Homily

Recently once again, I heard that medieval English Christmas Carol, “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.” It reminded me that one of the great elements of Christmas is the element of hope for what we want. Kids want stuff. They hope to get what they want. There are toys, games, clothing, devices—things that children hope they will get as Christmas gifts. That can apply to adults as well because there are a few older people who have desires to get certain presents for Christmas. Who am I to judge? But adults more often have other types of desires they are hoping for things that they want; not material goods but other types of good. Someone wants a peaceful gathering of relatives around Christmas table. Another wants their children to arrive home safely. One person wants to be happy while another wants Uncle Walter to stay relatively sober this Christmas.

One part of this celebration always involves the “wants”, the desires of people both young and old. Sometimes these wants are rather improbable. But sometimes our desires are filled with hope and expectation for things that actually might happen. But either way our lives are deeply touched by, and to some degree, depending on the person, we are all moved by what we want. We hope for what we want.

Our wants can be all over the place, from “I want ice cream” to “I want to give all that I have to serving and loving you, my dear wife.” And then there are the things we don’t want and there’s a wide range of importance there as well from “I don’t want broccoli” to “I don’t want to end up alone and unhappy.” Actually the “don’t wants” are just a different kind of want, as in “I want NOT to have Snowmaggedon come to Springfield this weekend.”

Many of our wants are good or neutral, as in “I want peace in the world.” Some of our wants are bad for us and can also be bad for others: “I want his money and I can’t wait until I get my hands on it.” Some wants are very general, as in “I want to be warm, comfortable, watered and fed.” Some wants are very specific: “I want a set of 6 English King sterling silver fish forks available only from Tiffany’s in New York City.”

The wants of young children are usually for things they want immediately, not far off in time or space. When children want ice cream they generally want it right here and right now, not next week.

One of the goals of every good parent is to try to teach their children to want what is good, moral, healthy and beneficial, and reject those desires which are not good. It’s also their goal to help their children see that sometimes they may need to put less important desires temporarily aside so that some better goal can be achieved, or to deny even some good desires altogether because they stand in the way of an even greater good for themselves or for others. And what parent’s heart has not been moved by their child’s heartfelt cry, “But I don’t want to”?

People steal, use illegal drugs, beat their wives, cheat on their taxes, run red lights and despise their neighbor because they want to. People give alms for the poor, visit the sick, treat others with respect, earn their own living and pray for their neighbors because they want to. We are certainly very much aware sometimes that we are making choices about the things we desire—to go for it, or not go for it, should we, shouldn’t we? But it’s kind of amazing I think that maybe, more often than not, we really don’t pay a whole lot of attention to thinking about our wants in a careful way, or even thinking much about why we want some of the things that we want.

So, on this Christmas feastday, I ask you “What do you want?” Just take a couple of seconds to think about it. What do you want? What do you want this Christmas?

Okay, I know that some of you who don’t work well under pressure just drew a blank. But even so I think it’s a very important question. This Christmas I want to point out that almost every want you have, whether it comes about or it does not happen, almost every want you have will only lead to another desire, another want. Almost every want, both good and bad, that we partake of will never satisfy for long. These desires come, they go, and we’re still found wanting, unfulfilled, incomplete, needy, hungry, unsatisfied. Then another desire raises its head and off we go, desire after desire, big, small, material, emotional, psychological, spiritual, for ourselves or for others, our desires never vanish until we take our last breath, and even then, we may be wishing we could still have another breath after that one.

There really are only two desires that cannot fade or dissolve away at the end of our life. There are only two desires that do not lead to other desires because they do not have to bow to something of greater importance. There are only two desires that are important which we can carry from childhood to beyond the grave and that is to want Jesus, or to not want Him. All other desires in this life are impermanent and they vary in their worthiness. There is only one desire that is totally worthy of us, worthy of all that we are and all that we have.

When the Creator of all things placed Himself in the very hands of His creatures He did it because He wanted us to be with Him, He wanted to share His own life with us. But do we want Him? Do we want Jesus?

I pray we will answer that question here today as clearly as we possibly can. I pray we ask the Lord to help us want to want Him more, even as we struggle with our other desires for things that are good and not good. I want Him for all of us. He put Himself in human hands for our sake. May we desire to put ourselves into His hands again today.