This was never preached. Our associate pastor preached Christmas Eve and did a wonderful job. In a post coming up, I will talk more about how difficult it has been to preach this Christmas-Advent of 2012.
Monday, December 24,
2012
We have journeyed through lent with
Old Testament prophets Jeremiah, Malachi, Zephaniah, and Micah as our
guides. Jeremiah showed that God is
judge, but not just for condemnation.
Malachi spoke of God refining those who will come in repentance, and
Jesus is the primary means by which this purification comes about. In Zephaniah, we see God as victorious Lord
and King. And Micah gives us word of the
protecting God who watches over us.
It is time to move from the prophets
to the Gospel – and we need good news as much as we ever have. We are little more than a week removed from
the horrific school-shooting in Connecticut.
Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee who
was a pastor before he became a politician said that the tragedy should not
surprise us because we have kept God out of our schools and government and
military. By keeping God out, we invite
Hell to break loose.
Huckabee’s comment might be seen as
a crass move; he used the senseless awful death to promote his political agenda
that marries a certain type of Christian expression with a certain type of
political expression. I think Huckabee
is probably sincere in his desire to see a ‘Christianizing’ or he might say a
‘re-Christianizing’ of public institutions in America. While his statements in my view were poorly
timed and as a pastor he should have taken a more caring approach, I don’t question
his sincerity.
I just don’t see things as he
does. But, I completely agree with one
comment he made although I probably mean something different than what he
intended. Huckabee said, “We don’t have
a crime problem, a gun problem, or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem.”
I heard left-leaning political opinions react
the shooting with the opposite position of Huckabee, declaring this tragedy was
exactly the result of a gun problem.
Lack of gun control was the cause.
I don’t agree that what happened in Connecticut was a result of poor gun
control and I am not getting into gun control politics this evening. I merely point it out to show that both sides
of the political aisle weighed in the wake of the tragedy when in fact prayer
and caring were needed more than politicizing.
Back to Huckabee though, I agree 100% with his
“we have a sin problem” line. I suspect
when he said “we,” he meant “America.”
When I say we have a sin problem, I mean all of humanity.
The Connecticut school shooting makes this
glaringly obvious. So too does a story
that was in the Raleigh News and Observer
the same day as the reporting on the Connecticut tragedy. A homeless man was found dead – murdered and
left in a trash can. Five people were
arrested for murder but none were named in the paper because they are each
minors. Four are 15 and one is 13. When I was that age I was afraid of sassing
my parents or disrespecting a teacher.
These are children, and they’re under arrest for murder.
The story is local, not national news, but it is
just as tragic. So too is the fighting
in Syria and the Gaza strip – two separate wars, and both awful. That children suffer from hunger and
malnutrition is just as bad. We could go
on and on. Yes, we need to tonight, this
very moment, move from the prophets, and they also contain gospel, to the four
gospels. Since it is Christmas Eve, we
specifically must find comfort, hope, truth – all of in Luke chapter 2.
There we meet those who are near the bottom of
the social ladder – the shepherds. Their
work made them ceremonially unclean. By
doing the work that put bread in their mouths – work with sheep, work needed by
everyone in society – they were disqualified from worship. And no one in the temple missed them or
questioned how the system had become so unfair and unjust that human beings
were seen as unworthy of coming before God for prayer and worship.
The shepherds are spending the night outside,
watching over the sheep, doing their thing.
They did this in the rain. They
did it on cold nights. They are out on
this night, and heavenly beings come calling.
My nights are spent in an extremely comfortable bed. I have done my share of camping. I know what wonders and sometimes deceptions
the wilderness at night can bring, but I am softened suburbanite who would have
trouble with the toughness of these shepherds.
They handled much that would either scare me or kill me.
But Luke is quite clear in his telling of their
reaction to the angels. The glory of the
Lord shone on them and they were terrified.
I don’t know how you act when fear becomes the dominant and only
discernible feeling in you. I lose my
ability to think clearly. These hardened
shepherds did not have their wits. They
trembled violently and were out of control.
But the angel told them he was bringing good news of great joy for all
people.
Then the angel said something they would have
probably found surprising. “To you is
born this day a savior in the city of David who is the Messiah, the Lord.” There was plenty of messiah talk. It means ‘anointed one.’ Many would-be messiahs had been crucified by
Rome in the years leading up to this night.
Messiah-talk was not uncommon, nor was it uncommon to associate the
Messiah with David.
What was not so common was to call this Messiah
“the Lord.” The first century
expectation was that the Christ, a translation that means Messiah, Lord’s
anointed, would be set apart by God. They
did not think the Messiah would come from God or would be God. They weren’t thinking they would be calling
this one “the Lord.” Nor is it clear
what is meant by ‘Savior.’
But, when we read the story of Christ’s birth
with the thoughts of all Jesus did and does, then we realize Luke 2:11 is right
at the center of this story. The idea of
the birth of a Savior, the Savior is
at the heart of Christmas and is the hope for all people. For left-leaning political voices who want
guns banned, Jesus is savior. For
right-leaning politicians who demand that God – their version of God – be
allowed back in school, Jesus is savior.
For the victims and victims’ families in Connecticut, Jesus is
savior. For the five young teenagers who
face murder charges, Jesus is savior.
Turn in Luke, just two chapters over to Luke
4. He begins his public ministry saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has
anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release
to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go
free,19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Of course he is quoting the prophet Isaiah,
words expected to come true when the Messiah arrived. He follows up this audacious prophecy with
the simple announcement that the day Isaiah anticipated has arrived with his
arrival.
The angel told the shepherds a
Savior had been born. In Jesus we see
what kind of salvation the Savior brings:
… release to those in bondage; … recovery to those who hurt and suffer;
… freedom from oppression.
A passage that accompanies Luke 2
in the lectionary readings for Christmas Eve is from Paul’s letter to Titus,
Titus chapter 2. Verse 11 says the grace
of God has appeared bringing salvation to all.
Continuing into Titus 3, “He saved us … according to his mercy. … He poured out [His] Spirit on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior.”
Through the forgiveness of sin and
the giving of mercy without end, through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit,
and through word we have in the Gospel, God has extended the gift of eternal
salvation to all of us. All people who
will respond to his gift of grace are saved.
What does this mean in the wake of
tragic events like the ones we have mentioned?
Those of us who have become followers of the Savior come alongside the
sufferers in Connecticut. We are a hand
to hold and a shoulder to cry on. We
visit and pray, and we do this for the victims and for the wounded family
members of the killer. They are
horrified at an entirely different level.
We Christ-followers, filled with the Spirit and filled with grace, come
alongside the families of these teens who are likely facing prison time for
committing the ultimate of crimes – murder.
Sin is still in the world,
cooperating with Satan to wreak havoc on humankind. Mike Huckabee is 100% correct. Our primary problem is a sin problem. What it means that the Savior has come is
that His followers, the people who make up His church, are in the world to show
the way to Him. And we make special time
and effort to do this in times of tragedy.
It means also that we have good
news when we go through difficulty. I
wonder, who is going through their first Christmas after the divorce? Bringing up that issue is not a statement of
judgment on your particularly, if you are in that situation. Divorce is one result of sin in the
world.
Another sign of sin is death. Who is going through their first Christmas
after the funeral, after the beloved family member has died? Christmas this year is different than it has
been in a long time. Or Christmas is
hard because a relationship with a son or with a brother is in crisis. Many who are already in pain feel their hurt
magnified by the Christmas joy everyone else seems to feel. How can
everyone be so happy when I hurt so much?
The angel who terrified and then
amazed the shepherds is here for you with a message of good news about great
joy. Jesus is Savior and He came for
you. His Spirit comforts. He promises that death is not the end. If sin is destroying your life, he reminds
that He forgives all sin and His grace is sufficient for you. It does not mean the hurt evaporates
magically. Wounds take time to heal and
some don’t clear up until we get to that transformed place, the new Heaven and
Earth that come together and there are no more tears. Some pain is not assuaged until then.
But, we have the promise of Heaven
and the hope of Jesus’ return. We can
count on those things. We can also count
on his Holy Spirit carrying us through the hardest of times. He will work through the church. And this night, He works through Christmas
Eve worship where we sing the familiar songs and hear the story that even
non-church goers know a bit.
It is the story of a savior. It is a very specific story about something
very specific that God does. God
accomplishes this in a particular way.
We don’t proclaim a kind of general, nondescript good news. God saves in coming to us, God in the flesh,
Jesus. His birth is the birth of the Savior. If this Christmas is hard for you, you can
count on this. God saves. If this Christmas is awesome for you and you
are full of joy, then you have a story to share. God saves.
May we, as we worship recognizes
our need for salvation. And then, may we
know with certainty that our need is met in Jesus, the God who saves.
AMEN
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