Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 - A Time To...

There is a saying, you could even maybe call it a proverb, that says that the reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. Sometimes, when you look back at certain times in your life it feels that everything is happening at once. Other times, you may look and wonder if anything is really happening in your life at all.

Christmas Day was one of those times where it seemed everything was happening at once. We were trying to celebrate Christmas, we had our 7am Christmas service at the church, Lisa’s parents were arriving in the evening, and Bronte chose this day and this time to come down with her first stomach flu. It was not pretty, and it was not great timing at all. We had about three or four Christmas themed outfits that we kept changing her into after she vomited on the one before. It took us a while to figure out that we were dealing with more than a little spit-up. We would put her in an outfit and we’d head back under the tree to play with presents with her and next thing we knew, we’d need to find another outfit for her. I guess the reason we didn’t catch on right away was that Bronte wasn’t acting sick at all, she was her usual, cheery, smiley self so we figured she couldn’t really be sick. She didn’t begin to act sick until the next morning.

I ended up spending a chunk of the afternoon on Christmas Day driving around Storm Lake looking for something that might be open so that I could get some Pedialyte, a water with electrolytes in it, basically Gatorade for babies, which the Emergency Room nurse suggested we feed her. Of course, since it was Christmas Day, nothing at all was open and so I eventually found myself at the Emergency Room begging them for some Pedialyte to get us through the night. They were very gracious and did that very thing for us, truly saving us from having to bring Bronte to the hospital to keep her from dehydrating.

Bronte’s first sickness was not exactly fun for us and it clearly wasn’t fun for her, but it wasn’t a horrible crisis either. We are thankful that things weren’t any worse. But the whole experience reminded me how time works. It reminded me that we can have the best laid plans and be all set up to do what it is that we are planning to do, and then something will happen that will change everything. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that there are different times in our lives, different seasons. It tells us there are times to love, celebrate, plant, heal, dance and mend. But there are also times to hate, die, mourn, weep, tear down and even (though it doesn’t say it in these words) be sick.

We are in the middle of the Christmas Season. We are celebrating the incarnation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus. And we are also celebrating the turning of the year: the ending of 2007 and the beginning of 2008. What season are you in? And what are you going to do with the season that you are in? We can learn from the author of Ecclesiastes, that we can accept the season we are living through and find ways to thrive in it, for everything that God puts before us, no matter how difficult and trying it may be, is there to strengthen us and help us through.

I. The Problem with Prosperity Gospel

I must admit that I continue to struggle with people who say that if you are a Christian, then nothing bad will ever happen to you. This message, which is quite vocally preached in some Christian circles, tells us that we are called to live victoriously as Christians and therefore if there are any problems in our lives, we are doing something wrong with our faith. This message comes from an understanding of the faith that I’m not terribly crazy about. It looks at our faith as something that is about receiving from God instead of truly being a relationship with God. If faith is only about receiving blessings from God, then it becomes an issue of asking God, “What have you done for me recently?” And this is not one of the questions I believe that we should be asking God.

I don’t think much of this prosperity gospel because it doesn’t line up with the faith that I have found in my life. It doesn’t line up with the God I know and it doesn’t line up with scripture either. The fact is that our lives have seasons. They have times of plenty and times of want. They have times where things seem to be going well and they have times where you wonder if God is really with you. And this is captured so beautifully in Ecclesiastes 3.

There is something terribly poetic about Ecclesiastes 3: the contrasts between the good times and the bad; the juxtaposition of the two is just beautiful. I truly wish some of the bad things weren’t in the list. Many people wish there wasn’t a time for weeping or mourning in the list. But I wish there was never a time for war. I wish there was never a time to hate. But this is a part of the world we live in. It is a part of what we experience in the world. And just by listing it out, Ecclesiastes allows us to find meaning in the difficult times as well as the joyous ones. Without war could we truly appreciate peace? Without mourning could we know the joys of dancing?

When we accept that all of this is a part of the world we live in we can find strength through it all to help us move forward in the difficult times and help us to remember God in the good times. I’ve said before that it seems to me that when everything is going well, when you are in the times of joy and dancing and laughter, you sometimes forget about God. You begin to rely on yourself a bit too much. You begin to believe that all your fortunes are of your own making.

II. The Dark Night of the Soul

But sometimes we have the opposite happen. Sometimes we go through a long time of mourning. Sometimes we look around and we wonder if peace will ever come again. These times are an important part of the world we live in. I would even go as far as to say that they are an important part of the Christian life. Some Christians have even come up with a name for these difficult times. St. John of the Cross, a 16^th century priest referred to the difficult time as the dark night of the soul. The term has stuck and it is still talked about in those terms today. For St. John of the Cross, the dark night of the soul is a time where God seems distant, where problems seem overwhelming, where questions seem abundant, where faith is difficult. St. John of the Cross spoke of the dark night of the soul as a time where prayer became difficult and God seemed unrelatable. But he also believed that in the midst of the crisis of faith there was blessing. He believed that instead of just being a test of faith, the dark night was a time for the faith to grow and prosper and become even deeper.

If you spend time praying when praying seems impossible, if you cast your cares upon God when God seems unrelatable, if you allow yourself to surrender to a God who you aren’t sure you believe in, then you will find strength and growth. And when God reveals himself to you once again you will find yourself on even more sure footing.

This concept of the dark night of the soul has been translated to a modern context in the overly pithy poem “Footprints in the Sand”. The poem talks about a person complaining because they looked at their life and saw two sets of footprints in the sand, one set for themselves and one for Jesus, who was walking beside them. But at the difficult times in their lives, they would only see one set of footprints. The author of the poem asked why Jesus abandoned him during those difficult times. And of course, Jesus responds by saying that he didn’t abandon in the times of trial. Rather, the reason you only see one set of footprints is that Jesus was carrying him through the difficult times.

III. What do we do

But Ecclesiastes 3 doesn’t just spend time focusing on the juxtaposition between good things and bad things happening in their seasons. It comes up with an understanding of the world that at first seems somewhat depressing or maybe just pragmatic. Ecclesiastes as a book talks about the fact that there is so much that we just don’t have control over, it is better for us just to live our lives to the best of our ability and let God sort it out. Ecclesiastes seems to be telling us that if we’re searching for meaning to our lives. If we’re searching for understanding or greater purpose, we may just find ourselves disappointed.

But I’m not sure that the book is trying to actually be depressing as it asks this question. I think that it might actually be a good question to ask, and the answer that is found in chapter 3, if you really let it sink in is quite powerful. It begins at verse 12: “I know that there is nothing better for us than to be happy and do good while we live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.”

Sometimes I think we are looking for a little too much from God, from our faith, from our lives. We sometimes think that we are all destined to some sort of greatness. And we are, but the true greatness that we receive doesn’t happen here on this earth. It happens when life on this earth is over and we are in eternity. What we have to look forward to in this world is that we can eat, drink, and find satisfaction in the work that we do. Ecclesiastes tells us that this is a gift from God. Are we willing to accept that gift? Are we willing to take it and find meaning, find purpose in it? Do we find satisfaction in what we do? Are we finding ways to experience joy in our lives and do good? This is what we are called to each and every season of our lives. And if we live this out, we will find joy and strength in the good times and the bad: when Bronte is vomiting up on Christmas Day as well as when she’s being her sweet, good-natured, normal self; when we find ourselves in times of mourning as well as when we find ourselves in times of laughter.

God does have a plan for you. He does have a purpose for your life. Know this, accept it, believe it. And find joy and happiness in your life, it isn’t worth spending too much time on the negative. And if you cannot find happiness right now, be about doing good, for if you seek out ways to do good, the happiness will come. And God will be with you, even if it doesn’t seem like it. And he promises a great eternity ahead. But for today, for this life, do as the author of Ecclesiastes recommends: eat, drink and do things that bring you satisfaction. This is truly a gift from God. Amen.

Luke 2 (Christmas Morning) - Mary: Woman of Contemplation

I. Making Sense of It All

When you are working your way through life, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to you. Things happen in a way where you just cannot see God working through it. But then, when you look back at what happened, you begin to make sense of it and you can clearly see God’s hand in it.

I finished my studies at North Park Seminary in 2001. I was looking for a place to do my internship and not having much luck. I was wondering what God’s plan was for me. I had a couple interviews with churches to see if I could intern there and have the internship turn into full-time ministry. But none of these things worked out. Then I fell into a full time job working with developmentally disabled adults in Chicago and worked out a part-time internship at the church I was attending, one that I didn’t get paid for. It seemed that my plans for my life were being put on hold. It seemed like things weren’t going where I wanted to see them go. I wondered how God was working his plan for my life, or perhaps, if I were on my own. Now, looking back, it is easy to see God at work in my two extra years in Chicago. My work with the developmentally disabled adults was a real blessing to me, and my internship was a great experience. And when my internship was done and I could graduate, I was called here to minister in Albert City.

I wonder this Christmas morning if Mary had a similar experience. She had been told by God that her son would be the Son of God. She had been told that he would be the Messiah, whom the people of Israel had been waiting for for centuries. And then she found herself traveling to a distant town, away from home and family right around when she was due. When she got there there was no place for her to give birth and so she ended up in a stable, surrounded by animals, laying her newborn son, the future king of Israel, in a cattle trough.

I wonder what she thought of this turn of events. You see, we know the Christmas story so well, we hear it year after year and it is a part of the fabric of our celebration of the holiday. But for Mary it was all new. She didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t know what was to come. And things sure didn’t seem to be going the way that she would have expected.

And then a group of dirty shepherds show up and tell her that angels appeared to them. Wow, maybe God is at work after all, even though what he is doing doesn’t seem to make sense. And later on, maybe even a year later, magi from the east show up with gold, incense and myrrh. Maybe Jesus actually will be king. But then Mary and her family have to flee to Egypt to protect Jesus from being killed. Life doesn’t go as we plan it, does it?

II. Pondering

There is a recurring phrase, though, throughout Luke’s telling of the Christmas story and Jesus’ childhood. The recurring phrase is that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

Mary knew there was something special about her son. She knew Jesus was going on to special things. And so everything that she saw that was unusual, everything that didn’t really make sense to her, she remembered and thought about. And then, looking back at these things later, understanding them in context with each other, she was able to make sense of God’s plan through Jesus. This is the life of contemplation. This is what is valuable about spending time thinking on the things of God. Contemplation, thinking on the things of God, allows us to catch a glimpse of God truly working in this world. It is not enough, I believe, to go about doing the things of God. It is not enough, I believe, to just trust that God is working in the events around your life and so then just go about your life expecting to never understand what is going on. No, God wants us to think on the things that he is doing. He wants us to spend time seeking out his will and focusing on what it is that he is doing for and through us. The book Experiencing God, which one of our adult Bible studies on Sunday mornings is studying, talks about it this way, find out what it is that God is doing in the world, and then get involved in that. And the way to see what God is doing in the world is to do what Mary did. Treasure up the things you see going on. Study the work of God. Learn from it and watch as God makes sense of the world to you. This is what Mary did as she watched God work in unusual and unique ways with Jesus.

III. God’s Plan

But what was God’s plan? Why did Jesus come as a poor baby? Why did Jesus come to die a criminal’s death at a much too young age of thirty-three? It doesn’t make terribly much sense.

Lisa and I had our own nativity about nine months ago. We didn’t have to travel a terribly long distance, though we did have to drive through the fog in the middle of the night. And we didn’t have to go to a stable to give birth, instead of a stable, we had a wonderful maternity ward at the Storm Lake hospital. Seeing the difference between what we experienced and what Jesus experienced in his birth reminds me of how great God’s sacrifice was in sending his Son as a baby. Babies are about as helpless as you can possibly be. When Jesus was born about the only thing he could do was cry. God chose to send his Son in a way where he would be totally and completely reliant upon Mary and Joseph. And he allowed him to be born in a cattle shed. And we see a little later, when Jesus was dedicated in the temple when he was 40 days old, that Mary and Joseph give the offering that the poor would give. Mary and Joseph were not people of means. They were truly poor. This is the way that God chose to enter the world. It really doesn’t make much sense.

But, again and again, after experiencing something that just didn’t make sense in any way, God would do something that would show Mary that he was really at work in Jesus’ life. The birth in a stable didn’t make sense for God’s Son, but the angel-song and the magi showed that God was truly at work. Jesus’ death didn’t make much sense but his resurrection showed that God was at work.

This Christmas morning I want to encourage you to spend some time looking at the way that God has worked in your life. Things may not make sense for you; they may seem to go against what your plans for your life were. But God is at work. He is doing great things, even today. So I encourage you to follow Mary’s example and treasure up the things of God in your heart and ponder them. See what God is doing and get behind it. Study the ways of God and see how it is that he is working in and through you. Let this contemplation of God allow you to see him at work even in the most confusing things. God could just surprise you with shepherds, with magi, with a prophetess speaking words of wisdom to you, or even with resurrection when all you can see is death. Amen.

Christmas Eve "Angelsong"

Can you imagine what it must have been like for those shepherds watching their flocks by night? Yes, we all know the story… we hear it each Christmas and, perhaps, it catches our imagination. We know to expect stables and mangers and angels singing in the night and magi or wise men and stars from the east, but imagine being there for a moment, without knowing what is to come, without the fairytale magic that the Christmas story exudes. Instead, imagine being a normal, working stiff, out watching over sheep at night… remember sheep are not the most fun animals to watch over… they’re incredibly stupid and wont to wander off in some strange direction. But there the shepherds are, an ordinary night unlike any other. There was nothing magical about their lives.

And yet, something amazing was about to happen to them… something that would not only change their lives but change the course of the world forever more. I often wonder if they possibly sensed it coming. I don’t think so. So often drastic changes can happen in our lives without any foreknowledge. There are big events in our lives that we plan for and that we prepare for and then there are big events in our lives that truly just happen to us. In all honesty, the ones that just happen to us are often bad things in our lives: a car accident, a medical problem, a loss of a job. Often it is the good life changing events that we plan for: a wedding, a vacation, the birth of a baby. But there are wonderful things that can change our lives if we only pay attention and let them… things like the arrival of the angels for the shepherds.

I wonder what the shepherds were doing or thinking on that night… perhaps they were sleeping… perhaps one of them had had a really bad day. But the angels came and changed everything in just a moment. And their lives did change in a powerful way, even though they might not have realized it instantly.

The shepherds had choices as to how to respond to this sudden change in their lives, this sudden visit by the angel telling them of good news of great joy. They could have contemplated it, they could have gone back to sleep knowing that the world was just a little better now, or they could even have ignored it completely. Instead they talked among themselves and decided to go see this thing that had been described to them. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it really is a center of the shepherds’ story. I wonder how often it is that we miss those miracles of God happening in our lives suddenly because we are too busy with what we are doing to really pay attention.

A lot happened to the shepherds that night that Jesus was born. An angel appeared to them bringing them tidings of Jesus’ birth, they then saw the hosts of heaven partying in the sky and singing praises. Later on they saw Jesus in a manger, exactly as the angel had described and we are told that they returned to their fields telling everybody they came in contact with what it is that they had seen. But the one choice they had in this whole thing was that they had to decide whether to follow up on this good news of great joy that they had heard. And this is the place where I think we don’t always follow through ourselves. I think that sometimes we find ourselves too busy with our lives to really let the miracles of God happen to us. We are running around, trying to get everything done, we are spending all our time and energy just trying to make do with what is going on in our lives. And because of this we miss the good news that God has for us, we miss the opportunity to experience the miracles that God has lined up for our lives.

I believe I’ve mentioned before that my piano teacher growing up belonged to a group that believed that angels sang each Christmas Eve to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. I’m not sure where this belief came from, as it really doesn’t make much sense to me… but the attitude that it brings is a wonderful one. You see, each Christmas, he would make a point of listening to the world around him, trying to hear angel song in the sounds that he heard. As he heard dogs barking in the background or the wind blowing through the trees, he would listen for harmony, he would listen to hear music. He was paying attention to the world around him, he was living in a way that expected God to do something powerful, something miraculous.

I don’t know if he ever heard angels sing. But I know that while he was doing this he was preparing himself to hear God in a powerful way. And if one of those miraculous works of God did happen, I’m sure he would have been one to hear it and to respond.

I remember paying attention very closely to the world around me on Christmas Eves as well. Growing up, we would regularly go to an evening service like what we are at tonight and as we drove home after worship my eyes would be scanning the sky, looking for a flying sleigh with reindeer pulling it. So, I wasn’t exactly listening for angel song, but I guess it’s a start.

But, what about you, are you living in such a way that if God started sharing his good news with you, you’d hear it? I’m not just talking about listening for angel song on Christmas; I’m talking about really listening to hear God speak in your life. I’m talking about allowing yourself to expect God to break into this world in a powerful and magical way.

I don’t know why, but it seems that it is a little easier to believe in this possibility at Christmastime. Perhaps it is the romanticism that Christmas brings. Perhaps it is the way that Christmas brings us back to our own childhood. Perhaps it is the traditions we keep. But at Christmas I find it easier to believe in miracles. At Christmas I find it easier to believe that God can work in real ways. At Christmas I find it easier to believe that God is with me. If he was with Mary and Joseph in Jesus, if he was with the shepherds as they heard the angels sing, if he was with the magi as they followed the star to Jerusalem, then Bethlehem, then perhaps he will be with me as well.

And the truth is that that is precisely what Christmas is about: God with us. The miracle of Christmas is that God was incarnate, that God was made man, that God lived among us as one of us. God was with Mary and Joseph in a powerful way on that first Christmas morning. It wasn’t some strange, nebulous, feel-good way that he was present. He was physically present to them as a newborn babe, wrapped in swaddling cloths and laying in a manger.

This is the good new that the angels sang about. This was such good news that they couldn’t contain themselves and they appeared in the night sky praising God in song in front of a group of shepherds.

So, can you imagine what it must have been like for those shepherds? Can you imagine seeing what it is they saw? What would you do if you had the opportunity to experience what it is that they experienced? Hopefully you would truly allow yourself to be changed by what it is that you saw. Hopefully you would find great joy in knowing the truth that God is with you in a real, palpable way. Amen.

Luke 2:21-40 "Waiting"

There is something about Christmas when you are a child. Those weeks and days and hours leading up to Christmas morning just seem to go on forever. You just cannot wait to open the presents you see under the tree, but you know you have to wait. I remember a couple Christmases where the night before seemed to go on forever. We stayed up for the 11pm church service, then we came home and went to bed. And then I sat in bed and waited and waited and waited until morning. It seemed to take forever for it to come. My parents learned that those last days before Christmas were so hard for me and my sister so they came up with a great solution for our family. They figured they’d wear us out completely so we’d have to sleep well on Christmas Eve. We would go snow-skiing on Christmas Eve. We would drive up to the mountain and spend the day skiing. This would be great because we would also have the opportunity for a white Christmas this way, something I never really grew up with. We would then come home, have dinner, change and go to church. By the time we got home from church we would be exhausted and would sleep right through the night, but then we’d still wake up early on Christmas morning to open presents.

Sometimes the secret to making waiting bearable is keeping busy. And then, sometimes, when we spend all our energy and focus waiting for something to happen, it becomes a bit of a let-down when it does finally happen. We let ourselves get so excited and wonder what is in each box for us, and then when it’s all over it doesn’t even come close to living up to what we were expecting. The presents are opened and the boxes are empty and we are bored because we are all done opening gifts and don’t know what to do with ourselves next.

Simeon and Anna joined all of Israel in waiting for the coming Messiah. And much of Israel was under whelmed when Jesus did come, but not Simeon or Anna. For they had been faithful to God and knew God well, and they recognized Jesus for what he was: the Savior and Messiah who would save all of God’s people.

Today’s scripture tells of two people who have spent their lives waiting: Simeon and Anna. They were both faithful in their lives. Simeon is described as righteous and devout, Anna is described as a prophet. Both of them were elderly. Anna had been widowed for 84 years and married for seven before that. That puts her over 100 years old. They both had experienced full lives with joys and sorrows. And they both followed where the Holy Spirit led them.

Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he saw the Messiah. This is quite something. To be told that you would meet the Messiah sometime in your life, but not to know what to expect would be an odd thing. I wonder what Simeon’s expectations were. I wonder what happened each year as it passed and he did not meet the Messiah. And then one day, probably while he was praying, the Spirit came to him and told him to go to the temple. Did he know he was looking for a child? Did he first look among the rich and wealthy? Or did he zero right in on Jesus? We don’t exactly get the story from his perspective. Instead we are told that he took Jesus in his arms and praised God and prayed. He told God that his life was now complete because he has seen Jesus, the Messiah. He did not get to experience anything that God did through Jesus. He did not even have to wait to see Jesus grow up and begin to speak with wisdom. He had seen Jesus and he was complete. Now this is faith, and it is so different than what Jesus has to deal with when he gets older. Simeon doesn’t question how Jesus is going to be the savior. Simeon doesn’t try to figure everything out. Instead he holds this baby with so much potential and he thanks God for the opportunity to see him.

What are the things that we are waiting for? You have to be a little careful with waiting, because it leads to the possibility that you are too busy waiting to actually experience life. When you spend all your time waiting for the future you end up missing out on the present.

I actually wonder if this is a problem that we sometimes have as Christians. Perhaps we are a bit too much like children waiting for Christmas morning and because of this we let the wonder of what God is doing right now pass us right by. Sometimes we are spending too much time waiting for Christ to come again and therefore are not doing anything that might help our neighbors. When we have it in our heads that Christ is going to return and destroy this world and then create a new heaven and new earth (which Christ does promise to do), we perhaps don’t do everything that we can to take care of this earth around us. When we decide that poverty and pain are going to end when Jesus comes, so we don’t need to do anything today to help them, we are letting the waiting have a bit too much control in our lives. It is very clear throughout scripture that Christ is going to come again. But it is also very clear that we are given a responsibility as his church, as his body, to care for the world around us. We are given stewardship over the land and the animals. We are given the responsibility to care for the people around us who need care, particularly those who are not able to care for themselves… the least of these. This means Christian and non-Christian alike. That’s right, when Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he is including our non-Christian neighbors as well as our Christian ones. So as we wait, what are we doing as God’s people to make this world a better place? How are we changing this world more into what God wants it to be?

So it is dangerous just to sit and wait and forget about the present. But we are still called to wait on the Lord. We are still called to live lives of patience that allow us to see God working. And so, again, I ask, what is it that you are waiting for? Is there something that you are waiting for God to do? Is there something that you are anxious to see, to participate in? Simeon was waiting for the Messiah to come? It’s a pretty big deal that he waited for. And he was one of many who were waiting for that… but he got to see it in a special way because he allowed the Holy Spirit to guide him. We are waiting for the Messiah to return. But we have no promise that he will do so in our lifetime. So we wait for other things, things that are more personal; things that affect us individually. And we trust that God can make these things happen, and we therefore know that these things are worth waiting for. With God’s promises, we aren’t going to be disappointed like we are after Christmas. God’s promises are well worth the wait, they are exciting and when they come about they end up being much greater than what was expected. Look at Jesus. Israel was waiting for a Messiah. They were waiting for someone to come in and save their nation from their enemies and bring a bit of peace to their land. What they were waiting for had nothing to do with their souls, it had nothing to do with eternal life. They just thought they were waiting for a king who would deliver them from Rome. But God did them one better. God sent Jesus who did save his people, but much more than they even thought they needed to be saved. Jesus came to save their souls, Jesus came to rescue them from sin. Jesus came to bring eternal salvation, to put his people back in right relationship with God. And Jesus didn’t just come for the people of Israel, he came for all people who are willing to accept him as their Lord. Wow! Talk about exceeding expectations. But for Simeon it wasn’t important to know all this. All he needed to know is that God was working in the world in a special way through Jesus. He had seen Jesus, the Word made flesh, God with us, and this was enough for him. He knew that God would keep his promise to work through Jesus and he was ready to go home to be with God. But first, he blessed the family; Mary, Joseph and the baby. But his blessing didn’t sound so very great. Let’s hear it: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” What a blessing. Maybe I should end our services by wishing that a sword pierce your soul. “May the Lord bless you and keep you, may a sword pierce your soul.” Then again, maybe not. But then, this is what it means to wait on God’s promises. Our souls will be pierced when we see the pain in the world around us. Our souls will be pierced when God answers our prayers in ways that we don’t necessarily expect. And our souls are pierced when we realize the sacrifice that Jesus made for each of us on the cross.

Has your soul been pierced with the sword? Have you experienced the joy that comes with knowing, trusting and following Jesus? Have you experienced the pain that comes with knowing that you are not all that God would like you to be?

Today we are beginning a new year. It is 2006. There is something somewhat arbitrary about the way we keep time. This is especially true when we realize that they didn’t even get the year of Jesus’ birth right and therefore Jesus was born four to seven years before Christ. It’s even weirder as we had a leap second last night, adding one second to time to get everything lined up properly. I hear this is because the world is slowing down about a second every seven or eight years.

But no matter how arbitrary it is, the New Year is a time where we often look back on what has gone before in our lives and we look forward to what is to come. The year before has ended and now we are starting again. This celebration of the New Year is much like what Jesus promises us. He promises that when we turn to him the old man dies and the new man is born. We can cast away those parts of our lives where we are not following God properly. We can confess our sins to God and put them behind us. God allows us to start afresh. God promises that he will be with us. God tells us that we don’t need to wait for him to come again because he is already here with us, in our lives, in our hearts. Are you ready to put God first this year? You’ve started on the right track by coming to church on the first day of the new year, you are beginning your new year with Christ. Are you going to stay faithful to him throughout the year? Are you going to continue to put him first?

I’m not talking about having a New Year’s Resolution to be a better Christian. What I am talking about is using this New Year as an opportunity to acknowledge that God has made a real difference in your life. And you can spend 2006 as a new creation in Christ. This means you can live a life of service and a life of hope. This means you can follow where God leads you. This means you can work to be a light in the world, shining Jesus to all you come in contact with. This means that being a Christian isn’t just you coming to church, but rather seriously putting Christ first in all you do. Anna, the prophetess seemed to hang out at the Temple in Jerusalem pretty regularly. Simeon was a different story. He went where the Holy Spirit guided him. Let us be like Simeon this coming year.

Let us listen and hear where it is that the Holy Spirit has for us to go, and then we will find ourselves in situations where God can use us to do great things. Then God will be able to speak through us, then God will be able to work through us. We will be God’s hands and feet and the world we live in will never be the same. It is exciting when you let God work through you and you are able to see him do things through you that you didn’t know you were able to do. The truth is that we probably don’t see that happen enough. This isn’t because God doesn’t want to work through us, it is most likely because we aren’t letting him. So let’s make this a year where we do let him work in our lives and make a difference in this world through us. Let’s make this a year where we listen and hear the Holy Spirit in our lives. And Let this be a year where we follow where that Holy Spirit sends us. Amen.

“On Christmas Day"

Among the many Christmas carols that are sung through the holiday season, there are a few that just do not make sense to me. First, there is the French tune, Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella. This carol was introduced to me, when we sang it in college, in French, and I wondered what in the world it was about. I’ve read through the Christmas story many a time and have yet to come across anyone named Jeanette or Isabella that is involved in the birth of Christ. Furthermore, I’m having a hard time understanding what good a torch is. Normally when I think of torches I think of angry villagers chasing someone out of town. But this song is one of many that are taken from local legends in different cultures that try to expand on the Christmas story, to make it more human, more relevant. The Little Drummer Boy is another one of these. Jeanette and Isabella are the legendary daughters of the innkeeper who gives Mary and Joseph the stable to stay in. The legend tells of them running back and forth between the inn and the stable and making sure that Mary and then the baby Jesus get everything they need.

We Three Kings is another carol that causes difficulty when compared to the Biblical story. This is so much so that when the Covenant Church put together their last hymnal, they consciously left it out. I like to point out that all the problems in the song are there in the title. There weren’t necessarily three of them, and they weren’t kings. Once you get past this, though, the song is quite wonderful. Perhaps we should sing it “We Magi of Orient are”.

But the one song that takes the cake for me is the simple Christmas tune, I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In. This one makes absolutely no sense to me at all. In the song we hear about three ships that come sailing into Bethlehem on Christmas Day, in the morning, with the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus on board. It all sounds great, but the problem is that Bethlehem is not exactly the kind of town that had a place where ships could come since it is on the side of a hill, quite a ways away from any bodies of water. But it’s still a great song.

The fact is that we have a number of Christmas traditions that really have nothing to do with the center of what Christmas is really all about. We have things that we have grown up with. We have things that we are used to. We have an understanding of Christmas that sometimes keeps us from experiencing Christmas to its fullest. Between our trees and our presents and our listening for Santa to land on our roofs, we sometimes let the hype keep us from the Christ.

Christmas is, quite simply, about a Savior being born. It is about God keeping a promise to his people in an unusual and unexpected way. God could have sent the Savior with all the bells and whistles, but instead he chose to use the subtle approach. With Christmas we remember that God sent his promised Son, but not as a king as was expected, but as the son to a refugee couple who didn’t even have a place to stay. The Word became flesh. God became man. The divine was wrapped up in swaddling clothes. And when this world-changing event happened, it was so great that angels appeared in the hills to sing about it and praise God. But kings were not gathered and told about it. Ships were not sent to guard Jesus. And no palace was prepared for the newborn king. Instead the angels shared this great news with a group of sheep herders out in the fields, men who were known for their tall tales and their lack of trustworthiness. And then God showed the truth to a group of astrologers and magi from the east, when they opened scripture to see where the Messiah was to be born. And after they came to worship this king which they found in such an unusual setting, God warned them in a dream to keep what they had seen a secret. Again, not the normal way a king is born. Jesus was born in secrecy and early in his life, his family had to flee to Egypt to protect his life.

The Christmas story, as so much of Jesus’ life is, is a story of contradictions. And yet, it is worth celebrating with our traditions and customs. It is worth gathering together with family and friends. It is worth exchanging gifts with our friends and loved ones and singing Christmas carols that don’t totally make sense. For the gifts remind us of the center of Jesus’ ministry and teaching. Jesus was very focused on your care for those around you. Jesus wanted us to show that we love God by loving our neighbors. Jesus told us that what we do for the least of these we do for him. This makes sense because as we see in the Christmas story, Jesus spent time being the least of these, there wasn’t even a real bed for him to spend his first night in, instead he had to sleep in a feeding trough in a barn. But this is also the center of what we are doing when we exchange gifts. We are sharing our love for each other, we are living outside ourselves and remembering how we love those who are close to us.

And the Christmas songs, though they don’t always get everything right, do teach us about the truths of Christmas in a powerful way. When we sing We Three Kings we think of the journey these magi go on, traveling long distances to worship the newborn Messiah. And we realize that we are called to journey to Christ as well. It is in the Christmas songs that we focus on Jesus as Emmanuel. This is such an important name for Jesus, for it means God with us. Christmas is the celebration of God becoming one of us. Christmas is the celebration of God being with his creation, with his people, in a way that he never was before. And when we think of that name, Emmanuel, we realize that it doesn’t only refer to something that happened when Jesus was born. It is referring to God’s interaction with us today. For God is still with us in a very real way. Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birth. But Jesus has been born in each of us. When we realize God’s love for us and when we confess our sins and ask him into our lives, he is born in our hearts, and we are reborn. And this is also worth celebrating at Christmas: Jesus born in our hearts; Jesus alive in our lives.

And then there’s that weird song that has Jesus and his mother arriving in Bethlehem on Christmas Day. It has Jesus arriving on three ships, and we wonder what in the world it has to teach us about Christmas, and we wonder how in the world it actually connects to the Christmas story. There are no ships in the Christmas story and it seems that Mary and Joseph (who isn’t even in the song) arrived in Bethlehem before Jesus was born, and Jesus was born while they were staying in Bethlehem. And you wonder whether we should just shove this song out of the collection totally and pretend it doesn’t exist because it has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas.

But the song written in a port town of England a few hundred years ago actually does have something to say to us. It reminds us that when we celebrate Jesus’ birth, we are not just celebrating what happened in Bethlehem. Christmas is about Christ coming to this world. Christmas is about God being with us. We didn’t need to be one of the shepherds watching their sheep to know Christ with us. We didn’t need to be the Magi traveling from far lands to present gifts to our Messiah. We didn’t need to be the animals in the stable to experience Christ in our lives. Jesus is there for us today. He is on three ships for those who live on the sea. He is in the barn for those who live on a farm. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. He is with us if we only ask him to be.

This Christmas, as you spend time with your family and celebrate Jesus’ birth; remember that Christmas is about God being with us wherever we are and in whatever we face. Jesus was born in a stable about 2010 years ago. He was born in your heart when you asked him in. And he lives with us and cares for us no matter what. And this Christmas Day let us remember the joy that comes with knowing that God is with us, and God will continue to be with us. Amen.

Out Of Egypt - Matthew 2:13-23

I want to begin by having you listen to the beginning of a song by Rich Mullins. It is a song that talks about Jesus’ humanity, comparing it to the humanity that we live with each and every day.

You was a baby like I was once, You was cryin’ in the early mornin’

You was born in a stable Lord, Reid Memorial is where I was born

They wrapped ;you in swaddling clothes, me they dressed in baby blue

I was twelve years old in the meeting house, listening to the old men pray

I was tryin’ hard to figure out what it was that they was tryin’ to say

There you were in the temple, they said You weren’t old enough

To know the things You knew

Did you grow up hungry, did you grow up fast?

Did the little girls giggle when you walked past?

Did you wonder what it was that made them laugh?

Did they tell you stories about the saints of old? Stories about their faith?

They say stories like that make a boy grow bold,

stories like that make a man walk straight

You was a boy like I was once, but was you a boy like me

I grew up around Indiana, You grew up around Galilee

And if I ever really do grow up, Lord I want to grow up and be just like You

It’s kinda hard to imagine that the God we serve spent time here on this earth, living the same life that we live. It’s easy to let the time and culture get in the way of the fact that Jesus grew up in much the same way that we grew up. He experienced the things that we experience. All the mundane things that we take for granted, that make this life special… Jesus experienced these things. As the song asks, “what did Jesus do when he scraped his knee?”

I. Horror and Terror

I’m sorry I have to say this, I’m sorry to ruin your day, but Christmas is not yet over. I know you’re sick of the music and the trees cannot handle it much longer, but Christmas has just begun. Yes, the store are tearing down their Christmas decorations as we speak and massively discounting their Christmas merchandise. The radio stations have thrown out all their Christmas music until next Thanksgiving. But Christmas is not over. Christmas is the beginning of the celebration of God with us. It is the beginning of the celebration of the Divine becoming human. It is the celebration of the incarnation. And that incarnation began with Jesus as a baby, but it continued with Jesus growing, living as a child, working as a carpenter, and then beginning a life of ministry at about age 30. The incarnation doesn’t end there, but we see God work very actively in the world as Jesus tells stories and brings healing to those around him, as Jesus teaches and shares God’s truth with his disciples. And the incarnation is seen at its greatest and most humble when Jesus offers up his life on the cross for the sins of the world. So Christmas, the celebration of the incarnation, is not yet over… it has just begun. But that doesn’t mean that the joy of Christmastime, as we celebrate together and open presents and spend time with family will constantly be there. For the Christmas story is not only filled with joy and love, it also finds hatred and pain in it.

One of the most joyful events in the Bible, the birth of Christ, is followed by one of the most horrible, one which we tend to ignore and gloss over. Jesus is born, God becomes man, and the sinful world just cannot handle it. And so we find ourselves with a horrible event at Jesus’ birth as children around Bethlehem are all slaughtered by Herod to keep a baby from becoming a king. What a horrible thing to see happen at the birth of the Christ. Now legend says that 1000 boys were killed by Herod at this time, but we know that it was probably much less. But Herod is known for killing even his own children to protect his place as king, so however many were killed, Herod was willing.

No matter how many were killed, though, we know it was a horrible event. And one that I believe shows how evil our world can be. It shows that good is repaid in this world by evil. It shows that power and greed again and again fight against love and peace.

This is the very kind of thing that feeds that part of each of us, and of me personally, that likes to be a cynic. It meets our lowered expectations. Of course, the earthly ruler is going to feel threatened by our heavenly king. Of course, the good of Jesus’ birth is going to be followed by the bad of the death of children throughout the countryside. This is what we’ve come to expect. Let’s face it, it’s what we deserve.

But that is not the case. And don’t let your inner cynic have too much control here. For cynicism is what made the Pharisees and Sadducees and temple leaders into what they were. They came to expect the worst from people and therefore didn’t open up to sinners. They assumed that evil would constantly contaminate the good, so they avoided everyone who they feared might be evil. They avoided being contaminated. They didn’t rely on God to deliver them from evil, they felt they needed to do it themselves.

They understood sin and evil much the same way that we do. They avoided it because they were afraid that it might contaminate them. They stayed away from sinners because they were afraid that the sinners might make them into sinners. But Jesus knew something that they didn’t know. Yes, evil is contagious. It spreads in a horrible way… but good is contagious also. And so, in Jesus’ ministry he was not afraid of evil because he knew that the good that came from God would contaminate the evil. And so we have prostitutes who give up their lives of prostitution and follow him. We have tax collectors who give up their thieving ways and follow him. We have sick people who are freed from their sickness and know health once again. Instead of being afraid of catching what the sick have, Jesus gives them a chance to catch what it is that he has. Evil cannot contaminate good the same way that good contaminates evil. Good can come in and take a horrible situation and make it glorious. And you don’t need to worry about evil getting the best of you because God protects his own. God protected Jesus. God protected Joseph and Mary. God made sure that they got out of there before harm came to them.

II. Into Egypt

And so, Jesus at the youngest age, is forced to live the life of exile. Joseph and Mary take him down to Egypt so that they can be safe from Herod. And he continues his life the way he began it, as a refugee. Not an auspicious way to begin life for our Savior.

But we have to realize that this all happened for a reason, not just to fulfill a quote from the Old Testament that isn’t really talking about the Messiah at all but rather is commenting on Israel’s past as slaves in Egypt. I think there are a couple things that come from Jesus’ journey to Egypt.

First, this time in Egypt meant that Jesus, in his earliest years, was raised around gentiles. Prejudices that his fellow Israelites grew up with would be foreign to him because he had to live surrounded by people who weren’t the same as him. And therefore, Jesus learned in a practical way that God’s love is for everyone, Jew and Gentile. It’s one thing to say that, it’s another thing to live it. God’s love is for everyone. God’s love is for the lovable and the unlovable. It is for those that we think deserve it and those we don’t think deserve it. It is for the terrorist and child molester as well as the church-goer and saint. It is for everyone. Even for those who have done horrible things. Even, in Jesus’ case, for the nation that once held your people captive as slaves.

The second thing this trip to Egypt did for Jesus was that it put him in the place of his people. Jesus lived out a piece of what his people had gone through: coming out of Egypt and entering Israel as God’s people. Jesus came out of Egypt and entered Nazareth as God’s son. Jesus lived out a part of what God’s people went through and therefore was better able to understand what it was they were going through. This is so much what the incarnation is about. It is about God living in human flesh. It is about God experiencing the things that we experience; God understanding the things that we understand. By coming out of Egypt, Jesus learned a piece of what all of Israel learned when they came out of Egypt during the Exodus. By growing up as a boy in Nazareth, Jesus learned what it meant to grow up as a child, what childhood and growing were all about. By working as a carpenter, Jesus knew what it meant to hold down a job and make the ends meet. Jesus experienced life. He experienced the same life that we experience. Oh, there are definite differences in the life he had and the lives we have, but they are more minor than you would think.

But why would God want to experience the things that we experience? Why would God want to put himself through the pains and joys that we deal with on a daily basis? There’s really a simple answer to this… Love! My wife, Lisa, when we were dating, would sit down and read some of my comic books when I got them. At first I was confused, because I thought she liked comic books. But then it became clear. She was learning about me by learning about my interests. She was willing to do things that I wanted to do, and participate in the things that are important to me because she wanted to know me better. And she wanted to know me better because, crazy woman that she is, she loved me.

God loves us and he wants to know us better. And so he gave us Jesus, allowing him to experience the things that we experience. Jesus identified with the people of Israel. Jesus identifies with us. He knows what it is that we go through. He knows the joys and fears that we face. He has been one of us. He has dealt with the things that each of us have dealt with.

We don’t serve a distant God. We don’t worship a God who watches from afar. Our God is close. He is personal. He became one of us. He knows us intimately.

What a message we have to share. God became man. The Creator allowed himself to become a part of his creation. O what wondrous love.

As Christians we are called to share the Gospel. Usually we take this to mean that we are to remind the world that they are all sinners and they need to repent. This is part of the Gospel, but it is only a part of it. And unfortunately it is usually all anyone hears. Gospel means good news. There is good news to share with the world around us.

Now I’m not saying to water down the gospel and pretend there is nothing about repenting. But we need to treat the Gospel like the good news that it is. We need to speak it in a language that those around us will hear. We need to let everyone know that God loves them. He loves them for who they are, even in the mist of their world; sins and all. He loves them so much that he allowed himself to become human, to incarnate into the midst of the world that they are in. He allowed himself to experience the same pains and problems that they experience. And he experienced pain to the greatest when he went to the cross, not out of spite but out of love. Don’t you want to get to know this God who loves you so much that he has gotten to know you. Oh yes, once you get to know this God, you will find that your life will change. He will change it. But his goal isn’t to take away all your fun. It isn’t to take all the joy out of your life. No, he wants to present a richer and fuller life to you, and one that won’t end here on earth but will continue throughout all eternity.

This is the good news. This is the Gospel. It is a different way to frame the important message that we share, but it is the same message. Let us share this message with those around us. We can do so in words, we can do so in actions, we can do so with our lives. Let us reach out to the world that needs to hear this important message and let us tell them that God loves them too. Amen.

Christmas Eve - Believe in Christ

At Christmas time, I find myself inspired by the children’s story, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson where a group of rough around the edges, bullying kids teach a church community about the power of the Christmas story by seeing it in a fresh light. The Herdmans are a group of six kids on child welfare who leave much to be desired. They lie, cheat, steal and even smoke cigars. As they decide to take over a Sunday School Christmas Program, bullying their way into all the lead roles, they come in contact with the Christmas story for the first time. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever reminds us that a story that is so common to us, one which we have made so clean is an absolutely amazing story filled with wonder and awe. Mary isn’t with child, she’s pregnant. The Herdman wise men don’t give jeweled boxes, they give their Christmas turkey, something that means something to them. And Mary and Joseph are seen as a couple of refugees covered with the dirt of travel and exhausted from their journey.

We are surrounded by the wonder of Christmas. We have many different traditions that inform the way we read the Christmas story, and sometimes they detract from what that very story is. We have heard the Christmas story so many times that we tend to take it for granted. So, let us go back 2000 years and see a group of people who live in a captive land. Let us go back to a woman about to give birth to a child that does not belong to her new husband and let us see something about the humility of God.

Mary and Joseph were refugees. They were told to leave their home town of Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem so that they could be counted in a census. I’m sure that they were tired from their journey and worn out. And here they are, not even able to have the baby in a house, but in a stable. Go out to one of the barns around this town to see what that might be like. No, it wouldn’t have been as cold, but it would have been something, nonetheless. Not exactly the most ideal place to have a baby. Talk about God’s humility. Let alone the fact that God is born as a baby. When babies are born, they are completely dependant, they are unable to care for themselves, they need to trust others. Jesus, when he was born, needed to rely on Mary and on Joseph and allow them to care for him. Humility. And this began a life of humility for Jesus. For throughout his life Jesus continued to live humbly. He begins his ministry by giving up a place to live and becoming a traveling teacher, with no place to lay his head at night. Again relying on the care of others. And his life ends in total humility with his death on the cross, dying for a crime that he did not commit.

But in the midst of that humility, there is glory and wonder. When we read the Christmas story we do not wonder that we have spent the last 2000 years celebrating Jesus’ birth. There is a star in the sky that shouldn’t be there. There are stately foreigners traveling great distances to greet new royalty. There are angels filling the sky with glory, singing and praising God. There is a special birth, the birth of Jesus… the beginning of Jesus’ life and ministry on this earth. The Christmas story prepares us for that which we will celebrate in three months… the death and resurrection of Christ. It is the prologue of the story… it begins us on a journey that will take us through Jesus’ ministry to the point that seems to be total defeat. This baby, born in such a way will be killed thirty-three years later. But then he will come back. He will come back in glory, having conquered death.

And so we have the humility and we have the glory. And they come together in this night as we celebrate Jesus’ birth: A humble birth, born to refugees in a stable. A glorious birth, sung about by the heavenly host.

We like to focus on the glorious part of Jesus’ birth; and face it, we like to focus on the glorious part of Jesus’ life. But the story that the Herdman children tell reminds us of the humble part of Jesus’ life and birth. But why did Jesus’ life have to begin in such a humble way? What is the meaning behind this? I think he was setting an example for each of us even at his birth. One which I’m not sure we always notice at Christmas.

Here in the United States, I think we’ve taken Christmas and Americanized it about as much as you can. Walk into any store at Christmas time and you will instantly realize what I am talking about. We have made the time where Jesus’ humility and glory are to be celebrated and turned it in to a time of stress. We have taken Jesus’ example of relying on others and turned it into a celebration of getting presents. Oh, I remember very clearly when I was a child and discovered that I enjoyed watching someone open a present that I had gotten them more than opening my own presents, but there is still a part of me that feels let down after the wrapping has come off and I didn’t get that book I wanted. In typical American fashion, we have taken the example that Jesus made of giving and we have turned it into our consumerist celebration of receiving. We don’t ask “what did you give for Christmas” but “what did you receive?”

God gave his Son. He gave Jesus, born in a stable, lying in a manger. This season leading up to Christmas, I have spent a lot of time focusing on belief. Though we talked about a number of different aspects of belief, the one thing that is most important is that for belief to be real, for it to matter, it needs to affect how you live. It’s one thing to believe that Jesus slept in a manger 2000 years ago. It’s another thing to allow that truth to inhabit you; to fill you; to change you; to make you a better person. When I see God’s glory, when I see God’s humility, it makes me want to live differently. It makes me want to celebrate Christmas differently. It makes the presents a bit less important. It changes what I’m about as a Christian. Jesus spent his whole life serving others, relying on the care of those around him, repaying hate with love, sacrificing himself for his people. This was God’s humility. This was God’s glory. This changes who I am, for I want to be like my God. I want to live the humility that Christ lived. I want to experience the glory that Christ experienced. I want to believe. It’s not just about assenting to the facts that Christmas presents to us. It’s about believing, it’s about allowing that Christ child who was born in a stable to be born in you, to be reborn in you. It’s about giving him the control in your life. I know that many of you have asked him into your hearts, but have you truly allowed your belief to affect every part of your life? Have you truly given him control? I know that I haven’t as much as I would like. But I also know that God is willing to hear me and answer me and take control of those areas of my life that I have not yet given him. He can do the same for you. Invite the Christ child in. Believe in Jesus. Amen.