As many of you know, I have a tradition of keeping my eye open, while doing my Christmas shopping, for some object to use as a physical illustration for this annual event, this sermon on the Nativity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Over the years, these illustrative objects have included a pair of Christmas stockings, a Christmas banner with the greeting misspelled, and a stuffed frog wearing a Santa hat. Finding and using the annual “focus object” has become a source of great fun for me and I hope for the congregations who’ve been subjected to my preaching.
Over the past ten days or so I have been required almost every day to visit one of our larger local grocery stores, one which has a center section devoted to seasonal merchandise. On each visit as I walked through that section, one item on a top shelf kept catching my attention, but each time I declined to buy it. Every day I would go away and wonder why I was attracted to that particular thing, and those contemplations made their way into my notes for this homily.
Finally, yesterday I went to the store and bought it – meet Frosty the Snowman.
