This guest sermon was submitted by Reverend Don the Revelator, Universal Life Church Minister. All ULC Ministers are invited to contribute their own sermons for consideration/publication. To submit a sermon, please email it to sermons@themonastery.org.

A community hospital in Valle De Angeles.
Valle de Angeles, Honduras

When I was in my early twenties, I became fed up with the blatant materialistic culture of the United States. With a close friend at my side, I left on a journey in search of truth. My operating rule was that if it didn't fit in my backpack, I didn't need it. After some eight months or so, winding our way ever southward, we ended in up in the tiny town of Valle de Angeles, Honduras.

Located a few hours from the Honduran capital, Valle de Angeles sits high up in the cool, piney mountains. Upon arriving, we found a mission run and staffed by a 7th Day Adventist church from the U.S. They took us both in, fed us, and gave us a safe place to stay. It was certainly more than we could have hoped for. I volunteered to help them as a carpenter, and my companion volunteered as a registered nurse.

Valle de Angeles is a hand-to-mouth coffee growing region, dependent upon the subsistence laborers who tend the coffee bushes, harvest the bright red beans, and sun-dry them. The people I met worked hard, long hours just for enough money to stay alive. It was in this community where I learned the meaning of Christmas.

The Meaning of Christmas

A single-room house in Honduras
Single-room Honduran home

Christmas Eve, 1977, found me visiting the home of a poor single mother and her blind 5-year-old son. Although my Spanish improved later in life, on that particular night we did the best we could. Spanish-English dictionary in hand, we talked and she brought in two cups of steaming hot chocolate milk. Sitting on the dirt floor of her one room house, the mother told me her son was a singer with a special gift.

At her beckon, his beautiful and clear voice rang out as though he was performing in a grand European concert hall. The experience was stunning, and although it was almost 40 years ago, I have never forgotten this performance. The love between mother and child was palpable, and their graciousness overwhelmed me. There was no pile of presents in their home, no wreath on the door, no turkey in the oven, and no bright lights decorating the outside. It was just a blind child singing beautiful Christmas songs to 3 admiring adults sitting on a dirt floor.

Life expectancy in this region of Honduras is below global average. Malaria, unsanitarydrinking water and the crushing weight of abject poverty take a heavy toll. However, for this moment in time, all was suspended and we became collective celebrants in the wonder of Christmas. The hope of resurrection, reflecting upon God's glorious grace for mankind, and sharing this gift given to us by a child.

Looking Back

For many years afterwards it became my tradition on Christmas Eve to attend a celebration at the poorest church I could find in my area. Looking into the faces of the worshipers and seeing the hope of God's grace, the rapture of His love upon the faces of the celebrants as they shared with each other the joy in the birth of the Son of God - this to me is the meaning of Christmas.

As the years passed, my ritual of connecting with others on Christmas Eve became less frequent. However, I always make an effort to locate that one church on the poor side of town. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I'm busy with my own family. Regardless, I often think of those hopeful faces, frozen in time in my mind's eye. Because of these experiences, I never have gotten caught up in the corporate aspect of the holiday. To this day, I credit my trip to Honduras all those years ago for teaching me the true meaning of Christmas.

4 comments

  1. auntie moirA's Avatar auntie moirA

    A backpack of belongings is an enlightening way to live. While I sometimes have more than that, I once downsized my possesions to one carryon sized bag, and to this day that bag contains all I need, when I travel or move it is all I take.

    Poverty can be a blessing.

    My childhood was very lacking in dollars, but so rich in gratitude, ingenuity, satisfaction, and imagination.

    It needn't be the case, but so often seems so, that when one's hands are full of possessions there is no room in the mind for peace.

    It may be Swedish or Norwegian, there is a lovely word "Lagom", it means "enough". But more grandly it means a satisfied with just enough, grateful, happy and content heart.

    Happy Lagom everyone.

  1. Michael LiDonne's Avatar Michael LiDonne

    Very touching. We don't celebrate this made up Roman Catholic holiday. We celebrate the birth of Christ everyday, why choose just one day of the year to celebrate the birth of Christ, being that he wasn't born on Dec.25th even though Pope Julius I chose this date.

    1. Gerald David Norman's Avatar Gerald David Norman

      We celebrate Christ every time we take communion. That’s not just in church but with every meal we share with strangers and our families. This is one of the three things Christ ask us personally to do in remembrance of him.

  1. John Owens's Avatar John Owens

    I despise Christmas. I hate the Little Drummer Boy, Rudolph, the elves, Santa, the North Pole the "three Magi"(scripture says nothing about there being three of them). The only Christmas song that I don't hate is the Porky the Pig rendition of Elvis' "Blue Christmas."

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