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As I recall, it began as a rather ordinary conversation in the kitchen. Barbara was preparing dinner, and standing there by the stove she asked me, “How did your day go?” I replied, “All right, I guess,” but she pressed for more details. “Anything unusual happening at the church today?” I answered, “No, not really.”

Barbara looked at me with a mischievous smile and continued her line of questioning, “Nothing unusual, nothing at all?” I smiled back and said, “Well, the steeple did fall over this afternoon, the entire staff resigned, the finance committee says we’re bankrupt and I’ve decided to become a monk. Other than that, pretty much run of the mill stuff. How about you?” She turned toward me and said, “We’re going to have a baby.”

Although I have forgotten most of what we said to each other over dinner that night, I do remember the emotions we shared, ranging from sheer fright and apprehension to a deep sense of joy, wonder, gratitude to God and great expectation. Because, what we had hoped and prayed and waited for was finally going to happen.

During that first Advent season, the Bible tells us about the reactions of Mary and Joseph and Elizabeth and Zechariah when the angels told both couples that they were going to have children.

Last week we focused on Mary and Joseph and how their initial fears were transformed into faithful anticipation as they came to believe that their son would become the Holy One, the long awaited Messiah. Even so, there are no recorded conversations in scripture between those parents-to-be and Joseph said nothing publicly, perhaps wanting to keep things quiet until the baby was born.

In the gospel of Luke, as the story about Elizabeth and Zechariah unfolds, we learn that they had grown old and probably given up the hope of having a child. So when the angel told Zechariah what was going to happen, in a state of shock and disbelief, he lost his voice and wasn’t able to speak.

Joseph wouldn’t talk, Zechariah couldn’t talk and my guess is that Mary and Elizabeth decided to get together because they knew they needed to talk about it! And Luke describes their meeting this way:

In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy!” (Luke 1:39-44)

Now what makes this story all the more poignant and profound is that Elizabeth and Mary were cousins (kinswomen, according to Luke 1:36) and their sons, who would be named John and Jesus, would grow up together and become connected later in life as John the Baptist announced the coming of God’s kingdom through Jesus the Savior. And at the very beginning, it was almost as if the child inside Elizabeth somehow recognized the presence of the Child inside Mary and rejoiced in the promise of all that was yet to be.

As we make our way toward Christmas, I’m wondering this morning about The Child in Each of Us. I’m not speaking about a physical reality as much as an emotional and spiritual state of being wherein that child which used to laugh and play and delight in almost everything is still alive deep down inside of you and me. And the truth is, as we grow older, the more difficult it becomes to remember and to recover that little girl or boy we used to be.

Five years ago, much to my surprise, I received a Christmas card from an older friend of mine who had belonged to the church my father served in Long Island a long time ago. My friend had saved the card for 42 years and sent it to me with a gracious note.

The card was handmade by my mother in 1952. It shows a photograph of her and my father, my brother Paul and I (before our sisters were born), and we are surrounded by angels and Christmas carolers, an open Bible, ringing bells and a snow covered church.

I have kept that card on the desk in the pastor’s study, and every now and then, I pick it up and look at it. We were all so young! My father was in his early thirties, my mother in her mid-twenties, I was five and my brother was three. And the strangest thing, as I look at this little boy wearing a bow tie with a tooth missing and a buzz haircut, is to realize that little boy was me! Stranger still is the realization that the five year old child in this picture is still alive somewhere deep down inside of my heart and soul.

I say it’s strange because so many of us who are all grown up now have lost touch with that child in each of us. We work hard but we don’t take time to play. We’ve organized our lives to the degree that there’s not much room left for spontaneity. Some of us have become so serious about life that we don’t laugh the way we used to, while others have gotten caught up in our own self-importance, with places to go, people to see and things to do. And the older we get, the more we tend to ignore or forget The Child in Each of Us.

Erma Bombeck, when she was diagnosed with cancer several years ago, wrote an article entitled “If I Had My Life to Liver Over” which was published before she died. This, in part, is what Erma Bombeck said:

“If I had my life to live over, I would have eaten the popcorn in the ‘good’ living room and worried less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace…I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed…I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not cared about the grass stains…When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said ‘Later. Now go get washed up for dinner’…Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance I’d get in life to assist God in a miracle…And there would have been more ‘I love you’s,’ more ‘I’m sorry’s.’ But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute, look at it and really see it, live it and never give it back…If only I had my life to live over.”

My friends, there are still two weeks left until Christmas. Don’t wait until it’s too late to let the child in you leap for joy and look for hope as we anticipate the birth of Jesus. Pay attention to that little girl or boy deep inside of you and set her or him free to laugh, free to cry, free to live and to delight in the wonder and mystery of this sacred season. The coming of the Christ Child gives us good reason to rejoice. So open your hearts and your homes to let Him come in!

And I would also encourage you to focus on your own children, your grandchildren and the children in our church family. Remember that our theme for this year is “Justice, Kindness and Humility for All God’s Children,” centered in the scripture passages from Micah 6 and Matthew 19, wherein Jesus said, Let the children come to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.

Just an hour ago in this sanctuary, more than 200 children from our Sunday School celebrated and participated in the Christmas Pageant. It was grand and glorious, and as we watched and listened to those costumed characters re-enact and re-tell the Christmas Story, I was also looking at the faces of the congregation - smiling, laughing, some with tears in their eyes and more than a few parents beaming and mouthing the words of the carols and lines their sons and daughters had memorized.

It was a wonder to behold! And as all of us focused our attention on those beautiful children, there was a lot of love and an overwhelming sense of joy in this room. That’s the way it ought to be, because our children need to know that they belong here in this sanctuary.

In another church, on a Sunday morning just before Christmas, the six year olds were dismissed early from their classroom and headed for the fellowship hall to wait for their parents who were still in worship…and except one, the pastor’s son.

He raced around the room behind the wheel of an imaginary car, providing his own sound effects at the top of his lungs - “Varoom! Screech!” Suddenly he ran out the door, made a hairpin turn into the sanctuary and sat down in the front pew next to his surprised mother. Unshaken, his father interrupted the sermon just long enough to say, “Now park it right there, Philip, and give the keys to your mom.”

To be sure, our children will test us and sometimes push us to the limit of our patience. But if we can remember what it was like when we were little, and if we can hold back on our adult instincts to “Shhh” them and expect perfect behavior from them, perhaps they can teach us some lessons about joyful worship, playful living and the spark of spontaneity which we over-organized grown-ups need so desperately.

And that leads to one last thought as we make our way to Christmas. As we focus on The Child in Each of Us and on the children who are close to us in our homes and within this church family, let us also pray for and reach out to the children of this city and across the world who are watching and waiting for someone to come.

Last month on a Monday morning, returning from the airport aboard the MARTA train, I was reading the newspaper and noticed a little boy sitting next to his mother a few seats away. He should have been in school, but my guess is that his mother, probably on her way to work, couldn’t afford daycare. So there he was, wearing an old jacket and shabby shoes, eating a candy bar.

I caught his eye and tried to play a game with him, peeking over the newspaper and smiling, winking, hoping that he would do the same. But he didn’t. He stared back at me a few times, then looked away and huddled next to his mother. They got off before I did, and I have been thinking about him ever since.

I may never see that boy again, but there are many children just like him in this city and across our world. So on Christmas Eve, Barbara and I are going to bring some toys and children’s books to the 4:00 service for the new daycare facility at Rice Memorial Presbyterian Church…and we plan to put a check in the offering plate for our Children’s Cross Connection ministry which helps to bring boys and girls from other countries to America for surgery and the support systems we provide as the healing process takes place. I hope and pray that all of you will consider those same opportunities and become involved in some of the wonderful ways that this church reaches out to children in need.

Because, as we do those things, we will have the privilege of helping to bring a smile to the face of some child somewhere on Christmas Day. When that day comes, if we listen ever so carefully, I think we will hear the voice of Jesus say, In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these my children, you have done it unto me. And The Child in Each of Us will leap for joy!

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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