Christmas Homily 2017 Merry Christmas everyone! We
Christmas Homily 2017 Merry Christmas everyone! We are so glad you are here. I imagine if we were to compare notes in terms of our Christmas experience as adults, they would be very, very different. But I imagine if we compared our experiences as children, they would have a lot in common. The agonizing, agonizing, agonizing wait for Christmas and counting down the days to Christmas —and your parents might have had a calendar —we used to have as a family this little thing that we spin over every day that counts down the days to Christmas. And do you remember as a kid just the agonizing —it just took forever for Christmas to be here. The few days right before Christmas were like the longest days of the year, and then you become an adult and somebody says, ”It’s three weeks till Christmas” and you panic? Isn’t it weird? The other day I heard it’s Christmas this weekend. For us adults our reaction might be - Oh no! And for our kids, Oh yeah! And as adults we are going, Oh no, it’s going too fast and the kids are going, It’s going too slow. But when we were kids, it was so slow. And the great thing was, no matter how slow it went and no matter how long it seemed to take until we get to Christmas, we always got there. Right? There was the promise of the certainty of Christmas morning. During that time, we all probably did something else in common. It’s confession time, and it won’t leave the room. How many of you actually searched for the gifts your parents had hidden in the house? Did you search? Okay, okay. Next question. How many of you found them at some point? You found them? Yeah, okay. The third question for the rebels: How many of you actually got them out and played with them? Yeah, and then final question: How many of you ever got one out, played with it, and you broke it? Yeah, and what do you do with that, right? It’s like, do you rewrap it, or, Oh mom, it’s broken? I remember the year I got my first bike for Christmas from my parents and they hid it in the room underneath the stairs to the second floor. How do you hide a bike? My Father piled all this stuff on top of it to cover it up. So one day I went searching and when I found it I pulled it out and sat on it just to get the feel of it. It was awesome. This all happened when my parents were gone and my grandmother was up on the third floor. As wise as grandma was - She never knew. The tricky thing was to try to put the bike back in the same place with all the stuff on top of it. Well, the interesting thing —that dynamic of waiting, waiting, waiting is the dynamic actually that set up the very first Christmas. You may know this, or this may be new information, but for generations, generations, generations —many, many, many generations —there was always a handful or a group or a remnant of Jewish people who waited every single day for the arrival not of Santa Claus, but of a Messiah. In every single generation, there was a group of people and they lived their lives, literally, they lived their lives every single day in obedience to God’s command, knowing that this could be the day that the Messiah arrives. But unlike the certainty of our Christmas, this went on for generation after generation after generation and nothing happened; 99.999% of these people who waited and waited and waited for the coming of the Messiah died, and there was no fulfillment of that promise.
And they prayed, and they waited, and they remained faithful. And while many of the Jews kind of peeled off into other things, and abandoned their faith, and thought it must have been a fairy tale and a myth—and who in the world would devote their lives to a story that is a couple of thousand years old or a promise that is a couple of thousand years old? There was always a group that got up every day and lived as if this could be the day that the Messiah shows up Why this is so relevant for us? Because at some point in your Christian experience, if you haven’t had this already, you will, eventually. In fact, you will have it more than one time. At some point in your Christian experience, God is so quiet and God is so inactive and God is so seemingly silent, that there will be times in our lives when we will look around and say, Why am I doing this? Why am I attending, why am I serving, why am I giving, why am I believing? Why in the world am I continuing day after day after day to live my life as if there is something bigger than me, there is something to the Scriptures —there is something to all this stuff? Am I just following along because my parents taught me this? Is this just my fear that if I do something, if I abandon my faith or abandon my walk with God (whatever that is), that somehow it’s not going to go well for me? Is this more of a superstition than something I really believe? And at some point in all of our lives, there are seasons, there are years, there are certainly periods of our lives where in our attempts to be faithful and “good Christian people,” we look around and say, what am I getting out of this? I mean where is this going? Is there anything really to this? And if you’ve ever had that thought, that question, or maybe you’re in one of those periods of doubt right now, the Christmas story is for you. Because the Christmas story is filled with characters whose stories in some way is your story and is my story. People who lived blamelessly before the Lord. People doing it right. People observing all the Lord’s commands. And here’s what’s amazing. They were doing what they were doing as followers of God based on promises that had been given a couple of thousand years earlier. People who got up day after day after day and live their lives as if Christmas is coming. Live their lives as if actually a Messiah is coming; live their lives as if God is actually going to keep his promise and fulfill his promise. And again, there is no evidence that God is going to do any of that, and yet they’re blameless. Their entire faithfulness to God was based on a promise made to Abraham two thousand years earlier.
I mean this is really ridiculous. Not two thousand years ago from now, two thousand years ago from when they lived in the first century. Two thousand years previously. That was four thousand years ago. And if you read the scriptures you will see things were absolutely incredible. God keeps his promises. And so we come to tonight’s story the beginning of something brand new that would ultimately result in the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. And the reason this story is so important to you and it’s so important to me is because, as I said earlier, there are moments, there are periods, there are seasons of our lives and our relationships when we wonder, Is God active, is God listening, does God care? On Christmas, the answer is a resounding yes. Just imagine if an angel appears to you, you just start confessing stuff. It’s like, I didn’t mean to, and I always thought, and I promise! And the angel is like, Shut up, okay. Here’s some good news. So here’s what the angel says. This is awesome. Your prayer has been heard. I would just like to hear that sometime, wouldn’t you? Not that your prayer is going to be answered. I would just like a confirmation every once in a while that an angel would appear and you know—a small angel, maybe like a servant of an angel or cousin of an angel. I would just like to know, wouldn’t you sometimes? What if God just whispered to you, I’ve heard your prayer? That would be enough, wouldn’t it? Just to know he heard it. Your prayer has been heard. Wait, you mean God has had this day marked on his calendar? You mean all this waiting has a purpose? There was an appointed time? You mean God had not quit paying attention? He has not only heard my prayers, but the prayers of his people for generations? Yeah. You mean even though God has been so quiet, he has not been inactive, he hasn’t lost interest? No. God has not only heard your prayer but the prayers of generations longing for hope and for a Messiah. This was something God planned long ago. What we celebrate today/tonight is evidence that God was gearing up to do what God had planned to do all along. Planning to do what those who had remained faithful generation after generation after generation after generation, who had died and never seen fulfillment of the promise, but passed on to their children the hope passed on to their children the hope that the Messiah will come passed on to their children the hope that God may be silent right now, but God is active. That God is a God that keeps his promise, and in every generation there is a remnant of children who believe, and they grew up believing, and they passed it on to their children. This is our story, isn’t it? This is our dilemma, isn’t it? Do we stay or do we go? Do we believe or do we stop believing? Do we serve or do we just go do something else? Do we give or do we just spend and know that there is nothing to life but what we see around us? Do we stay engaged; do we stay in that difficult marriage, or just do what everybody is doing?
And you are a student, and you are just not going to cheat, and everybody cheats, and you wonder, Why don’t I cheat? Nobody gets caught; I won’t be caught. Why am I so narrow? Why am I so conservative? Why am I always wondering what God thinks? Why don’t I just do what everybody else does? You’re a freshman in college and you’re sitting all alone night after night after night, thinking, This isn’t really getting me anywhere. God’s not doing anything for me lately. I’m not gaining any influence; I’m just falling behind. In every generation, there is a remnant of Christians that decide whether or not they will remain faithful in spite of the fact that they see God do seemingly nothing for them in the meantime. And the good news is this: if that’s your situation, there’s nothing wrong with you. If that’s your situation, welcome to the common experience of those who’ve placed their faith in Christ and have decided to follow him in spite of what they see around them. Welcome to the world of people of Jesus time, for some of them they decided we are going to walk blamelessly before our God in spite of what they saw, in spite of what people would say, and in spite of the fact that we can’t even imagine how God will act. That’s the dilemma that all of us will face or are facing in our walk with God. The good news is it’s normal. The challenge is will you be part of that remnant? The challenge is will you be that unique student, that unique teenager, that unique college student, that unique couple that decides we’re going to battle this out, we’re not walking away. And Christmas, the story of Christmas is a reminder; it’s a reminder that your faith in God is not misplaced. It’s a reminder that even when God is silent, that God is not necessarily still. And when it seems that he is still, it’s not that he is uninterested. And even when we’re convinced that he is uninterested, it has nothing to do with his plan for the world or for you. It’s a reminder that God can do anything he chooses to do. It’s a reminder that God pays attention, and is moved by and is blessed by those that remain faithful. But best of all, the story of Christmas is a reminder that your faith and your hope is not in vain. The song that we sing around this time of the year, O Holy Night was written a long time ago. The lyrics were actually written by a French poet. And I love this line in the song, and it so captures the idea of this message: “Long lay the world.” Long lay the world, for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. “Long lay the world in sin and error—” and here’s a word we don’t use anymore: “pining,” which means longing; praying; waiting. And Christmas is a reminder that our longing and our waiting and our agonizing is not in vain. Your faith in God is not misplaced. God is the God who keeps his promises when it seems like his promises are absolutely impossible to keep.
And they prayed, and they waited, and they remained faithful. And while many of the Jews kind of peeled off into other things, and abandoned their faith, and thought it must have been a fairy tale and a myth—and who in the world would devote their lives to a story that is a couple of thousand years old or a promise that is a couple of thousand years old? There was always a group that got up every day and lived as if this could be the day that the Messiah shows up Why this is so relevant for us? Because at some point in your Christian experience, if you haven’t had this already, you will, eventually. In fact, you will have it more than one time. At some point in your Christian experience, God is so quiet and God is so inactive and God is so seemingly silent, that there will be times in our lives when we will look around and say, Why am I doing this? Why am I attending, why am I serving, why am I giving, why am I believing? Why in the world am I continuing day after day after day to live my life as if there is something bigger than me, there is something to the Scriptures —there is something to all this stuff? Am I just following along because my parents taught me this? Is this just my fear that if I do something, if I abandon my faith or abandon my walk with God (whatever that is), that somehow it’s not going to go well for me? Is this more of a superstition than something I really believe? And at some point in all of our lives, there are seasons, there are years, there are certainly periods of our lives where in our attempts to be faithful and “good Christian people,” we look around and say, what am I getting out of this? I mean where is this going? Is there anything really to this? And if you’ve ever had that thought, that question, or maybe you’re in one of those periods of doubt right now, the Christmas story is for you. Because the Christmas story is filled with characters whose stories in some way is your story and is my story. People who lived blamelessly before the Lord. People doing it right. People observing all the Lord’s commands. And here’s what’s amazing. They were doing what they were doing as followers of God based on promises that had been given a couple of thousand years earlier. People who got up day after day after day and live their lives as if Christmas is coming. Live their lives as if actually a Messiah is coming; live their lives as if God is actually going to keep his promise and fulfill his promise. And again, there is no evidence that God is going to do any of that, and yet they’re blameless. Their entire faithfulness to God was based on a promise made to Abraham two thousand years earlier.
I mean this is really ridiculous. Not two thousand years ago from now, two thousand years ago from when they lived in the first century. Two thousand years previously. That was four thousand years ago. And if you read the scriptures you will see things were absolutely incredible. God keeps his promises. And so we come to tonight’s story the beginning of something brand new that would ultimately result in the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. And the reason this story is so important to you and it’s so important to me is because, as I said earlier, there are moments, there are periods, there are seasons of our lives and our relationships when we wonder, Is God active, is God listening, does God care? On Christmas, the answer is a resounding yes. Just imagine if an angel appears to you, you just start confessing stuff. It’s like, I didn’t mean to, and I always thought, and I promise! And the angel is like, Shut up, okay. Here’s some good news. So here’s what the angel says. This is awesome. Your prayer has been heard. I would just like to hear that sometime, wouldn’t you? Not that your prayer is going to be answered. I would just like a confirmation every once in a while that an angel would appear and you know—a small angel, maybe like a servant of an angel or cousin of an angel. I would just like to know, wouldn’t you sometimes? What if God just whispered to you, I’ve heard your prayer? That would be enough, wouldn’t it? Just to know he heard it. Your prayer has been heard. Wait, you mean God has had this day marked on his calendar? You mean all this waiting has a purpose? There was an appointed time? You mean God had not quit paying attention? He has not only heard my prayers, but the prayers of his people for generations? Yeah. You mean even though God has been so quiet, he has not been inactive, he hasn’t lost interest? No. God has not only heard your prayer but the prayers of generations longing for hope and for a Messiah. This was something God planned long ago. What we celebrate today/tonight is evidence that God was gearing up to do what God had planned to do all along. Planning to do what those who had remained faithful generation after generation after generation after generation, who had died and never seen fulfillment of the promise, but passed on to their children the hope passed on to their children the hope that the Messiah will come passed on to their children the hope that God may be silent right now, but God is active. That God is a God that keeps his promise, and in every generation there is a remnant of children who believe, and they grew up believing, and they passed it on to their children. This is our story, isn’t it? This is our dilemma, isn’t it? Do we stay or do we go? Do we believe or do we stop believing? Do we serve or do we just go do something else? Do we give or do we just spend and know that there is nothing to life but what we see around us? Do we stay engaged; do we stay in that difficult marriage, or just do what everybody is doing?
And you are a student, and you are just not going to cheat, and everybody cheats, and you wonder, Why don’t I cheat? Nobody gets caught; I won’t be caught. Why am I so narrow? Why am I so conservative? Why am I always wondering what God thinks? Why don’t I just do what everybody else does? You’re a freshman in college and you’re sitting all alone night after night after night, thinking, This isn’t really getting me anywhere. God’s not doing anything for me lately. I’m not gaining any influence; I’m just falling behind. In every generation, there is a remnant of Christians that decide whether or not they will remain faithful in spite of the fact that they see God do seemingly nothing for them in the meantime. And the good news is this: if that’s your situation, there’s nothing wrong with you. If that’s your situation, welcome to the common experience of those who’ve placed their faith in Christ and have decided to follow him in spite of what they see around them. Welcome to the world of people of Jesus time, for some of them they decided we are going to walk blamelessly before our God in spite of what they saw, in spite of what people would say, and in spite of the fact that we can’t even imagine how God will act. That’s the dilemma that all of us will face or are facing in our walk with God. The good news is it’s normal. The challenge is will you be part of that remnant? The challenge is will you be that unique student, that unique teenager, that unique college student, that unique couple that decides we’re going to battle this out, we’re not walking away. And Christmas, the story of Christmas is a reminder; it’s a reminder that your faith in God is not misplaced. It’s a reminder that even when God is silent, that God is not necessarily still. And when it seems that he is still, it’s not that he is uninterested. And even when we’re convinced that he is uninterested, it has nothing to do with his plan for the world or for you. It’s a reminder that God can do anything he chooses to do. It’s a reminder that God pays attention, and is moved by and is blessed by those that remain faithful. But best of all, the story of Christmas is a reminder that your faith and your hope is not in vain. The song that we sing around this time of the year, O Holy Night was written a long time ago. The lyrics were actually written by a French poet. And I love this line in the song, and it so captures the idea of this message: “Long lay the world.” Long lay the world, for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. “Long lay the world in sin and error—” and here’s a word we don’t use anymore: “pining,” which means longing; praying; waiting. And Christmas is a reminder that our longing and our waiting and our agonizing is not in vain. Your faith in God is not misplaced. God is the God who keeps his promises when it seems like his promises are absolutely impossible to keep.
