My father was a great carpenter. Now before anyone accuses me of having delusions of grandeur(!), I want to assure you that carpentry was my father’s avocation, not vocation. Over the years he taught me the rudiments of woodworking as well as simple plumbing and electrical repairs. But probably the most important lesson he taught me is the same one repeated again and again by Norm Abrams on the television program, New Yankee Workshop about machine safety. I remember my father saying, “Don’t ever think that power tools are your friends.” What my dad meant was that power tools, however useful, can be very dangerous.

The minute I say that, some of us will remember Tim Allen, the bumbling star of television comedy, Home Improvement. As the star of the show within a show, “Tool Time,” Tim clearly demonstrates a lack of respect for the destructive power of tools. His unfailing remedy for any problem is to “re-wire” his power tools and “add more power.” On the show, the results are a comic disaster. In real life, the results would be a tragic disaster.

Still, the possibility of ever-more-powerful tools is an attraction for many men and some women. It seems clear that power tools have a symbolic significance as well as a utilitarian function. I thought of this when I read a sermon by a Michigan friend (Dr. William Ritter). Bill has a cabin near Traverse City and he was delighted last December when his wife gave him a chainsaw for Christmas. In his words:

“I enjoy what a chainsaw can do and how I feel while using one. I like the noise, the surge, and the raw power of is all. I like the speed with which things can be cut up and through. A man with a chainsaw is a man on the way to accomplishing something. A man with a chainsaw is a man on the way to making a mark. A man with a chainsaw is a man not to be messed with. So much of my life is spent working gingerly, carefully, and subtly, so as to achieve my goals without offending my constituency. Obstacles in the ministry often have to be met by nibbling away at the edges or by coming at them via the back door. By contrast, a chainsaw seems remarkably direct. With my chainsaw I could:

- Slash through bureaucratic red tape. . .

- Whack away at institutional underbrush. . .

- Clear paths, break up logjams, trim away dead wood. . .

- Level mountains, exalt valleys, make rough places plain and crooked places straight, and   prepare a proper highway for our God.”

Wow! When I first read those words, it seemed as though Bill had taken me from “Home Improvement” to “Heavenly Involvement” in one gigantic leap. But the more I thought about it, the more appropriate his words seem.

There is a strange paradox at the heart of Christmas. Most of the time, we brush by it without even noticing it. The theme song of our Christmas celebrations could well be the magnificent recitative from Handel’s Messiah: Comfort Ye My People. Comfort. That’s what most of us want and think we need at Christmastime. We want soft and gentle messages of peace on earth and good will toward all people. We want to worship at the manger of the Prince of Peace.

Then into our Christmas card world intrudes a wild man waving the first century equivalent of a chainsaw. By tradition, the scripture lesson for the Second Sunday of Advent each year deals with John the Baptist. And some of us must surely wonder why.

John the Baptist seems in stark and utter contrast to everything we associate with Christmas. His message is not one of “light and gladness” but “doom and gloom.” If Christmas is normally thought of as the time when all of us try to be kinder and gentler, more forgiving and loving toward others particularly those we dislike, then John is clearly out of step with the season.

No holiday clothes and fruitcake for this angry man. His single garment is made of camel’s hair and not the silky, soft product one could get at Joseph A. Bank. This kind of fabric has the consistency of steel wool. As if to emphasize the point, John cinches it up tight with a leather belt. And his diet is enough to turn our stomachs: locusts and wild honey; bugs and bees.

John’s message matches his medium. He sees himself as God’s angry man. Preaching out there in the wilderness by the banks of the Jordan, he invites all people to confess their sins and be baptized as a symbol of their commitment to changed lives. When the rich and powerful, the religious and influential, come out to hear him, John insults them and calls them a bunch of snakes. What he would really like to do, he says, is take an axe to every dead tree in sacred or secular society, cut it down, and throw it into the fire. I can only imagine the delight John would have felt if somehow he could have gotten his hands on a modern chainsaw!

But the paradox of Christmas is that John clearly saw himself as someone who was fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy to “prepare the way of the Lord.” And, obviously, down through the ages, the Church has agreed with him. There is no way we can get to the Babe of Bethlehem unless we first deal with John the Baptist.

All of which is to say that any true observance of Christmas must be a time of examination and not simply celebration. The paradox of Christmas is that until we have been willing to deal with the bad news about ourselves and our society, we cannot expect to hear the good news about the birth in Bethlehem.

You do want to go to Bethlehem this Christmas, don’t you? Of course, you do and so do I. Then what is the bad news about ourselves and our society that we need to hear, take seriously, and begin to deal with before we can go there?

As far as our personal lives are concerned, I can only ask you the same questions I ask myself in my search for greater wholeness and happiness, greater maturity and integrity:

• What is missing in my life? What have I overlooked or left undone? What opportunities for doing good have I ignored? What values have I compromised along the way? What excuses have I given myself for actions I knew were wrong? What do I need to do to get back on the right path again?
• And what about the people in my life? Who do I need to forgive? From whom do I need to seek forgiveness? Where do I need to let go of old grudges and grievances? Where do I need to release old griefs and regrets and get on with new life? Where have I hurt or harmed others – whether they know it or not – and where do I need to make restitution?

Questions like these are not meant to mire us in guilt or shame over past mistakes. Rather they can help us find a new direction for our lives at Christmas time. We must have the same courage as brave cancer patients facing surgery knowing that whatever expense, pain, or inconvenience we will go through is not to be compared with the possibilities of health and new life that lie before us.

And what bad news does our society need to hear these days? We have always prided ourselves on being a deeply religious nation. As Lincoln said, we have thought of ourselves as God’s “almost chosen” people. What is the bad news for us who claim to want God’s blessing on America?

Dare I suggest it is as near as the daily newspaper or evening television news program? There is something deeply wrong with a society which spends more on prisons than schools. There is something deeply wrong with a society that is more concerned with balanced budgets than human need. There is something deeply wrong with a society that loves the baby in the manger but has little or no concern for children born into poverty. There is something deeply wrong in a society where too many people think that guns in private hands will solve problems of public safety. There is something deeply wrong about a country that spends its money on a bloated military budget, yet does not have the means to begin repairing a crumbling society.

I hope that no one here this morning believes that I make these comments in any politically partisan spirit. What should concern all of us is the failure of America to fulfill its promise for all its people. When we attempt to celebrate “Christmas as usual” in times like these, we give the lie to everything for which America and Christmas stand.

If we want to receive the blessing of peace this Christmas and for all the days that lie ahead, we must take with absolute seriousness the hymn we will sing in a few moments: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” You may or may not believe this, but when we begin to practice the presence of peace in our lives our world will begin to become a more peaceful place. We cannot expect from others what we are not willing to do ourselves. I invite you – I implore you – to light the candle of peace in your heart this Christmas and let it burn all year long. Do you remember the motto of the Christophers? “If everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world this would be.” Light that candle. Light it now.