You know the joke, right? What has 15 actors, 4 settings, 2 writers, and 1 plot? That’s right, it’s 634 Hallmark movies. I think in all of them there’s usually a big-city girl who moves back to her small town home and falls in love with the local guy who always wears sweaters. Oh, and her name is Holly or Ivy or something Christmasy.

Am I knocking Hallmark Christmas movies? Absolutely not. I may not watch them, but there’s an audience out there that wants to see something warm and light with a predictably happy ending. After all, there’s too much sadness in the real world. Sometimes, you just need an escape into a place where you know everyone will live happily ever after.

So you do you. You watch all 634 Hallmark Christmas movies, if that’s what makes your little heart happy.

I heard my pastor say in a sermon that faith is trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse. I get that.

There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense in real time. I don’t understand much of what I read when I scan the headlines.

But my faith tells me that God is in control. My faith tells me that things like violence and apathy and coronavirus and tornadoes will not have the last word. My faith tells me that just as Advent ushered in the Christ child, the Second Coming will bring a Conquering King who will set all to rights.

It doesn’t always make sense now as I look forward, but one day in heaven looking back it will all be clear. Then there will be no more need for faith, for then I will completely know and understand just as I am completely known and understood by the very One who made me.

It might seem odd to you, but the today’s sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Advent came from Genesis 45. It was about Joseph (not the one who ended up marrying Mary and being a father to Jesus). This Joseph had to go through some trials during his lifetime. He was the first recorded victim of human trafficking in history, sold by his brothers into slavery. He wound up in Egypt, where he worked in Potiphar’s household before he was falsely accused of sexual misconduct by Potiphar’s wife, who apparently had the hots for young Joseph and got turned down. He ended up in prison for 2 years before his ability to interpret dreams got him a position of power and in a place where he could save many lives, including the lives of his father and the very brothers who sold him into slavery in the first place.

He might have been in a kind of wilderness, but the Bible says that God was with him at every point. He himself even said that what his brothers meant for evil, God turned into good. He mentioned how God allowed Joseph’s misfortunes to ultimately put him in the perfect place to save a people who would later be known as the Israelites.

Jesus knows a thing or two about a wilderness. He spent 40 days being tempted in the wilderness. He went through everything we will ever go through, yet He did it without sin. Hebrews tells us that He is a high priest who is able to sympathize with us because He shared our human experience.

If you’re in a proverbial wilderness, you can know that God is just as much with you as He was with Joseph. In fact, this may be the very means God is using to shape you and teach you and bring you to the place of total dependence and trust. You will learn some very precious truths that you will be able to share with others who will go through their own wilderness experiences.

You will learn God as Emmanuel, God with us.

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.”

These last few days have been a reminder to me that we truly do live in a beautiful but broken world. Last night, there were severe storms bringing tornadoes to five states and killing scores of people. All you have to do is to see the news headlines from any website to see that this is not how God originally made the universe to be.

I’m reminded more and more of humanity’s great need for a Savior. We’ve gone and made a mess of everything. I include myself in this group when I say that I see my need for a Savior every day when I fall short of God’s design for me. I do the things I don’t want to do that are wrong and don’t do what I know is right.

But I also hold fast to the promise Jesus made to His disciples shortly before departing from them that He would come back. One day, He’d make all things right and then there would be no more sadness or crying, no more cancer or coronavirus, no more genocide or violence, no more evil.

Christmas should make us mindful of the manger in Bethlehem, but it should also point us to the empty tomb and the resurrection. We should remember that the child born on Christmas day grew up into the God-Man who gave up His life on good Friday and rose up from the grave on Easter Sunday. As one of my favorite writers said, the resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.

So we celebrate with joy, looking forward with hope to the coming return of the Messiah. And we still join hands and cry out, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

Before I get started, I need to clarify. White Christmas is my favorite Christmas movie. Period. I’m not hating on the movie. I have watched it literally every year since probably 2002 or so. Also, there will be spoilers, so if you haven’t yet seen White Christmas, you might want to skip this. Also, you might want to go promptly and watch it at the first opportunity you get.

That said, the movie would have been a lot shorter if there had been even the teensiest amount of communication. If any of the characters at any time had sad, “Hey. Tell me about that phone call.”Or “I can see that you’re upset. Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

There are a lot of assumptions made, but no one, especially Betty, bothers to voice their actual concerns. They just go about in silent anger and let the misunderstanding continue. Of course, everything works out at the end. Betty and Bob, as well as Judy and Phil, find true love and presumably live happily ever after, once they’ve had extensive marriage counseling and actually learn how to share their feelings and use their words.

For me, the plot is really not the point. I admit that it’s flimsy at best. The real point is the technicolor cinematography and the warm fuzzy Christmas feelings that wash over me every time I see White Christmas. I want to move into that inn in Vermont, especially the big room with the open fireplace. I don’t even care that the housekeeper is listening in on other people’s private phone conversations and hanging up before she gets the whole story.

Will I watch White Christmas again next year? Absolutely. Will I get slightly annoyed again? Most likely. Will I still get all the radiant magical feels from the ending? Without a doubt.

I think the joke works better if you sing the words. Also, I am a fan of a corny joke. The more cringe-worthy, the better, in my humble opinion. And who doesn’t need a good joke at this point in the week? I know I do.

I confess I know almost nothing about Good King Wenceslas. I doubt if I could sing all the words to the song. Heck, I can barely even pronounce his name. But now I know how he likes his pizza.

Apparently, it’s now fashionable to hate on the song “Mary, Did You Know?” People say that the song is man-splaining, telling Mary what she already knew. I do agree that Mary is the one who told us all about these things, but I don’t hate the song. It’s actually one of my favorites, especially the version by Pentatonix.

One song that is less endearing to me is The Christmas Shoes by NewSong. It’s so over the top sappy and manipulative. It wants me to feel bad for the boy buying the shoes for his mother who may or may not be dying. Maybe I’m showing my Scrooge, but I think the kid could find better ways of showing his mother how he feels about her rather than buying her a pair of shoes. Maybe like actually spending time with her? Again, don’t hate me too much for not loving this song.

I think there’s a game where each person tries to go the longest without hearing the Christmas Shoes song. It’s less challenging of late because I think they don’t play it nearly as much as they used to 15 or so years ago when it was on the radio somewhere once every 30 minutes.

But I think the one that gets top prize is Little Drummer Boy. Does Mary really need a drum solo? She’s just been through an agonizing delivery and has possibly gotten the baby Jesus down for a nap. How does waking up a sleeping baby count as a gift?

Still, I imagine I will hear all of these songs at least once between now and December 25. Probably even the cheesiest of these Christmas songs will still help to get me into a festive holiday mood and to generate loads of Christmas spirit and all that holly jolly feeling. Yes, even that Christmas Shoes song.

I love the song “Labor of Love” because it comes closest to capturing the reality of the night of the Christ-child’s birth. “It was not a silent night. There was blood on the ground” goes the song. It also says, “And the stable was not clean, and the cobblestones were cold.”

I think we tend to sanitize the manger scene to reduce the scandal of it. That God should be born in a filthy room with smelly animals and even smellier animal excrement is not an image that brings warm feelings and glad tidings. But the baby wrapped in those swaddling cloths was the “Maker of the moon, He was author of the faith that can make the mountains move.”

God became a poor and helpless infant, lying in a stone feeding trough, and born to a peasant teenage girl married to a poor carpenter all for love’s sake. There are other ways God could have entered the world, but He chose a manger in Bethlehem. He took on human skin and moved into the neighborhood. And it was all for love’s sake.

I think I can finally admit that I might have a Christmas ornament problem. Specifically, I am addicted to buying Hallmark Keepsake ornaments. Always, my adage is “just one more, then I’ll stop.” But then they go and have those after-Christmas sales where the ornaments are 50% off, then 75% off. I have no will power.

The latest is a Doctor Who Tardis ornament. I actually broke with tradition and bought it BEFORE it went on sale. That’s right. I actually purchased a Hallmark ornament before December 25. I knew if I waited, they’d be gone. As it turns out, I got the very last one.

So I’m saying once more, “This is the last one,” knowing full well that I’ll probably pick up at least one or two more after December 26. I have a problem.

So I did a fail today. I was driving in my red Jeep with my sporty red nose and antlers when I decided I was a feeling a bit warmish. I rolled down the front windows to let in a little fresh air to cool things off a bit. Then I rolled down the back windows. Immediately, I knew I had made a mistake.

In that split second, one of my antlers flew off into the middle of Franklin Road. I imagine it’s there still, probably a little flatter from being run over fifty times.

In that split second, one of my antlers flew off into the middle of Franklin Road. I imagine it’s there still, probably a little flatter from being run over fifty times. I know it’s not a big deal, but I still feel a bit dumb. It’s one of those moments I’ll probably replay in my head and wish that I could have back to do over.

So many people have stories of holiday fails. Maybe their tales are silly and stupid like mine, or maybe some of their’s involve real loss and sadness and broken relationships. I’d even go so far as to say that the entire year of 2020 was a fail for most of us.

The good news of the season is that God has stepped into the mess we’ve made. He didn’t wait for us to finally get our collective act together and start making smarter decisions. He didn’t wait for us to be nicer to each other and treat each other better. He came when we were at our worst, when we deserved a Savior least but needed one most.

God took on flesh not to help us be less messy, but to save us out of the mess we’ve made. He came not to make us better but to make us brand new. He came not to show us a better way but to be the way back to right standing with God with a new purpose and calling and joy.

Thanks to Advent and the Resurrection, your failure is never final and your future can be different.