fit God’s punishment and God’s forgiveness and love together with trust and faith.

We trust in God’s punishment, because sometimes, when we don’t realize or don’t care about the people we’ve harmed, we need God’s punishment to give us a kick in the tail, and we need God’s forgiveness and love because that is where healing and reconnection happens. When we truly feel the weight of how we’ve harmed others, and we repent and seek amendment, we feel the release and healing of forgiveness, we have salvation here on earth.

God will one day restore all things, restoring this world so that there will be no more Hell on Earth; there will be no more of us harming one another and disconnecting from one another. One day we will all be restored, God will wipe away every tear from every eye, and we will live fully in the peace and love of restoration with God and one another.

In the mean time, God’s forgiveness and love gets to be lived. We get to live the gift of forgiveness choosing and working to release anger and hurt, to release the debt that is owed, and let forgiveness rule in our hearts. As we do, we know salvation.

At the Time of the Evening Breeze...

Brad Sullivan

Proper 5, Year B

June 10, 2018

Emmanuel, Houston

Genesis 3:8-15

Psalm 130

2 Corinthians 4:13 - 5:1

Mark 3:20-35

At the Time of the Evening Breeze…

At the time of the evening breeze, God was walking through the Garden, and the man and the woman were afraid of God’s judgment, so they immediately started demonizing the other.  Rather than just take responsibility for their own actions, they each blame someone else.  Eve blames the serpent.  Adam basically blames God.  “You gave me the woman, and she gave me the fruit, so really, it’s kinda your fault.”  We’re still pretty good at blaming the other at the time of the evening breeze when God walks through our lives.  What if we’re not good enough?  What if God is upset about something I’m doing or something they’re doin…“Demon!”  “Burn the witch!”  We shout.  “Ooh, something new or different which seems to threaten my understanding of the world.  Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”

That’s our standard knee jerk reaction to what we don’t understand or what seems to threaten us.  Demonize the other.   In Jesus’ case, he was not working within the standard ways and means of the religious system of first century Judaism, and so the keepers of that system felt threatened by Jesus.  They felt threatened by Jesus for a variety of reasons, and they feared that at any moment, God might come walking at the time of the evening breeze, and so they had the knee jerk response of , “Kill it!  Burn it with fire.”

In the story we heard today, the scribes saw Jesus casting out a demon, and they called it the work of Satan.  In order to demonize Jesus, they said that Satan, the Adversary, was doing work of healing, unity, and wholeness.  Healing, unity, and wholeness is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.  So Jesus responded.  “As really religious people you feel threatened by something quasi new happening within your religion, and so you’re saying that healing, unity, and wholeness is being done by Satan, the Adversary?  Really guys?”

Adversarial Rule, the rule of Satan, causes division, keeps us down, keeps us fighting with each other seeking victory over peace, seeking to be right rather than to be in good relationships with each other.  Adversarial Rule has us demonize the other, has us attack anything we disagree with, has us take our hurt and our fear and lash out at our perceived enemy to try to gain back some perceived mastery over the world.  We act in this way when our world seems threatened, when groups of people whom we think are wrong are called blessed; when we think we know a better, faster solution to a problem than those working to fix the problem; when our fear and pain has us lash out at a perceived enemy, trying to control our world, rather than to give over to God our profound lack of control.

Division, anger, hurt?  These are the marks of the rule of Satan, the Adversary.  Healing, unity, and wholeness?  Not so much, and yet, as in our Gospel story today, we often see people in our world ascribing healing, unity, and wholeness to the work of the Adversary.  We see peace, healing, and wholeness happening to those deemed unworthy or sinful, and so that peace, healing, and wholeness is often ascribed to the Adversary, while at the same time, division, anger, and hatred are ascribed to the work of the Holy Spirit, ascribed to the goodness of doing what is right.

I’m not sure if this is the unforgiveable or eternal sin of which Jesus spoke, but it is certainly not what Jesus has in mind for us. 

This part of the Gospel where Jesus says there is an eternal, unforgiveable sin, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, has always been a tough passage for me.  I’m sure it’s y’all’s favorite, but we have probably all wondered, “How exactly does that eternal, unforgiveable sin work?”  I don’t know, and I’m not going to try to explain away the judgment piece, nor am I going to try to define it.  If I label the eternal sin as something we can no longer do (which I’ve seen in some commentaries), then I am just helping us ignore Jesus’ teaching for the sake of our comfort and convenience.  If, on the other hand, I declare and label something to be that eternal sin, then I’ve just scapegoated someone or something (probably something like the opposite of us), and have put myself in God’s seat of judgment.

So, instead, I’m going to say this.  Jesus certainly took extremely seriously our propensity for condemning something good simply because we feel threatened by it.  Seeing the work of the Holy Spirit and calling it the work of Satan is an extremely serious offense in Jesus’ book, and I think our history bears out the damage caused by such actions.

Look, there is work of healing and unity happening in the case of two people who love each other and want to be married.  One has really dark colored skin, and the other has really light colored skin.  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”  Look, there is healing and unity happening in the lives of two people who love each other and want to commit to sharing their lives together, but we think some parts of our religion say it’s wrong.  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”  Look, “how good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity,” but some of those people are the wrong religion or group, and we feel threatened by that.  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”  We fear, and so we blame and shame and demonize.

I can imagine a good amount of other blaming fear on the part of the scribes when they saw Jesus and the following he was gathering.  They knew the scriptures, they knew what happened to Israel when people started worshipping something other than God.  They were exiled or conquered.  So, the Scribes saw folks following Jesus, and he didn’t follow the religion the way they thought he should, so out of their fear for their nation and their people, they had the knee jerk “kill it, burn it with fire” response. 

As I said earlier, we still have this response today.  We really always have, and boy is it obvious and pronounced today.  One side feels the nation is threatened by the other side’s beliefs, and so we have that response:  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”  We see or hear something different happening within our religion, and we’re afraid of what is to come, and so we have that response:  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”

Into these situations, Jesus says, “Dude, you gotta chill.  Following every aspect of your religion perfectly?  Yeah, Dad’s not into that all that much.  Seeing work of healing and unity, bringing exiled or banished people back into the fold, and calling that the work of Satan?  Dad’s especially against that.  You may be trying to save your nation or your religion by condemning those you see as outliers and calling the work of Satan any who would declare them clean, but really, you’re just condemning yourself…that goes for Republican and Democrat, Progressive and Conservative, by the way.”

Amidst our fears of doing the wrong thing and angering God, Jesus reminds us that God is not really concerned with us doing our religion correctly.  If something is bringing healing, unity, and wholeness, it’s a good bet God is for it.  God is not interested in our demonizing of the other.  God is not interested in us trying to look good in his eyes by seeing healing, unity, and wholeness and being afraid of it.  God wants to walk with us at the time of the evening breeze and be glad that he is there, not to hide or to fall in to fear.  As God walks with us at the time of the evening breeze, God wants us to join in healing, unity, and wholeness, and to fall together into his love and mercy.

Sure, You're The Messiah, But...

Brad Sullivan

Proper 16, Year A

August 27, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Matthew 16:13-20

Sure, You’re The Messiah, But…

Some of y’all may not be aware of this, but children often don’t do what their parents say.  Sometimes they simply want to do their own thing, and sometimes it seems like they’re just pretty sure their parents have no idea what they’re talking about.  We’ve got this great picture of Noah when he’s a few days old in which his expression clearly states, “I get that you love me and all, but I’m not sure I trust this situation all that well; you seem to have no idea what you’re doing.”  To be fair, at the time, he was kinda right.  Since then, of course, there has never been any doubt in our children’s minds that we’ve got it all together. 

This idea of children not really trusting that their parents know what they are talking about pretty well illustrates Peter’s and the disciples rather regular response to Jesus.  “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked, and Peter answered, “You’re the messiah, the Son of God, but…”  Ok, Peter didn’t actually say “but” anything.  Immediately after his declaration that Jesus is the messiah, however, Peter told Jesus he obviously didn’t know what he’s doing.  As we’ll hear next week, Peter didn’t like what Jesus had to say in predicting his own arrest and crucifixion, and we hear in Peter’s response to Jesus an unspoken, “Well sure, you’re the messiah, Jesus, but you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.  You may be the Son of God, and all, but right now you need to listen to me. ”

           

“Sure you’re the messiah, but…” has turned out to be a common refrain in the church.  Like children who aren’t really sure their parents have any idea what they’re talking about, disciples of Jesus often seem to think that Jesus had it about as together as the first time parents of a newborn.   I’m talking about ways we behave and even lessons we teach which seem to counter the claim that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God.

Here are some things we’ve done or said, or at least heard of Christians doing and saying:

-          Jesus may be the messiah, but praying for our enemies doesn’t seem to keep us as safe as we’d like, so we think we should fight them first and only pray for them afterwards…

-          Jesus may be the messiah, but my eyes are just fine, log or no, and I can spot other people’s sins quite well, thank you very much…

-          Jesus may be the messiah, but we should only let certain people be a part of the church.  Jesus may have wanted all who travail and are heavy laden to come to him, but we say only those whose lifestyles aren’t too objectionable (or who at least are quiet about it) because we think his grace should only be poured out for those whom we deem appropriate…

-          Jesus may be the messiah, but contra his teaching in the parable of the workers in the vineyard, having enough to eat is only appropriate for those who have worked enough to deserve having enough to eat.  Those with more than enough shouldn’t share with those reprobates, they should get a job…

-          Jesus may be the messiah, but we don’t want to wait for God to sort out who the evil ones are at the end of the age, and we certainly don’t want all of us to grow together.  We think God is taking too long, and we want to kill off the ones we deem to be evil right now, or at least keep them far, far away from us…

-          Jesus may be the messiah, but taking up a cross, and risking death for the sake of love and peace in the world just isn’t working for me.  I’d rather live with the assurance of eternal life and not worry about too much sacrifice in this world…

-          Jesus may be the messiah, but reconciliation is too hard.  I’d rather say I’ve forgiven them, really hold a grudge, and let God work out the details…

-          Jesus may be the messiah, but his rebuke of the Pharisees was really way out of bounds; purity tests required for being Jesus’ disciples is a good thing, that way we can keep out those whom we feel are icky…

We probably wouldn’t claim that Jesus actually taught any of what I just said, but those are ways that are often lived out in the church.  There are many ways teachings which seem like wisdom but which rather counter to Jesus’ teachings.  We’re like kids who aren’t doing what our parents say.  We’re usually not trying to be openly defiant or rebellious.  We just keep thinking that the supposed wisdom right in front of us is going to work out better or be an easier path than the way of Jesus…if we even think about it much at all.  That’s kinda been our M.O. since the Garden of Eden. 

I’m pretty sure Jesus is expecting that we’ll mess up in fact he’s certain of it, otherwise we wouldn’t need a messiah.  At the same time, accepting that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, is meant to be a game changer for us.  Like Peter, we’re going to mess up, a lot, and we’re also meant to constantly learn from  Jesus, learn from our mistakes, and assume Jesus really did know what he was talking about. 

We’re not going to be perfect.  We’re going to mess up, a lot, and that’s why grace is so fantastic.  Grace to say, I love you and you are forgiven.  Again, our need for grace is why need a messiah in the first place.  Our challenge is to take seriously our need for a messiah and to take seriously the way and teachings of that messiah, and when we don’t follow his ways, we should claim that as our failing, not twist his teachings to suit our ways. 

Killing another, for example, should not be considered the way of Jesus, but rather a failing on our part to follow in Jesus’ way.  We may be justified in killing someone to protect the lives of others.  I still don’t believe killing another is the way of Jesus.  That’s when we repent, lay our sins at his feet, and ask forgiveness, rather than twist Jesus’ teachings to say we were following him well.

There’s been a lot of debate over the last decade about who is acceptable in the church and who is acceptable in the leadership of the church.  Folks on all sides of these questions have been looking to the teachings of Jesus to guide their beliefs and have come to different conclusions.  That’s part of our life together as we muddle through as best we can.  That’s part of the way of Jesus, that we strive together.  Unfortunately, some have decided to push out those who they feel are wrong.  Some have decided to push out those whose beliefs of lifestyles they deem to be wrong.  Such forcing out of the other is not the way of Jesus, and if we’re truly going to believe that Jesus is the messiah, we need to repent of these actions, lay our sins at his feet, and ask forgiveness, rather than twist Jesus’ teachings to say we were following him well.

Everyone needs grace.  Everyone needs forgiveness.  Everyone needs to be able to come to Jesus, learn from him, and be in communion with him.  Everyone needs the messiah, the Son of God.  Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God tells us that we are also God’s children.  Jesus was human, brother to us all, and we were all made in God’s image, made as his children.  Like children who are sometimes not all that great at listening to our parents, we are all brothers and sisters together, and we are all at times not that great at listening to Jesus.  We often say, “Sure, you’re the messiah, but…”

“Sure, you’re the messiah, Jesus, but”… that’s why we need a messiah.  “Sure, you’re the messiah, Jesus, but”…that’s why God gave us a messiah .  Despite our many protestations to the contrary, God loves us like any good parent loves their children.  Despite our many instances of assuming God has no idea what he’s doing, God looks at us and says, “my beloved.”  Despite the many times that we refuse to love and forgive each other, God looks as us in our weakness and gives us grace, gives us forgiveness, gives us a messiah, his Son, Jesus.

And That's What Christmas Is All About: Becoming Human On A Lark

Brad Sullivan

Christmas Eve, Year A

December 24, 2016

Emmanuel, Houston

Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

Becoming Human On A Lark

And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.  Every time I hear Luke’s telling of Jesus’ birth, I hear Linus telling the Christmas story to Charlie Brown, letting him know what Christmas is really all about.  Christmas is about the joy of God becoming human and how fantastic it is that God thinks highly enough of us, love us enough, that he actually wanted to be one of us.  How crazy is that?  How great, but is God just totally nuts?  Maybe.  Now, rumor has it that becoming human:  living, dying, being resurrected for our sake, was always part of God’s plan, but what if it started on a lark, kind of just a crazy, whimsical idea?  Imagine Jesus, before becoming human, saying to his Father:

Jesus:               Dad, you know how much we love those humans?

Father:             Yeah, Son.  I do.

Jesus:               Have you ever thought about how great it would be to actually be one of them?

Father:             What do you mean, Son?

Jesus:               Well, we love them so much, I’d really like to be one of them, like how people share their lives and experiences with each other, and they draw nearer to each other through sharing their lives together.  You know how you’re always wanting humans to draw nearer to you?  Well, how much nearer can you get?  We become one of them.

Father:             (considers for a moment)  You know, that’s really not a bad idea.  Let’s see what the Spirit says.  You’ve been listening, I take it?

Holy Spirit:     Of course I have, and I think it’s a lovely idea.  Connect with them, show them how much we care.  You know, it may even be a chance to redeem them.

Jesus:               Hey.

Father:             Hmm, you know that’s a heck of an idea, something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

Holy Spirit:     I know you have.

Father:             They separated themselves from us in the Garden.

Jesus:               So we join ourselves back to them by becoming one of them. 

Father:             Hmm…except there’s still that sin problem.

Holy Spirit:     Oh, there you go again.

Father:             Well, it’s a big problem.

Holy Spirit:     I know it is.

Father:             They keep hurting each other, hurting themselves, putting up barriers between each other, barriers between them and us.

Holy Spirit:     Uh huh. (kind of patronizing)

Father:             We are love.  We don’t have any barriers between us.  It’s not like we can have Jesus go out there and sin.

Holy Spirit:     I know.

Father:             (sigh, exasperated)  All I ever wanted was for them to love each other like we love our-self, like we love them.  It gets very frustrating.

Holy Spirit:     Well you know, if he becomes human, Jesus could join with all of their sins in his death.

Jesus:               Wait, what?

Father:             Oh, now you’re talking.  We could somehow pour all of humanity’s sins onto him so even their sins won’t separate them from us.

Jesus:               Um…guys, I’m not so sure…

Holy Spirit:     It’d have to be a memorable death, too, something gruesome…

Jesus:               Ok guys, hold it.  I was thinking of something simple, like a little weekend tryst…

Father:             Oh, no that wouldn’t do.  You’d need to do the whole thing, you know, grow up, be born…

Jesus:               Ewe!  You’re joking, right?  You’ve seen how that whole birth thing happens?

Father:             You said you love them.

Jesus:               Oye!  They are awfully cute.  Ok, full deal.  When do you think I should be born?  The 1970s had really good music, Star Wars…no, late 1940s, early 50s England.  I‘ll grow up with David Bowie.  It’ll be awesome.

Father:             Oh Son, I’ve got just the place.

Ok, so lest I lead us all into heresy forever, I pretty sure that conversation never took place, but I love the idea of God becoming human, of Jesus being born, on a lark, as someone who really loves someone else and simply wants to spend more time with them.  That’s what Christmas is all about.  God saying to humanity, “I love you, and I’d really like to spend more time with you.”  That may seem awfully simple, but I believe nothing in creation has greater healing power than relationship and love.

In Eden, we walked with God, naked and unashamed.  There were no barriers to our relationships with God and no barriers to our relationships with one another.  Over time then, we kept on and keep on putting up more and more barriers to each other.  Initially, we decided that we wanted knowledge:  Adam and Even ate from the tree of knowledge.  There was much unknown in creation and the fear of the unknown began gnawing at us, eroding our trust in God, until we decided that we desired knowledge more that trust, and the first barrier to relationship was raised.

Then we felt ashamed for what we had done and so we hid, and we covered ourselves with fig leaves, and the next barrier to relationship went up.  Then God came and found us and asked what had happened, and we lied, passing the buck onto the serpent, passing the buck onto Eve, rather than fessing up to our fears and our lack of trust, and so another barrier to relationship went up.  We went from naked and unashamed to hidden and full of shame, and ever since then, we’ve continued to put up barriers to relationships, as broken people raising defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from harm.  The result of course, is that we end up harming our relationships with God and with each other…wars, murders, fights, broken friendships, all because we choose not to trust but seek instead to protect ourselves from harm, when the risk and trust of relationship is really the only thing that can heal us. 

So in order to heal us, God gives us the very risk and trust of relationship that we so desperately need.  God gives us himself, naked and unashamed, vulnerable as a newborn baby:  Jesus, born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph, a young couple, faithful and kind.  They were not great rulers.  They had no great power to offer God any great protection once he became human.  God decided to trust us with the vulnerability of his human life, offering us his vulnerable, naked, and unashamed self, trusting in nothing more than the care of two loving and faithful parents. 

See, God wants us to love and trust him and so God chose to love and trust us.  God also knows that life is hard, and knows we’re not always great at trusting anyone, especially someone who hasn’t walked in our shoes.  So, God became human to say, “I love you, and I think you humans are pretty fantastic.  So I am going to show up in your life, naked and unashamed, so that you can trust me, and if you will allow it, I will take down all of the barriers that you have put up.”   

That’s what Christmas is all about.  That’s a pretty serious deal, God healing humanity by becoming one of us.  At the same time, I have to think that for the creator of everything to become human, he’s got to be kind of crazy, whimsical, fun too.  Imagine God as a toddler walking around in his creation, living amongst his beloved humans, constantly delighted by what’s around him.  Imagine 2 year old Jesus running around constantly thinking, “This place is great!  Look at that tree; I love that tree.  Ooh, a lake!  I think I’ll go swimming or maybe walking.” 

The very fact of the incarnation, God’s crazy notion to become human and live here with us shows us just how fantastic it is to be living here on this earth and that in God’s eyes, we really are pretty fantastic. 

We also need to remember of course, that life is also not always fantastic, that life is sometimes rather terrible, that we are sometimes rather terrible, and on Christmas we celebrate that Jesus came to live that part of our life too.  God gets the messy parts of our lives, the times in our lives and world when things are far from fantastic.  Jesus claimed even those bad times and those bad parts of our lives as his own when he became human.  That’s what Christmas is all about.

The greatest gift God ever gave us was the gift of God’s-self.  God gave us the gift of being naked and unashamed with us, loving and trusting us so that we might once again be naked and unashamed with him and with each other.  The greatest gift we can give each other, then, is the gift of ourselves, fully living, loving and trusting one another.

Jesus became human so that we could love each other in and through the bad times and the good times, and then see each other and see this world and think, “this is fantastic.”  Jesus became human so that we could remove our barriers, trust each other and trust God, and then love fully, love with whimsy, love on a lark.  That’s what Christmas is all about.  Amen.