This Is The One

This is a sermon that was preached on Sunday, December 24 at United Presbyterian Church in Sterling, KS - Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.  Listen to the audio here.

Read Isaiah 9 and Luke 2 here.
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It’s Christmas Eve!  You made it!  

You’re here!  This is it!*

Just breathe that in for a moment. . . And as you breathe, breathe in peace.

I wish I could roll back the ceiling so we could all sit here and look up at the stars.  I find being outside at night under the stars to be incredibly peaceful.  This is what I picture when we sing that carol we just sang, O Little Town of Bethlehem, when we sing “Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.”

One of the things I love about living away from the city is that we can see the stars at night.  There are so many of them.  Have you ever thought about how many there are?  In our galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, there are so many that scientists can only estimate.  They say there are about 100 billion stars just in our galaxy.  And they estimate that there are 10 trillion galaxies.  That would mean that there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.  There are 24 zeros in that number.[1]  That’s a lot of stars.

Maybe the reason looking at the stars is so peaceful is that there are so many.  Looking at the stars is like looking at eternity.  Some say the farthest star we can see with the naked eye, without a microscope, is Casseiopia, which is roughly 16,000 light years away.[2]  And if we can see Casseiopia, we are actually seeing light that is 16,000 years old.  We’re looking back in time 16,000 years.[3]  That would be about the time that cave men were doing that painting in that cave in Lascoux, France that we had to memorize for art history class.[4]

Looking at the stars and the immensity of space and time can make us feel small and insignificant.  Maybe it’s that perspective that brings peace.

Looking at the stars and imagining the immensity of time and space also tells us about God.  How amazing it is that God created all of that.  Even more amazing – the same God who create all those trillions of galaxies full of stars also created each one of us.  And the Bible tells us that God knows each one of us down to the very hairs on our heads.  And from the very beginning of time God had a plan for each one of us to know his love and his peace. 

Maybe Isaiah was sitting out under the stars when he wrote what we read earlier: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 6:2).

The prophets foretold it because the plan was already in the works.  God spoke through Isaiah the words we read earlier hundreds of years before the child Jesus, the prince of peace, was born. 

Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, the prophet Micah said:

“But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrath, who are one of the least of the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2).[5]

O little town of Bethlehem…

The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

The prophets and hymn-writers spoke of hope…hope for a ruler who would bring peace.

The shepherds out in the fields that night under the stars heard the angels singing:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to all.”

Peace and good will is what they were all hoping for.  Peace is what we all hope for.  Peace sometimes seems impossible…especially in the midst of war.

During the brutal fighting of WWI, Pope Benedict XV issued a plea in 1914 that there be a ceasefire for Christmas.  He said, “May the guns be silent on the night we heard the angels sing.”  He wasn’t successful in achieving any sort of official ceasefire, but the men fighting in the trenches of Belgium and France longed for this peace, and on their own declared a truce in various spots for Christmas.[6] Some of you may have seen the movie that portrays this event, Joyeux Noel (2005).[7]

How amazing it is that in the midst of that war, there was peace, seemingly impossible peace.  Even though it was small in compared to the size of the war, there were dozens of these truces, because these men would not keep fighting when the world was celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace. Even a small bit of peace can be huge.

Maybe we find peace looking up at the vast amount of stars because we wonder at the immensity of God who created them and how amazing it is to have peace with God.  And how even more amazing that our peace with God would come one night under the stars of Bethlehem through one little baby born in a manger.

All of eternity transformed in a moment.

This is the one who was with God at the beginning of time creating all the worlds that fill the skies.

This is the one by whom all of time is defined as either before or after.

This is the one whose life and death and resurrection is our salvation, our peace.

This is the one who is God with us, Immanuel.

Tonight as you go out and look at the stars may they remind you of the one who is called

Wonderful Counselor

Mighty God

Everlasting Father

Prince of Peace

Jesus

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* This is borrowed from Jimmy Fallon who begins every Tonight Show with a similar greeting.

[1] https://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html

[2] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/45759/what-is-the-farthest-away-star-visible-to-the-naked-eye

[3] http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/133-physics/general-physics/general-questions/835-why-is-looking-out-into-space-the-same-as-looking-back-in-time-beginner

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

[5] Shively Smith expands on the Old Testament prophecies at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3540

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

[7] http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/15230  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/

Shine!

"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.” –Isaiah 60:1

Tis the season to shine!  Everywhere we go we see the celebration of light during the holidays. We see candles and lights in all kinds of decorations, big and small, inside and outside.  We sing, “May your days be merry and bright!” (White Christmas by Irving Berlin)  These lights symbolize and celebrate the coming  of the light into the world – the birth of Jesus.  “His life brought light to everyone” (John 1:4).

John says, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5)   Light is a metaphor for truth and goodness.  That light shines in us.  Through the Holy Spirit, the light of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control shines in all of us (Gal. 5:22-23).  Wherever we see these qualities at work, we are seeing the light of God at work (James 1:17).

We all need light in our lives and sometimes we need help having light….like my husband Rob

Krabbe in this photo of an emergency car repair.  Light helps us see.  Jesus tells us to “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  We shine so that others can see God’s goodness.  One important way we shine is by encouraging one another – pointing out the goodness we see in them.

Proverbs tells us that “the words of the godly encourage many” (Prov.10:21).  We are called to be lights to the world in what we do and what we say.  Paul says in Ephesians 4:29, “Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.”

How can your words be light for someone today?

May the light of Christ shine brightly in you and through you in 2017!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Melissa

Does Christmas Matter? Christmas Eve Message

Does Christmas matter? The obvious answer might be “yes” but maybe sometimes we aren’t sure.

Maybe like George Bailey in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life we need the angel Clarence to come show us how the world might be different without it.

Or maybe like Scrooge in the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, we need spirits to come show us the impact Christmas is currently having.

Angels play such a big part in the Christmas story—appearing to Joseph, to Mary, and announcing Jesus’ birth to the shepherds—that it’s not surprising that they are also prevalent in our Christmas movies, too.

If angels were going to visit us tonight, what would the angels need to say or show us to help us see that Christmas matters?  That Jesus’ birth matters?  That you and I matter?  That how we celebrate matters?

Maybe they would show us what the world would be like if Jesus had never been born and we didn’t have anything to celebrate at all.

There are entire books written about what might have been different about the last 2014 years without Jesus.  They’re worth reading and considering.

But tonight we’re here to celebrate that Jesus HAS been born!  To hear the angels say once again,

“For behold I bring you good news of great joy!  For tonight in the city of David is born a savior who is Christ the Lord!”

I think one sign that Christmas still matters today is that church attendance tonight across the nation is double what it is on any given Sunday.[1]  We come to church on Christmas because we still want to hear the story, sing the carols, and light the candles on Christmas, and to remember how Christmas began.[2]

It might surprise you to know that 96% of the population celebrates Christmas.[3]  Not everyone is celebrating it as a religious holiday, but in a world in which we cannot seem to agree on anything anymore, we agree on Christmas.

Although we don’t all celebrate in exactly the same way, I still think it’s remarkable that 96% of us celebrate Christmas.

The one aspect of celebration that most of us have in common is that we spend time with friends and family for the holidays, and we give gifts.  Spending time with people and giving are acts of love.  You might be thinking, yes, but I do those things because I have to, not because I want to.  Well then, isn’t that an even greater act of love?  That you don’t want to do them but you do them anyway?  That is an act of sacrifice!  For some of us GREAT sacrifice!  And that’s exactly the example we have in Jesus—sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others.

So one of the reasons I think Christmas matters is that it’s a sign to us that there is still good in this world.  Back in the beginning when God finished creating the world, he looked at all he had made and said, “It is good!”  Some days it seems like the world has fallen apart since then, and it’s hard to see whether there is much good left, but at Christmas we can see the good at work.

Christmas is the annual evidence that God is still at work in our world.  God is love.  And love abounds at Christmas.

Giving abounds at Christmas.  30-40% of all charitable giving happens at Christmas time.  There’s even a new tradition which began two years ago to balance Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  It’s called Giving Tuesday. Have you heard about this?  It was started by the New York YMCA along with the United Nations Foundation, and it’s catching on.  I got reminders about it this year from our Presbyterian leaders.  It’s not about giving to one specific organization, it’s just about having a day to focus on giving in the midst of all the buying.[4]

Sometimes it might seem like Christmas is all about commercialism and that we could just do without it, but Christmas still matters.  It’s the one time of the year we almost all celebrate, that many of us take time to spend with the ones we love, and that we are giving—giving not just presents to our family and friends, but also to those who don’t have as much as we do.

Christmas is a sign that God is still at work in our world.  That God’s goodness is still here.  Jesus came to bring sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf.  Mark Twain said that kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind can see.  Kindness is important all year round, but kindness abounds at Christmas.

Does Christmas matter?  By the very fact that you are here listening to this, I think that you probably think that it does…or at least you hope that it does.  But you might think it does for different reasons than the ones that I have given.  So I invite you to consider why Christmas matters to you?  And if you aren’t sure whether it matters, what might you do tonight to MAKE it matter to you?

Does Christmas matter? Yes.  For many reasons, but maybe the most important one is that Christmas matters because each one of us matters.  Every single one of us is someone God loved so much that he gave us his one and only son, so that we might know him.  So that we might know that whatever there is that keeps us from God is forgiven.  So that we might know how much he loves us.  So that we might have his love living in us to share with the world.

 Loving God, help us to see and hear and know you.  Help us to see how Christmas matters, and how Jesus matters, and how we matter, as your love lives in us and shines through us to the world around us.  Forgive us for failing to see.  Forgive us for not turning to you with our doubts and fears.  Thank you for your love and grace, born tonight in a manger, born that all might know that nothing is more powerful than your love.

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[1] http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/2014/12/christmas-church-attendance-rocks/

[2] http://www.eauk.org/culture/statistics/christmas-facts-and-quotes.cfm

[3]  http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/18/celebrating-christmas-and-the-holidays-then-and-now/   

[4] http://www.givingtuesday.org/

[5] Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Love - Joy

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  –Romans 15:13

The fourth week of Advent, we light the candle that represents love.  Love is big.  God is love! (1 John 4:8)  Which is why Christine Rossetti’s poem is so fitting:

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine,
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love Incarnate, Love Divine,
Worship we our Jesus,
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

By Christina Rossetti

(The Kings College Choir sings a nice version here: http://youtu.be/FAjB0GVpleg )

It’s this love that is the foundation for our joy.  Love and joy are linked together.  Which is why the name Lovejoy is such an ironic name for the reverend in The Simpsons TV show.[1] Rev. Lovejoy is not joyful.  He’s cynical and tired.  He’s like so many of us that seem to have lost our joy.  And although the Simpsons creator says he named the reverend after a street,[2] the name is particularly ironic because love and joy are expected of Christians.  Jesus even told us this is how people would know us, by our love! (John 13:35)

Joy is still waiting for us, and I think love is the key.  And maybe this is something we learn from Rev. Lovejoy, who we see dealing with lots of difficult people, especially Homer Simpson, but he hangs in there.  Maybe that is love, too.  Sticking it out in less than ideal conditions is a gesture of love, and maybe even in the midst of that we can find joy in love.  God is love, and God loves us and wants us to have joy.  So why not ask him for some?  Trust him to hear and to answer in ways that may surprise you!

For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.  (Psalm 33:21)

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[1] http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Timothy_Lovejoy,_Jr.

[2] http://mentalfloss.com/article/57016/surprising-origins-tv-character-names

Songs of Joy

On Sunday we read Luke 1:46-55 and talked about how Mary’s song points us to God and reminds us of how God is faithful.

We also learned that O Come O Come Emmanuel was specifically written to help us look to God and remember the meaning of what we celebrate at Christmas.1

The words come from poets writing as early as 800 AD.  As they were passed on down through the ages, they became part of liturgy that was used in daily prayers to count down the days until the event of Jesus’ birth, much like Advent is our time of counting down the weeks.  There are seven verses of O Come, a prayer for each day of the last week before Christmas. 

They were to be used along with the song of Mary as part of daily prayers of preparation, of turning to God and preparing our hearts to make room for

• knowing the joy of Jesus birth,
• knowing the joy of Jesus coming to us,
• knowing the joy of our salvation.

Each of the verses of O Come is a prayer of praise about who Jesus was and what he did, and making room for joy.

The haunting tune of this hymn also reminds us that joy is about more than being happy.  Joy is deeper.  Joy reaches into the depths of human experience and finds that in the midst of pain and sorrow God is there with us.  Emmanuel comes.

O Come O Come Emmanuel

1 O come, O come, Emmanuel,

and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

 

Refrain:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

shall come to thee, O Israel.

 

2 O come, thou Wisdom from on high,

who orderest all things mightily:

to us the path of knowledge show;

and teach us in her ways to go. [Refrain]

 

3 O come, O come, thou Lord of might,

who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height

in ancient times didst give the law

in cloud and majesty and awe. [Refrain]

 

4 O come, thou Root of Jesse, free

thine own from Satan’s tyranny;

from depths of hell thy people save

and give them victory o’er the grave. [Refrain]

 

5 O come, thou Key of David, come,

and open wide our heavenly home;

make safe the way that leads on high,

and close the path to misery. [Refrain]

 

6 O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer

our spirits by thine advent here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

and death’s dark shadows put to flight. [Refrain]

 

7 O come, Desire of nations, bind

all peoples in one heart and mind;

bid envy, strife, and discord cease;

fill the whole world with heaven’s peace. [Refrain]

In the wilderness, in the isolation of prison, in sadness of death and poverty and darkness, God’s love still shines in our hearts and gives us hope and strength and joy.

This is what Mary’s timeless song of joy sings about.  It echoes through the ages and reminds us of the promises the prophets wrote about, sounding remarkably like the words of Isaiah 61:

God has anointed me to bring good news to those who mourn …
    to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit

Like these words from Isaiah, Mary’s song is full of the joy of knowing that God is there and that God cares and loves us deeply.

This is what the coming of Jesus into the world is about.

This is joy.

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1.  Read more here:  http://links.presbyterianchurch.mkt6217.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MjE3OTU0NDAS1&r=Nzg2MjM0MDY0MzUS1&j=NDYwNDA4NTAwS0&mt=1&rt=0 and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_come,_O_come,_Emmanuel

Whose Christmas Is It Anyway? (A Brief Comment on Matthew 24:36-44)

Whose Christmas is it?

That’s really a rhetorical question to which we all probably already know the answer.  It’s God’s.  Psalm 24 says:

 The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. (Ps. 24:1)

There’s another question that begs to be answered after that scripture reading, though—Why are we reading  Jesus’ teaching about the end of the world on the first Sunday in Advent?

The short answer is because advent is a time of preparing for Jesus’ coming, and this is Jesus telling us to not just spend time remembering how he came in the past, but also in being prepared for his coming in the future.

We we might think of some things as secular and other things as sacred.  But there is really no distinction between them.  Everything is God’s.  We just don’t always remember to see things that way.

So Jesus tells us in our reading today to be watchful.  Look at what’s happening in the world around you not just as passing events, but also as signs—signs that God is at work in the world around us.  Watch for Jesus’ work and look for opportunities to participate in it, to help with it.

Be watchful.  Not just physically.  We can’t literally keep our eyes open 24/7.  This is more of a spiritual watchfulness.  An invitation to look beyond the physical, to remember that there’s more going on that just what we can see.  Just like the wind, we can’t see the Holy Spirit, we can’t see what the Spirit is doing in people’s hearts.  Sometimes we can see the results, though.

Jesus gives us the example of Noah who trusted God and built an ark in anticipation of a great flood.  There’s no way Noah could have known there would be a flood other than to listen to God, to follow God’s guidance. Noah prepared by building an ark, just as we prepare through prayer and study and doing everything we do in ways that honor God and further God’s purposes—that spread God’s love.

Be watchful. This is a call to keep our eyes open for opportunities:

·        opportunities to be thankful,

·        opportunities to show God’s love,

·        opportunities to grow in our faith and to help others grow in theirs

·        —to make disciples, to show mercy, to be God’s people in the world.

The Bible tells us to make the most of every opportunity, and to do so with hope, our theme for today.  We do have hope, and we also need to be prepared to explain our hope.  We don’t know how long we’ll have with the people around.  Jesus could come at any time.  Or they could go to meet Jesus at any time.  The people in Noah’s time were caught by surprise—caught unprepared.  We need to be prepared because there won’t be time to go do what we should already have been doing…preparing our hearts to meet Jesus, and helping others to also be prepared.

You may have had an English teacher who in teaching how to write told you to show instead of tell.  This means to paint a picture, describe a scene, use an illustration, and to just fill the page with theorizing and postulating.  In fiction, this would mean showing how a character is reacting to a situation through dialog and action, instead of through remote description.  It brings the writing alive to put the reader into the scene.

In a sense, it’s the same with our faith and our hope.  We can tell about it, and we need to tell, but it’s much more effective if we also show it in how we live—in how we interact with other people, in how we spend our time and money, and in what we say and do on a regular basis.

Be prepared—Be prepared to demonstrate our hope and then be prepared to explain why we have hope.

Remembering to be kind and gentle in doing so.  Ultimately we have hope because of Jesus, but that takes time for someone who doesn’t know Jesus to understand.  The ways of Jesus don’t always make sense to the world, because the way of Jesus is that people matter more than stuff, more than anything.  The way of Jesus trusts, hopes, and loves joyfully, prayerfully and thankfully.

May this advent be a time for spending time with God and with those you love, and for sharing that love with someone new.

Christmas Countdowns and Worry

I think God has a marvelous sense of humor and subtle irony.  Take today, for instance.  Unlike usual, I took awhile to get to my quiet time.  In the hours before I actually cracked open my Bible and devotional book JesusCalling I had discussion with my husband about how the conflict between flesh and spirit—our inevitable human struggle—feeds our tendency to worry.  I also posted a futuristic Facebook status—a Christmas countdown clock.  So imagine my surprise when my devotional reading started off with these words: "Anxiety is a result of envisioning the future without Me.  So the best defense against worry is staying in communication with Me."  Later in the reading, it says "Do not linger in the future, because anxieties sprout up like mushrooms when you wander there."  And it refers to Luke12:22-26, so I read that and also the corresponding parts of Matthew6, which includes “Do not worry about tomorrow for today has enough troubles of its own” (Krabbe paraphrase).  All good stuff.  My favorite part is: "Anxieties sprout up like mushrooms." It's a great statement, because indeed they do.  And you know what they say about mushrooms…they grow out of cr--.  Except that the ones in my yard are growing out of grass, and trees, and mulch, and just about everything else.  But you get the idea.

So I realize that a Christmas countdown isn’t exactly worrying about the future, but it is certainly a part of lingering in the future.  It’s an opportunity for mushrooms to pop up in the midst of my attempts to be better about planning ahead.  Especially since James warns us not to boast about what we will do tomorrow. 

Today is also the day after a presidential debate.  The social media is full of commentary about both candidates and their faux pas.  My favorite post, however, said “No matter who is president, Jesus is king.”  Can’t argue with that.  Ok I’m sure somebody could, but I don’t.  It puts everything in perspective.  Just like watching the movie Argo did.  Except for the cars, clothes and hairstyles, the story in Argo of American embassy workers being held captive in Iran could just as easily be happening today.  Some things just don’t change all that much.  And I think that was my husband’s point—we’re still humans doing stupid human things, but God’s still God and he’s got this covered….whatever the “this” for today happens to be.  And the “this” for tomorrow, too.

The problem is that I don’t think we like that reality very much.  It can be comforting to know that God’s in charge, but only if things are going the way you want them to.  What about when they’re not?  I guess that’s the weird thing—knowing God’s in charge is comforting then, too, if you have experienced God’s love and graciousness.  If your understanding of God is only wrath and righteousness, than that’s not going to help you much.

And maybe the problem is that all that is just too much thinking about stuff.  Focusing on today sounds much better to me.  Thanks, God, for today.  And for fun websites, and captivating movies, and for your Son who was born on Christmas.  See?  I’m not so far off after all.  It just takes me a while to get there.