"The Humble Glory of Christmas" (Romans 16:25-27)

 

watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v75GTIBJIcA

Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 20, 2020

 

            To God be the glory!  Shepherds in the countryside not far from Bethlehem looked to the sky where they saw something not witnessed by the most advanced telescopes we have: hundreds, thousands of angels.  “The Heavenly host [praised] God saying, “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14).

Mary certainly couldn’t hold in her praise.  A virgin in a purity-based culture, she was pregnant.  No scandal could be worse for a young woman, yet, it came to her because the Holy Spirit came to her.  They didn’t even know God would act in this way.  Once she understood, she went to visit her much older cousin, Elizabeth.  Already having experienced menopause, and also childless, Elizabeth was pregnant.  Who better to understand the miracle that had come to Mary? 

When she arrived Elizabeth said to her, “Blessed are you among women” (Luke 1:42).  And Mary sang, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of His servant.  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (1:46b-49). 

That reading was from Luke’s gospel.  Luke 1 & 2 are frequently read during Advent and at Christmas.  Romans 16 is not a familiar Advent text, but Paul’s words of doxology say it perfectly!  “To the only wise God … be glory forever” (16:27).

            Mary’s life is about to become very difficult.  She will make a harrowing journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, while pregnant.  Social scorn will come, as her pregnancy came before her marriage was consummated.  She will deliver her child in a barnyard-cave, surrounded by smelly animals.  As that child grows, she will misunderstand him, and sense her own insufficiency to be parent to the Son of God.  Finally, she will watch as he dies on a Roman cross.

            Of course, she doesn’t know all of that at this point in the story as she sits with Elizabeth and praises God.  All she knows is God called and she responded in faith.  She’s part of what God is doing. God has acted, and she feels blessed, so she raises her voice to praise God.  She feels favored.  She says God has done great things for her.

            Do we get it?  Even people who don’t go to church and aren’t involved in faith can pick up from popular media the religious connection of the season. Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  We know that, but why is his birth something to celebrate?  Why do words of wonder, gratitude, and joy erupt from Mary?  Why should they erupt from us?  What makes this good news, the best news?  Why is God worthy of glory?

God is not a glory hound who desperately needs to hear us extol his greatness.  The person who constantly puffs himself up is tiresome.  The all-star basketball player indignantly confronts the critical the reporter.  “Don’t you question my basket skills.”  I remember hearing one draft pick, a 19-year-old entering the NBA, tell an interviewer, “I am very humble.”  Then he went on to describe all the ways he is great.  Or think of the actor confronting a director on a movie set.  He puts down his fellow cast members and demands special treatment.  Consider the politician who inflates his own record.  “I’ve done more for the military than any other leader in our country’s history.  I’ve done more for our economy than anyone else ever has.”  We recoil at such bombast.  No one likes braggart. 

In the Bible we see that God expects to be praised.  Read Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  Read the prophets and Job 38-41.  Is God as haughty, ego-inflated, and desperately needy for praise as so many of our celebrities are?  The answer would be ‘yes’ if God were a woman or a man.  God is not.  God something else entirely.  Praising God is the only appropriate response to God’s action. 

God’s glory flows out of God’s love.[i]  Where the self-promoting politician is unbearably arrogant, God, sovereign of the universe and creator of everything, is infinitely humble.  God, who actually has reason to say, ‘hey, the best you can do is worship me,’ instead lowers himself to the form of a human being, a baby born into a peasant family at a difficult time in history among a people under the heel of the powerful, imposing Romans.  God steps out of limitless heavenly grandeur to walk the tough, dusty roads of 1^st century Palestine as a poor Jewish man. 

Why praise God?  Look at what God did.  The bigger question is why did God lower God’s self in this way.  He dressed in human skin, subjecting God’s own self to the struggles and pains faced by the poor all over the world.  Why did God do that?

Love!  That’s the answer.  God loves us.  Paul elaborated on this earlier in the letter, Romans 5.  Verse 5, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”  Also verse 8, “God proved his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  The logic in Romans and throughout the New Testament stands out with great clarity.  Every human sins.  Sin cuts us off from God.  We cannot overcome our sin, so God became one of us – Jesus.

Jesus died even though he did not deserve death.  Jesus suffered that cruel penalty taking on himself the death sin brings, even though he never sinned.  When we say “God is love” our evidence is Jesus, bloody and bruised, hanging on the cross where we should be.  God’s expression of love comes in the form of self-sacrifice.  So, when we glorify God, and there are plenty of reasons to do so, the chief attribute is God’s love.  God’s love is a humble, sacrificial love.  God doesn’t say, “I’ve done more for you than anyone else ever has.”  God says, “I love you enough to die in your place.  I will take you as you are, all the warts and blemishes, and I will make you new.” Then, God does it. 

Grab hold of this! So many people around us are down on themselves.  Maybe you are one. Maybe you feel like life is full of disappointments and failure.  The depression intensifies as it seems that everyone around you has a lot of holiday cheer while you wallow in sorrow.  And you feel like it’s your fault.  Listen!  God loves you more than you can know.  You are precious, of incredible worth, and God cherishes you.  Believe it.  Receive God’s love.  It’s a gift you don’t have to earn. 

Worshiping on Sundays at church is a regular practice for Christians.  Many more people attend worship Advent and Lent.  A lot of attendees miss as many Sundays as they come throughout the year, but leading up to Christmas, more and more people feel drawn to church.  As we ponder the story, Jesus born and lain in a manger, angels singing as hillside shepherds watch and wonder, does it feel different?  Do you feel drawn to seek God?  Does anything in you stir? 

Worship during the season of Advent serves as a rhythm of remembering.[ii]  We know the story.  We’ve seen this movie before.  We listen to again in order to enter the story.  We want to feel the chill of the night air, take in the pungent smells of the manger, and hear the newborn’s cries. 

After his barnyard birth the story moves to his ministry.  Jesus restored the sight of blind beggars and turned water to wine to prolong the celebration of a country peasant’s wedding.  Yet he refused to perform when King Herod demanded miracles.  He bestowed wisdom upon the Pharisee Nicodemus who visited him secretly at night, but would not answer the inquiring Greeks who visited Jerusalem at Passover in search of a new philosophy to scrutinize.  He traveled with poor fishermen, tax collectors of questionable moral character, and a known violent revolutionary, Simon the Zealot.  He entrusted the group finances to a known thief, Judas Iscariot, giving him the opportunity to become honest, knowing he probably wouldn’t take that opportunity.  Yet Jesus refused to answer when the Roman Governor Pilate demanded Jesus give an accounting of himself. 

To God be the glory, but a humble glory indeed!  In the doxology of Romans 16 Paul declares God will strengthen us through the Gospel – the story of Jesus – and through the proclamation of Jesus.  I mentioned how difficult life can be, especially at Christmastime.  Paul’s offer is that the story of Jesus and our participation in telling that story fills us with divine strength. 

That’s what filled Mary when she sang her song.  That’s what filled the sky when angels praised God the night of Jesus’ birth.  That spiritual power filled our members as they baked hundreds of treats given away at yesterday’s food pantry.  This divine strength drove Paul to embrace being arrested if that’s what it took for him to tell Roman leaders and even the emperor himself the story of Jesus.  He knew of what he spoke when he declared that the gospel of Jesus our Savior strengthens us (16:25). 

So, we enter the story.  We tell it with our own voices.  Mary with Elizabeth; angels and shepherds; Paul in his letters; and us – God’s church gathered on the fourth Sunday Advent.  Our voices join the eternal chorus giving God glory.  We see what God has done and we praise Him!  We can’t hold it in. 

AMEN

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[i] Frederick, John.  Working Preacher website. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-advent-2/commentary-on-romans-1625-27-5.

[ii] Achtemeier, Paul (1985).  Interpretation: A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Romans, John Knox Press (Atlanta), p.239.

COVID-19 Nativity

When, most recently, was a baby born in your family?  This year?  Maybe it was your cousin or grandchild?  Or, your own baby, your first!  How exciting!  Family gathers round, and everyone exclaims how beautiful the baby is.  One aunt, her words soaked in sentiment, swears the little tyke has “Grandpa’s eyes.”  It is a moment for gathering, good feelings, and family closeness.  

         Except not this year, not in 2020.  In 2020, we need to protect each other from the spread of the virus, so we don’t gather.  How many grandparents will meet their new grandchildren through Zoom calls?  A baby can’t participate in a Zoom call.  Babies are

meant to be held, cuddled, and tickled.  A baby’s smile produces a smile on the face of everyone in the room, even the crustiest old codger. There’s no “social distancing” with babies!

         Joseph and Mary were far from home the night their first baby was born.  Joseph knew the baby wasn’t “his.”  He didn’t sire this child, but he sure acted like a good dad.  An unfeeling Roman census required Joseph to take his pregnant wife to his ancestral home, Bethlehem, miles from his current home and family.  The ancient Israelite people were more socially connected than we are.  Family was everything.  To be forced to have a baby away from the support of family was very hard, very sad.  Joseph did what he had to do, and Jesus was born with only farm animals and later shepherds there to celebrate his arrival.

         Is it possible this is one more way God-in-the-flesh, God incarnate, identifies with the struggles we face? Even the day of his birth, Jesus was confronted by obstacles that made life difficult.  His birth that evokes happy praise songs in our worship services was a night fraught with danger, uncertainty, and isolation.  Yes, this babe who lies at the center of our Christmas truly can identify with the things that make life a struggle for us.

         As you worship this year, in your heart, reach out to Christ.  When you do, appreciate this. He understands you and He loves you.  It’s why He came and it’s why his Holy Spirit is with you now, no matter your circumstances.  None of us wants a COVID-19 Christmas, but Jesus will get us through it and even make it special.  He knows our struggles and He won’t leave to face those struggles alone. God is with us.  

Rejoice!  Even socially-distanced, rejoice, give thanks, and sing.

Advent 2 - Luke 1:68-79

“Song of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:68-79)

Second Sunday of Advent, December 9, 2018

            We’re well into the season now!  Lights, music, TV commercials, cards in the mail; decorations around the city and around the neighborhood; shopping lists; eggnog; Christmas is upon us.  I love it, as many of us do.  But as much as we love Christmas, we treasure the story of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ even more. 

The story of Jesus’ birth is a Holy Spirit story.  We can read Luke and clearly see that in the story of Jesus’ birth, the Holy Spirit is at work.  And, when the Holy Spirit is at work and we respond in faith, then the Spirit lead us into God’s peace.

The Spirit is mentioned over and over.  The angel who appeared to Mary promised the Holy Spirit would come upon her (1:35).  When Mary’s cousin Elizabeth came to visit, the Holy Spirit filled her (v.41).  Later in Luke we see the Holy Spirit fill Jesus and lead him into the wilderness to face Satan (4:1).

This morning we zero in on Luke 1:67.  Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy.  Earlier Luke described Zechariah as an aged priest descended from Abijah and his wife Elizabeth, also elderly and also a descendent of a priestly line, the line of Aaron.  The couple was childless and past childbearing years.  In this particular year, Zechariah was the one priest chosen to enter the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement to make the offering on behalf of the nation.  Alone in that sacred space, an angel came to him.  He wasn’t prepared for that!

Members of the clergy are as shocked and awed by direct encounters with divine beings as lay people are.  He wasn’t ready to meet an angel, but that’s what happened.  “Fear overwhelmed him” (1:12) as the angel told him that his barren wife Elizabeth would have a son who would be named John and be “filled with the Holy Spirit” (1:15). Zechariah couldn’t believe it, and said so.  The angel was not impressed by his skepticism, and so, he rendered old Zechariah mute until the miracle baby came. 

All who knew Elizabeth and Zechariah rejoiced with them at their son’s birth even as they marveled at the old priest’s inability to speak.  Their friends and family knew this child was from God.  Still, when Elizabeth gave the baby the name “John,” the neighbors and relatives called time out.  You can’t name him that.  John’s not a family name.  They all looked to silent Zechariah who grabbed a tablet and scrawled out “J-O-H-N.”  He held it up for all to see.  With the baby here, his voice was released.  Aloud he said, “His name is John.”

Then, the priest, the father of the miracle baby, Zechariah, silent the previous 9 months, sang this song.  It was a psalm in the form of Old Testament psalms.   The message was the stuff of prophets of old, word that had not been heard since Malachi, hundreds of years earlier. A psalm?  Yes.  A prophecy?  Most definitely, in the tradition of Isaiah and Jeremiah and all the great prophets.  Yet this song of Zechariah was also a song of the Holy Spirit.

Through the priest’s mouth the Spirit tells what God has done and is about to do.  Next, Luke will tell of the birth of Jesus.  John and Jesus, cousins; one born of a woman after she’s gone through menopause; the other born of a virgin; both inspiring great songs of faith: John, Zechariah’s benediction and Jesus, Mary’s magnificat.  John preceded Jesus.  After Jesus was baptized by John, his public ministry began, and John encouraged his own followers to leave him and follow Jesus.  Many did including some of the 12 disciples.

This story, flowing through Zechariah’s song, declares that God has acted. “Blessed be the Lord ... he has looked favorably upon his people” (1:68).  How?  “He has raised up a mighty savior” (v.69).  God’s people will be saved from powerful enemies who hate them.  God has shown mercy.  God has remembered his covenant with Abraham.  

Zechariah sings, because of what God has done, “we [may] serve him without fear.” Think Adam before the fall when he and Eve enjoyed complete freedom in their relationship with God in the garden, even freedom from sin.  When we put our trust in this savior foretold by Zechariah, we are rescued from the chains our own sins impress upon us. 

After praising God for Jesus, Spirit-inspired Zechariah then sings to his newborn son.  “You, child, will be called prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.”  In Jesus God has acted so that the very thing that separates us from God - God’s holiness verse our sinfulness - is removed.  He takes our sins on himself, and puts his righteousness on us.  When we put our trust in Jesus, we are made right where previously we were flawed.  Sin is that serious.  In sin, we are destined for death.  And we are all sinners.  But John the Baptist would come and show us that in Jesus, God forgives.

Zechariah sang of being rescued from enemies.  The three greatest foes of all people in all times and place  - the three greatest enemies you and I face - are antagonists who cannot be defeated: sin, Satan, and death.  In Christ, we are safe even from these three evils.

Zechariah closes singing, “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet onto the way of peace.”  Ah yes, the way peace, where the Spirit leads those who trust in God.  In God’s light, we see the world as it is and ourselves as we truly are, sinners.  Without God, we are lost.  The journey to salvation is a free gift, one full of joy.  That’s doesn’t mean it is easy.

Pastor and blogger Alan Brehm likens what we go through when we step onto God’s path following the Spirit to the process of refining glass.  Touring a glass-blowing factory, he watched as the glass was heated up to remove impurities and make it moldable.  The furnace was so hot, even at his safe distance, he felt uncomfortable.  The goal was to make the glass a thing of beauty.  The process required intense heat that would change the glass from impure to pure, from rigid to pliable.

When we turn to Christ and put our trust in Christ, we are that glass, heated up, refined, bent, shaped, molded, and made into something new.  God goes to work on us.  The Holy Spirit takes up residence in us just as Jesus takes our impurities, our sins, and re-creates us as right and acceptable before God.  John’s job, as Zechariah stated, was to go before Jesus, paving the way.  Further on in the story, we see John baptizing people beside the Jordan River (3:3). 

God accomplished His work in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of the son.  God continues the work of salvation today. The Holy Spirit appeals the hearts of women and men, drawing them to God’s light.  

Of course, when we keep our gaze fixed on the world around us, we cannot see God’s light or know God’s peace.  When we make life choices based on the values of our current culture instead of the transcendent values of Heaven, we cannot see God’s light or know God’s peace.  When we hold on to old grudges, refuse to give grace, and instead view our fellow human beings with malice in our hearts, we cannot see God’s light and know God’s peace.  We have to see the world, but see it in God’s light.

Jesus has come.  The light is shining.  God’s spirit is here.  We can accept God’s gift or not.  We are called to repent, to turn from the darkness in the world to God’s light.  This was preached by John the Baptist and taught by Jesus.  Turn away from darkness, turn to the light.  Turn away from sin, turn to God.  Turn away from false, impotent saviors, to turn to the one true Lord, the crucified, resurrected Jesus.  We may choose faith in Christ.  The Holy Spirit helps us.  But even with the Spirit’s help, God allows us free will.  We can turn away from God.  God will not force us to have faith. 

To walk God’s way, the way of peace, we have to be honest about our self-indulgence, our need to control others, and the aggressions and prejudices that live within us.  We have to present ourselves, the very worst of ourselves fully to God.  We have to go through the Spirit’s refining fire.  We not only hear and tell the story.  We enter it.

We enter the fire and come out new.  We approach as sinners and emerge as people born again, as new creations.  When we hear the song of the Holy Spirit, ... and believe it, ... and decide to live it, ... then we begin to understand what new life really means.  We start to grasp the peace the Bible promises.

Christmas is great.  The peace of God is a whole lot better. When we hear the Spirit’s son and allow ourselves to be led into faith, peace is what we get.

AMEN

Works Cited

Brehm, Alan. “The Waking Dreamer.” Refining, 1 Jan. 1970, thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com/2012/12/refining.html.

Christmas Eve

“From Heaven to Earth” (John 1:1-5, 14-18)

Christmas Eve

December 24, 2017

            We from John’s gospel, chapter 1.  You are aware that there are four gospel, four ancient writers who set pen to paper to tell the story of Jesus – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  We read John1, but, which of the four is the best to read on Christmas Eve?

All the action happens in Luke chapter 1.  An angel comes to the priest Zechariah as the old man gives the annual offering in the inner sanctum of the temple on the Day of Atonement.  The Heavenly messenger tells the aged holy man that he and his childless, post-menopausal wife will have a son.  Miraculous!  Then it happens.  That baby grows up to be John the Baptist, the prophet who prepares the way for the coming of the Messiah – Jesus.

            Zechariah’s wife who had the miracle pregnancy, Elizabeth, the mother of John, is the also the cousin of a young betrothed woman, not barely more than a girl, named Mary.  Mary was soon to wed Joseph, but they had not yet been together.  She was a virgin.  An angel comes to her to tell her she will have a son, before her marriage, before intimacy with her betrothed.  Another miracle! 

Newly pregnant, she journeys to see her cousin Elizabeth who is farther along in her pregnancy.  Elizabeth’s baby, still in the womb, leaps with glee at the approach of the mother of the Lord.  Luke chapter 1 is full of encounters with angels, miracle pregnancies, and people who respond to overwhelming news by worshiping God joyfully.

Upon flipping the page to Luke 2, the narrative become prosaic. 

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴ Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵ He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

If anything, Luke’s description of the actual birth of Jesus is understated.  Movies depicting this are much more dramatic than the actual Biblical account.  The film The Nativity Story from a few years ago depicts an exhausting, harrowing journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  In one scene, Joseph is guiding the donkey ridden by a very pregnant Mary.  They have to forge a waist-deep river that’s moving quite quickly.  As the water beats against them and Joseph stumbles trying to keep stable as he walks the rocky river bed, Mary sees a large, poisonous snake slithering through the water toward them.  The nervous donkey bucks sending Mary flying.  Joseph doesn’t hesitate.  He viciously grabs the snake and flings it.  Then he heroically lifts his pregnant wife out of the cold water, carries her to the safe river bank and retrieves the traumatized beast of burden so they can continue their journey.  That might have happened.  That or some episode like.

Luke doesn’t give us anything about the journey.  He just tells us there was a tax imposed by the imperial overlords: Rome!  Rome says move, and you move.  Like every other beleaguered Israelite, Joseph had to comply with the census by returning to the village of his birth.  Though it might not have seemed wise, he took his pregnant wife with him.  They made the 3-day walk.   Thus Jesus, the Messiah, was born, in the city of David, Bethlehem, just as prophecy hinted he would be.  Luke’s narrative of the actual birth is void of drama. 

The action resumes in verse 8 of Luke 2.  An angel terrifies a group of shepherds.  The divine messenger begins, “Do not be afraid.”  He then tells the shepherds, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people; to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (2:10-11).  That angel is joined by a multitude – 100’s?  1000’s?  The night echoes with their angelic praise songs.  When they finish, then shepherds run to Bethlehem waking everyone until they find the grotto where a baby was born. 

Right away these men of the field know they have found the one.  Mary realizes she’s part of the biggest story in the history of the world.  She’s right at the center of it.  Luke must have known her, in her later years.  He probably wrote this gospel after he talked with Mary many times and after she had died.  Either he knew her, or he talked with people who had known her quite well.  He was able to tell us that she took it all in, quietly rejoicing in her heart and treasuring all that took place.

There is nothing quiet about those shepherds.  They thunder into the quiet village looking for the baby.  Once they find him, they thunder through the quiet village waking everyone to tell them what had happened.  Then, they thunder back out to the field so recently filled with angel-song.  Now that same hillside pasture is filled with the voices of shepherds as they praise God. 

Luke is where the action is.  Much of what we think of as the Biblical Christmas story comes in Luke.  Matthew Gospel doesn’t have any of this.  In Matthew, the angel visits Joseph in his dreams.  Matthew is not concerned with why Joseph and Mary are in Bethlehem.    He just puts them there and he doesn’t mention a stable at all.  Matthew tells us that angel convinced Joseph to stay with Mary even though she was pregnant and he had nothing to do with it. 

Luke says nothing about visitors from the East. The wise men are only in Matthew and by the time they arrive, the baby Jesus is probably closer to two and toddling around.  He and Joseph and Mary are in a house in Bethlehem.  The shepherds have long since exited stage right.  Yes, our tradition has the shepherds and the wise men all together at the stable nativity scene.  It’s a lovely tradition that my family maintains in our own nativity sets.  It is not Biblically accurate, but that’s OK.  It’s a tradition that blends the stories from Luke and Matthew.

Do not go searching for the story of Jesus’ birth in the Gospel of Mark.  Mark begins with Jesus at about age 30, getting baptized.  John’s gospel also does not mention the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem or angels visiting shepherds or a virgin birth or wise men from Persia visiting the child Jesus.  None of those aspects of the story are in John.  John gives us the theology behind the birth of Jesus.

“In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. … All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing was made” (John 1:1, 3).  This is the cosmic Christ.  The second person of the trinity, God the Son, who in the incarnation becomes Jesus, is the agent of creation.  This picture of the cosmic Christ, also found in Colossians 1 (v.15-20), is the opening of the Gospel of John. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but God the Son always existed.  In Jesus, God the son came to earth in human form. 

John’s initial way of referring to Jesus, God the Son, is the Word.  In chapter 1, verse 14, John says, “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s son full of grace and truth.   No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (v.18).  In that last statement John uses hyperbole as a part of his presentation of Jesus as the only path to God.  He wrote Gospel with the goal of showing who Jesus is so that readers will surrender their lives to Jesus and accept Him as their Lord and Master. 

Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and a few others in the Old Testament had seen God and lived to tell about it.  The parents of Samson are on this list.  So too are Noah and Enoch.  The thing is in all these cases, God made a special appearance to a specific individual for a specific purpose.  The specific purpose in the coming of Jesus was accessibility to God for all people.  In Jesus Christ crucified, Jesus Christ resurrected, the way to God is opened for all people.  With the ascension, reported in Acts 1, Jesus departed bodily, but then the Holy Spirit came as his lasting presence with all people in all places.  Christmas is the story of God come to earth so that you and I can know God, worship God, have forgiveness of sins, and follow God the rest of our lives. 

Luke gives the main story.  Matthew fills some details not in Luke.  Luke gives us Mary’s perspective.  Matthew gives us Joseph’s.  John lays out the theological significance of what God has done in Jesus.  God is with us, God the Spirit, active among us.  As John’s Gospel winds down, we read this in chapter 20, verse 30-31.  ” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may come to believe^[d] that Jesus is the Messiah,^[e] the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  When we recognize the work of Christ among us, at work in the Spirit in our lives, then more signs are performed that point the world to God.  In other words, God did not stop doing new things at the close of the final book of the Bible.  God continues to be on the move, creating new life in the world.  God does this work through His church when His church is responsive to Him.  In us, the story continues.

A new year is about to begin.  As we celebrate Christmas, remember the year that was, 2017, look forward to new horizons, and as take the next steps in our lives, think about what it does say in that final book of the Bible, Revelation.  The mistaken notion is that Revelation is all about Heaven and the Gospel is all about how we get to Heaven.  Listen to what Revelation actually says.  “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among [women and men], He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them’” (21:2-3). 

If the first act, the birth of Jesus, is God come to earth, the Word made flesh, then the second act, the book of Revelation, is the second coming of Jesus.  He comes.  We don’t go.  I love the Brad Paisley song, “When I Get Where I’m Going.”  The feeling of the song is lovely and sometimes brings me to tears.  But the Biblical message is ‘when Jesus gets where he’s going,’ and where he’s going is here.  It’s called the Second Coming.  The end of the story is Heaven, made new, joined with Earth, made new.  Christmas is the preview of the eternal joy we will have as sons and daughters of God living forever in God’s presence.  

We step to that ending when we put our trust in Jesus.  We trust him to remove our sins.  We trust him to rule our lives.  His will for us is better than our own.  Gospel means “good news.”  The Good News is that in Christ all sin is forgiven, all people are united in love and in a new community, the Kingdom of God. 

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year.  If you have never given your heart to Christ, I encourage you to do that.  Email me if you have questions about how to become a Christian (tennant.hillsong@gmail.com).  I would love talking with you about this. 

If you have been a Christ-follower in your life, but lately have turned away from Him, you can turn back to Him tonight.  That’s what repentance is, turning from sin, turning away from a destructive path, and turning to the Lord.  He’s waiting to receive you in love. 

If your relationship with God, in Christ, is great, if you are walking with Christ already, praise God.  He’s got new things instore for your life too.  As you move into 2018, open yourself to him afresh, seeking new mercies every morning.   

AMEN

This sermon was done at our church’s Christmas Eve service.  We closed singing ‘Silent Night’ by candle light.

Actions of a Faithful Witness (Matthew 1:18-25)

He has no recorded words in the Bible.  He is not thought of as Jesus’ real father.  He is completely off the scene by the time Jesus’ ministry begins.  He is not mentioned by later New Testament writers, either in the book of Acts, in Paul’s writings, or in the other epistles.  Joseph is a silent witness.  And yet, this silent witness is a portrait of faithful, God-honoring living in the most trying of times.  His shadow falls over the story of Jesus’ birth and we can learn a lot about what it means to be a God-follower from Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus.

            When I have taught the Bible to teens and elementary-aged kids, experiences where I had a limited amount of time, I zeroed in on two words – actions and attitudes.  I figured that if I could get students to focus on what they did and how they carried themselves as they did it, then they could consciously strive to live as Jesus lived.  Actions and attitudes: you don’t need to memorize passages of scripture or recite creedal formulas.  You don’t need to speak in public or to persuade people with your erudite arguments.  You simply do things that help and encourage others – actions; and, you do what you do in a way that shows love and conveys compassion – attitudes. 

            Though silent, Joseph, through his actions and his attitude, says a lot.   

            What jumps out from Matthew’s storytelling?  “The birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.  When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (1:18).  What stands out as Matthew weaves this tale? 

            He assumes the listener already knows the story.  He’s not so much telling us something we haven’t heard before as he is giving his own commentary, his own slant on it.  I say this because he lays out something remarkable in a concise, unassuming way.  She was pregnant from the Holy Spirit?  That doesn’t happen every day.  Yet in Matthew’s prose, it sounds unremarkable.  It is as if this miracle pregnancy is but a prelude to something more significant that Matthew wants us to know.

            Premarital pregnancy was an absolute scandal in which no one would believe the excuse, “Well, God did it!”  Yeah right, Mary!  Please!  God did it?  Try another one! The law for the Jews was clear.  Deuteronomy 22:23: “If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman.”  As Joseph’s betrothed, Mary was seen as his wife in the eyes of the community.  Even though their relationship had not been consummated, they were viewed as married.  The law of Deuteronomy 22 applied and was final.

            Why such an extreme penalty?  The end of Deuteronomy 22:23 – the last phrase of the verse – gives the reason.  Both man and woman shall die; “thus you shall purge evil from Israel.”  We minimize sexual trysts.  She was just having fun.  Or, we romanticize them.  She was forced into a marriage she didn’t want.  When she cheated on her husband, she was with the man she truly loved.  Either way, the unplanned pregnancy is easily ended with a quick trip to the abortion clinic.  In our cultural ethos, to make a fuss about adultery and abortion is silly and those who do are prudes, too old fashioned to keep up with the ways things are today.

            This casual dismissal of fidelity and of life is a sign on our culture’s sexual deviance.  Abortion was not an option or even a consideration in the first century.  And adultery and sexual misconduct wasn’t an offense or a violation.  It was much worse.  It was considered evil and was to be purged from the community of God’s people.

            Matthew writes with this understanding in mind, an understanding his readers would immediately grasp.  Before she was married, Mary was already pregnant.  That’s a big deal, a matter of life or death not just for her but for the entire community.  Yet Matthew passes over it so quickly, it is clear he find something else in the story even more significant. That more significant truth comes in the very next verse.

            “Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly” (1:19).  Because his words weren’t recorded, we don’t know what kind of cursing, ranting, and railing Joseph.  His wife-to-be had cheated on him, or so he thought.  He surely wronged.  Maybe heartbroken too?  He could have had her stoned and gotten universal agreement in the community.  She would be set apart.  Every adult person in the village would surround her.  And they’d fire stones at her until she was dead.  Joseph could have done that.

            But, Matthew tells us he was a ‘righteous man.’  What sign indicated his moral fiber?  It was his willingness to discount the law in Deuteronomy and instead put her away quietly.  Even though Joseph never heard Jesus preach a sermon, he realized that love was behind the law of God and there were cases where loving dictated not heeding the letter of the law.  How do we know Joseph was righteous?  We know because he was willing to protect Mary from what he believed were the consequences of her actions. 

            He had nothing to gain.  In a culture stooped in poverty, a man’s riches came in the number of children he sired.  Now here was Joseph planning to gently break things off with the woman he believed had forsaken him for someone else.  We should point out, Mary was not unfaithful.  But from where Joseph stood, that’s what it looked like.  With nothing to gain, he let compassion for her be what drove his actions.  His attitude was one of love. 

            It was to this man – a man hurt, but resolved to care for Mary – to this man the angel appeared.  Joseph already lived his faith when the angel laid out the entire plan.  Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and the child, a son, was to be name “Jesus,” which means ‘salvation.’  His birth fulfilled the words of the prophet Isaiah.  His coming fit within the story of God’s salvation of the world through the people of Israel. 

            After’s Joseph’s big moment – what to do when I find out my fiancé is pregnant – things moved very quickly through the narrative.  After compassion drove this man to care for Mary, he had so many dreams we wouldn’t blame him if he was afraid to go to sleep at night.  First, once settled in Bethlehem, he and Mary had visitors – strange, wealthy astronomers who believed the birth was foretold in the stars.  These exotic men gave gifts which instantly made Mary and Joseph rich.

            However, before he could even design the deluxe carpenter shot he dreamed about, he was warned in a dream that Herod was going to kill every child in Bethlehem.  So, Joseph took Mary and baby Jesus and their newly acquired wealth to the land of Israel’s ancient enemies – Egypt. We don’t know how long they were there.  More importantly, upon arrival, Joseph didn’t know how long he would be there.  But, one night, the angel appeared in his dreams once again to tell him to go home.  Joseph, as he had every other time, obeyed.  However, fear drove him to settle in Nazareth instead of Bethlehem.  Herod was dead, yes, but his insane son Archelaus was on the throne and he was just as dangerous.

            Then we flip to Matthew chapter 3, 27 years have passed, and Joseph is never mentioned again.  I suppose that if we had his words, we’d see how much is like any of us – a flawed human being who cursed a blue streak when he hammered his thumb instead of the nail, drowned in his own doubt of the word of God, and yelled in impatience at preteen Jesus.  Imagine the way you sometimes blunder.  Joseph surely made some of the same mistakes.  That’s why I find it so encouraging to focus on his attitudes and his actions.

            You and I can put love and compassion as a top priority the way Joseph did.  You and I let our hearts be governed by love and mercy and that love and mercy can embolden us to follow God’s lead even when doing so seems insane.  Joseph had never heard the gospel from Jesus, yet he understood it because he was intent on being true to God.  Whatever limits we have in our knowledge, we can set ourselves to obey the Lord, have attitudes of love, and those attitudes can drive us to be witnesses testifying to God’s goodness as we live our daily lives.

            Joseph didn’t know he was going to be the adoptive father of the son of God who would grow up to be the Savior of the world.  He didn’t know he was going to meet Magi from Persia, the wise men, and be hunted by a crazed, murderous king.  He thought he was a simple carpenter from an insignificant village marrying a simple girl from the same village. 

            We don’t know what will come about in our lives in the next few hours or in the week to come.  It might be a Christmas week like many Christmas’s of the past.  Or something completely unexpected may pop up – something that changes us.  Either way, we go forth with an attitude of love and committed to actions that point the world to Jesus.  As with Joseph, in our lives, God takes it from there.

AMEN

Christmas Salvation

December 24, 2014 – Christmas Eve Worship

          When Jesus was born, God entered humanity.  The God of unmeasurable greatness, of knowledge so vast we cannot comprehend it, reduced God’s own self to a newborn baby.  The theological word for this is incarnation.  The most important moments in salvation history are the crucifixion of Jesus and then his resurrection.  Neither matter unless the incarnation happens. 

          Pastor Jenny Warner of Oregon feels strongly about the importance of incarnation prior to crucifixion and resurrection.  I had not really thought about the sequence or the idea of distinguishing among these theological treasures, but her words make it clear why thinking first on incarnation can be quite powerful.  She writes:

Every year of my life, the sentiment goes stronger, the belief grasps tighter, that it is the incarnation that saves me, that incarnation is the germinating seed containing the healing of the world, that incarnation may be Christianity’s best hope for a relevant future. Easter is not possible without Christmas. In fact, Easter may be just one more manifestation of the incarnation.

Flesh infused with God. God encountering flesh. Holiness embedding itself into a human life and revealing itself with compassion, healing, truth-telling and relentless embrace. I want that.

Give me incarnation before you give me resurrection. The end of my life may be a long way off, but today my life feels like a Bethlehem barn. Hay is scattered everywhere. Children must be fed and nurtured. The list of things to do is longer than the hours in my day. There is no time for reflection. I need to know that mystery resides in the most mundane and profane realities of my life.[i]

          Does life ever feel like a “Bethlehem barn?”  It’s noisy.  The other day, Candy decided to have some of M__ and H__’s good friends over for decorating Christmas cookies.  It was Candy and 8 children, 7 of them elementary school-aged.  I__r, the 8^th, was her helper.  She said the two young boys in the crowd were a little jumpy.  Noise.  Cookie decorations everywhere.  Eight kids bouncing off the walls because school is out and Christmas is almost here.

          Does life ever feel like a “Bethlehem barn?”  Some are spending Christmas far from family.  Their kids are grown and it was too expensive to fly home this year.  Every TV show has teary-eyed family reunions with heartwarming holiday music on.  The list of who to shop for is lengthy.  And the only emotions that won’t go away are disappointment and sadness.  Christmas isn’t going to be quite what the Hallmark special makes it out to be.

          I imagine Joseph and Mary had disappointment.  After the trauma of birth without midwife or any help, they were out in the cold.  No one in their family came.  Except for Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, no one in their family approved.  That noisy, stinky barn was the cradle of new life, the Son of God.  But sadness crept from the dark corners.

          The Bethlehem barn is not an easy place.  Think of actual Bethlehem today and the Middle East in general.  A few generations ago there were significant communities of Middle Eastern Christians – Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis.  Many have died off in the unending wars of religion and territory.  Many Syrian Christ followers this year are spending their fourth Christmas in the Bethlehem barn – refugee camps. 

          Pastor Warner knows salvation is in the cross and resurrection, but she also know it is not only there.  And sometimes those events seem so Godly, so out of reach and she needs something that feels real.

Today life feels like a Bethlehem barn. Hay is scattered everywhere. Children must be fed and nurtured. The list of things to do is longer than the hours in my day. There is no time for reflection. We need to know that mystery resides in the most mundane and profane realities of life.

          We need the salvation we have in the living Christ and in the life Jesus led.  It began at his birth.  It began before his birth.

          Isaiah 62 is originally a prophetic poem about God’s salvation of the city of Jerusalem.  Jerusalem in both testaments represents that place where God is at home.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus says true worship is not place-dependent but can happen anywhere people worship God “in spirit and in truth” (ch. 4).  The New Testament and the church that grows out of it is a ‘sending out’ church.  We are to spread out over the world proclaiming salvation in Jesus.

          Still we have much to learn of God from the words about Jerusalem and in the end, we who have “gone out to tell” will be gathered to God, to God’s Holy City.  We will be called home to rejoice in eternal life lived in God’s presence. 

          Before that eternal life, we live in this one.  God stepped into humanity the way we all do, as a baby.  And on the occasion that we remember his birth, the lectionary organizers have us read Isaiah’s words.  “See, your salvation comes; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him” (v.11). 

          How does it all tie together?  Why do present day scholars read a 5^th century BC prophet who imagines a new Jerusalem and connect his promises to the birth of Jesus?  Why does an Oregon pastor sometimes feel more hope filled by a powerless newborn than a courageous savior who embraces the cross?  She still knows the cross and resurrection are the key events.  But, for this night, she actually focus on the salvation we have in Jesus’ birth and life.

          Remember, Jerusalem – the city of Shalom – that is where God is at home.  If people want to be at home with God they need to be there.  If one is not at home with God, that one is truly lost.  Christmas like no other time can magnify an individual’s feeling of being abandoned, lost, alone, disappointed.  If our hurts are blown up and made even bigger than they seem around Christmas it would appear that in such a state of despair we are farther from God than ever.

          Ah, but then, don’t we see the genius of the incarnation.  People who feel like their lives are a mess are the very people who can most easily identify with Mary and Joseph at their lowest moments.  When they were ready to quit and the journey to Bethlehem seemed too much, Mary and Joseph epitomized human frailty.  A person alone, sobbing in grief on Christmas Eve epitomizes human frailty.  And that is where God appears.  

          The baby in the manger is God who can be touched.  Jerusalem is the Holy City that is where God is at home and to be at peace with God we have to get there.  But most people can never get there.  The incarnation, Jesus in the manger, is God’s recognition that we cannot, try as we might, get there.  The only way we can live in peace with God is if God will meet us in our own Bethlehem barn.  The birth of Jesus is God’s statement that God is willing to do just that. 

          We have role in the story and that role is to recognize our own brokenness and from that place of brokenness to reach out to God.  “Upon your walls, O Jerusalem” says Isaiah 62:6.”  “Upon your walls, I have posted sentinels.  All day and all night they shall never be silent.  You who remind the Lord, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it renowned throughout the earth” (v.6-7).  That’s right.  Our job is to pester God! 

          Remind the Lord?  Give him no rest?  That is what it says.  So, let this baby born Bethlehem remind us that God loves us so much God made God’s own self accessible.  The holy God of the universe reduced himself so that humans could not just approach but embrace, eat with, laugh with, and cry on his shoulder. 

          Now, we get blinded by our pain, or the business and stress of life becomes all we see, or the bad things that go on like police officers being killed, like wars, and numerous other problems become obstacles – all of it obstructs our view of God.  We forget about God to the point that we think God is gone and we’re on our own.  God isn’t gone.  But He’s out of our view.  And we aren’t living in Jerusalem any more, in that place of being at peace in God’s presence. 

It is then that we “remind” God of who He is – our Savior.  In this reminder, we also reiterate what God does – saves us from lives of meaninglessness and pain.  He gives us abundant life.  Isaiah tells the sentinels to give God no rest, but to continue to pray day and night.  Our job, in the depths of our depression, is to pray day and night, reaching out to God constantly until we have received His blessing.

We also do this on behalf of others.  A part of our spreading out as New Testament people is we look around and see who is hurting.  We reach to them with whatever help is needed – comfort, friendship, hospitality, etc.  At the same time, we reach to God on their behalf.  In their pain, they cannot see that God is as easily touched as a new born baby’s cheek is stroked.  We reach to God for them that He might reveal himself to them that they would see His salvation.

In here excellent message this past Sunday, Heather made this point.  She said even though Christmas falls at the end of the calendar year, it is the beginning of the lectionary year.  Christmas is the beginning of the story.

At the cross, Jesus pays the ultimate price for sin.  That is a dramatic, one-time event.  That is the story for the ages.  Christmas is the opening chapter in that story.  Our Christmas salvation is the arrival of God in a way that we can see every day.  It is the promise that God is not just saving for Heaven after we’ve trudged through the miseries of earthly life.  God is trudging through the miseries with us. 

God helps us host the 7 elementary school and we need that help when we do that having just gotten over a week of sickness.  God helps those Syrian believer find joy even if their Christmas is in a refugee camp.  Because He is with them, it can still be a celebration.  God helps the lonely person for whom Christmas seems terrifying.  It can have happiness too, because God brings that.  God is in everything with us.  God is in the Bethlehem barn and thus the Bethlehem barn becomes that place where God is at home and one can have peace with Him. 

Wherever we are, we find that we can have “Immanuel,” God with us.  That is our Christmas salvation.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jennywarner/2012/12/why-an-incarnation/