191224 Sermon on Luke 2:1-14 (Christmas Eve) December 24, 2019 One of the books that I use to teach bible history has a picture of Adam and Eve after they have been kicked out of the Garden of Eden. In the artist’s mind it must be several years later. Cain, their firstborn son is in the picture. He looks like he might be about 12. Abel also is in the picture. He looks like he might be about 6. The picture also has some of the fruits of their labors. There is a humble shelter. Some wooden fences have been assembled. What I find most interesting about the picture, though, are the poses and faces of Adam and Eve. Adam is resting his chin on top of his hands while he leans on his hoe. Eve is sitting down with a tattered mop in her hands. Both are looking at Abel who is contentedly playing with sheep. The expression on both of their faces is best described with the word tired. They are not exactly sad. They certainly aren't beaming brightly. Adam is tired of hoeing out the thorns and thistles that infest the ground. Eve is tired of cleaning that which, so very quickly, only gets dirty again. This artist understood what life is like, particularly as we age. Children still have some get-up and go, and it seems that the artist understood this too. Cain and Abel do not look tired. They look ready to tootle about. Adam and Eve look like they are ready for a vacation. Or retirement.  But wait a minute: will that solve their problems? Not quite. Vacations and retirement aren’t the fountain of youth. They don’t make us into children again. About all that they can manage to do for us is to offer us a little more pleasant way to pass the time—no hoeing or mopping.I’m going to be honest about what is going on here. Some of you might get mad at me for this, but I think you have to acknowledge the truth of it. As we age we get closer to death. Practically every part of ourselves progressively breaks down. Our strength goes. Our flexibility goes. Our curiosity goes. Our mind goes. Our energy goes. You see, “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” The curse of death hangs over us all.Now what have I done? Have I gone and wrecked our holly, jolly Christmas? That depends on how you answer this crucial question: “Is there anything that can be done about death?” If the answer is, “No,” then the best that we can do is try to ignore it. There are a lot of ways to do that. You can eat, drink, and be merry. You can get drunk on the sentimentality of Christmases past. You can spend your hard earned cash for stimulants—some new toy or gadget that will allow you not to be bored for a while, not to feel so tired for a while. Have you noticed how hard it is to buy a gift that an old person really enjoys? That’s because they’re all strung out. They’ve all been there and done that. A child, on the other hand—all you really need to give them is a big cardboard box. Old people need new cars or to win the lottery to feel good.All of these stimulants are ways to try to deal with the curse of death that hangs over us without actually facing it. They are kind of like cold medicine. Cold medicine does nothing to make the cold go away any faster. All that it can do is alleviate some of the symptoms. Although cold medicine helps, we all know that it isn’t the real deal. Decongestant makes it so you can breathe out your nose, but your nose still feels funny. There’s no replacing the vim and vigor that returns to us naturally once the cold has finally left us.And so all the stimulants we buy are like shuffling along with cold medicine while stubbornly denying that we have a cold. Nobody knows of anything better, and so it is expected that we continue shuffling along, taking our stimulants when we can get them. This is a hopeless and depressing way of looking at life, and so I can understand why some of you might be irritated. But this reaction is built upon the firm belief that there isn’t anything that can be done about death, and so might as well just