Advent 4 (NL4) John B. Valentine
John 1:1-18 December 21, 2025

“THE REAL COST OF CHRISTMAS”

It’s getting close... folks!

Only three ... count ‘em ... THREE ... ‘shopping days’ left until Christmas!

And that means that the news-generators are now digging deep into their files to try and find articles and ideas that allow for a fresh take on the whole Christmas season.

They’re not talking about gifts much anymore ... because most of the most-sought-after gifts are now in short supply ...

So the pundits and press corps and the publicists and all are left to write about things like the high cost of Christmas this year ... and just how the average American is spending:

• $648 on gifts ... and
• $231 on food and decorations ... and
• $118 on non-gift holiday-related purchases” ... like travel.

Which means that the average American is spending right about $1000 on Christmas this year ....

Which ... in turn ... means that I now have tangible, verifiable proof that Bethany and I are truly at least two standard deviations “above average”!

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Speaking of the cost of Christmas ...

Did any of you perchance notice that cute press release put out by the financial giant PNC about the so-called “Christmas Price Index”???

It would appear that ... every year since 1984 ... PNC has calculated the cost of Christmas based on that ridiculous holiday song about the twelve days of Christmas ...

You know ...

• One partridge in a pear tree ...
• Two turtle-doves ...
• Three french hens and so forth ...
• All the way up to twelve drummers drumming.

So this year ... the CPI ... the “Christmas Price Index” rose 4.5% ...

Driven ... in large part ... by the surge in gold prices ... which drove the price of those “five golden rings” rings up by a whopping 32%!

Here’s some of what they found:

• Year-over-year ... prices for the two turtle doves, the three french hens, the four calling birds, the seven swans-a-swimming and eight maids-a-milking were all flat ....

• Then again ... although the cost of the partridge ... the one IN the pear tree ... was unchanged year-over-year ... the price of the pear tree itself jumped from $350 to $400 ... because land, labor, and fertilizer have driven up tree prices this year ...

• And the ten-lords-a-leaping ... God knows wherein one could actually find such a thing ... were the most expensive item on this year’s list ... at just shy of seventeen-thousand-dollars.

Now ... to their credit ... the folks at PNC were quick to point out that there is a difference between the “core” version of the “Christmas Price Index” and regular version ... which excludes the most volatile component of the index ...

Because year-over-year the price of swans apparently bounces all over the place!

But I still left scratching my head as to why anyone actually buys or sells swans.

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Anyhow ... all the press about this year’s “Cost of Christmas” ... and this morning’s Scripture lesson from the Gospel according to Saint John ... got me to thinking about the costs involved in the first Christmas ...

Not “Your first Christmas” but “The First Christmas” ... the one which we find in the Bible.

After all ... the Bible seems pretty clear that Christmas brought with it some pretty significant costs for some of the folks in that story.

I mean ... if Luke’s account of the Christmas story is to be trusted ... Christmas came at a pretty steep cost to Mary ... did it not?

• It certainly cost her her dreams for the sort of life that she thought she was going to grow into ...

I mean ... you may daydream about being the person that wins that billion-and-a-half dollar lottery ... but I can’t imagine that any sane person before Mary ever realistically imagined becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit and being entrusted with the one who would become the Savior of the world.

• Then again ... Christmas probably came at a pretty significant cost to Mary’s dignity as well.

I mean ... what are you going to tell your mom and dad ... and your sisters and the neighbors ... about that increasingly obvious baby-bump that you’re sporting?

It’s not like she could recount what the angel Gabriel told her and actually think that anyone was going to buy it.

• In fact ... it darn near cost her her relationship with Joseph!

Were it not for the timely intervention of an angel who convinced her betrothed not to ‘do the right thing’ and send her away quietly ... but rather to do the loving thing and expose himself to ridicule and innuendo.

Obviously ... the cost of Christmas ... for Mary ... was pretty substantial ..... but the costs didn’t fall to her alone ...

No ... Luke also reminds us that:

• Joseph had to pay a pretty steep price as well ... a price to his reputation in the community ... a price to his dreams ... a price to his respect among his peers.

• And ... as a couple ... together ... this whole Christmas thing cost Mary and Joseph both their home and their community.

For when they learned that Herod's soldiers were looking for them ... hell-bent on infanticide at the behest of their commander-in-chief ... they had no choice but to NOT return home ...

And thus their short sojourn to Bethlehem stretched into an extended time in exile in Egypt ... living as political refugees.

• Then again ... the shepherds probably had to put up with no small amount of derision and scorn from the proper and respectable townsfolk when they showed up so unkempt and stinky.

Then again ... if we were to flip over to the Gospel according to Matthew ... we’d learn in no short order that the wise-guys ... the magi ... paid a pretty steep price as well.

Christmas cost them ... at the very least ...

• Months of study ...

• Weeks of travel ...

• And those actual treasures of gold and frankincense and myrrh that they offered to the Christmas baby when they finally arrived.

So ... when we start to complaining about the cost of Christmas ... and that big bill we’re hit with when we receive our January credit-card statements ...

It all seems pretty IN-significant compared to the price that the primary players in that first Christmas had to pay.

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But here’s the deal.

At the end of the day ... the big question is not what Christmas cost Mary ... or Joseph ... or Mary and Joseph ...

Or the shepherds or the wise guys ... or even us.

But what it cost God!

Seriously folks ... THAT is the question.

If we were to do a deep dive ... we’d discover that THAT question is at the heart of like 98% of all Christian theologizing from the first century until now.

• All the so-called Great Ecumenical Councils ...
• All the Creeds of the Church ...
• Most of the most substantial theological treatises and tomes ...

Have really all been debates about that very question ... “WHAT DID CHRISTMAS REALLY COST GOD?”

You see ... at the heart of Christmas is this absurdly audacious claim ... set forth By John the gospel-writer ...

That God “was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.

And that he came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

For the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”

And ... ever since then ... theologians and preachers and pastors and the like have been trying to imagine ... and understand ... and explain ...

• How it was that God was in Jesus ... and
• How much of God was in Jesus ... and
• Why God was in Jesus ... and stuff like that.

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Now ... trust me ... I’m not smart enough to explain to you all the nuances and why-fores and where-fores of that claim which John makes .... nor of the explanations theologians have offered over the centuries.

Honestly ... I have a hard enough time trying to understand those arguments myself ...

But think about it this way:

You know how poker became something of an obsession on TV for a while?

I never could figure that out ... because ... to me ... watching poker on TV ranks right up there with watching paint dry ...

But before they actually air those programs ... they edit the heck out of them ... and make it all seem like nonstop tension and excitement.

But ... really ... what they want you to watch ... what they build up to ... is that moment when one or the other of those players at the table says that they are “all in” ....

Which means that they’re betting everything they’ve got on the hand that they're holding ...

And ... if they win ... they pretty well win ... and if they lose ... they’re toast.

And I think that what John is really trying to tell us here is that Christmas was God’s “all-in” bet on humankind.

That God loved what God had made so much ...

That God loves what God has made so much ...

That God was and is so deeply invested in you and me and the rest of humankind ...

That God would do whatever it took ... WHATEVER it took! ... to ensure our salvation ... our redemption ... our hope ... our future.

“For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son ....”

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Merry Christmas ... you people of God!

For ... at the end of all things ... Christmas is this divine declaration that there is nothing ... NOTHING ... that God won’t do for you!

For God so loved the world ......

For God so loved YOU .........