12-18-11 Sermon

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CELEBRATING IN SPITE OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES         12-18-11 Sermon

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  She wrapped him in strips of cloth and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.        

         And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign to you:  You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.”

         Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” 

         When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 

         So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.   Luke 2: 4-19

Balloons, confetti, noisemakers, food—what’s needed to make a celebration special?  Birthdays require presents, cake and ice cream and friends around to help you eat and celebrate.  Who can imagine a good 4^th of July celebration without fireworks?

In the world of sports, when a city’s team wins the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Stanley Cup, or the NBA playoffs, there are massive celebrations.  Countless thousands of people skip work and school and participate in a giant victory rally and buy silly souvenirs from vendors. 

There’s nothing wrong with having a good time or expressing excitement or being part of some major festivity.  In Jesus’ day the celebration of Passover always drew hundreds of thousands of non-residents to the city of Jerusalem. 

Ancient Roman celebrations included elaborate victory parades and massive feasts during which people binged and then threw up so they could go back and eat some more.  In the time of Rome’s power they had so much of the world’s wealth that their tastes became distorted and bizarre.  Pies made out of parrot’s tongues were all right for the nobility, but if that pie was for the emperor, all those birds had to know how to TALK before their tongues were used!

Think with me a bit about Mary at that first Christmas.  Her name means bitterness.  From the hour of the announcement on, dark pain lay ahead for her—friends’ disbelief, lack of understanding, accusations of promiscuity and her son’s illegitimacy, to begin with.  In our sexually casual age it is difficult for us to realize what depth of trust in God Mary displayed here.  She faced the possible loss of her betrothed fiancé, Joseph.  In those days there was no casual sleeping together before the marriage or during the engagement.  And the engagement was usually a year long.  Breaking the engagement required a divorce even though the marriage had not happened yet, it was that solemn a promise.  Until the angel reversed Joseph’s direction through a dream, he had resolved to break the marriage contract between them and leave Mary to carry and bear this baby alone.  If he did, it is possible that Mary would have been stoned to death for committing adultery! 

After she had returned from seeing Elizabeth, going back to her own village to make her home with Joseph, Mary experienced the weariness of months of pregnancy culminating in the long southward journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register to be taxed.  She and Joseph were poor.  When they dedicated Jesus at the temple they gave a sacrifice of doves, which was the sacrifice of the poor.  So, it is unlikely that they had a donkey to ride.  Donkeys were expensive.  Sometimes several families or a whole village shared a donkey.  So she and Joseph most likely walked the 100 or so miles to Bethlehem. 

Bethlehem seemed harsh and unwelcoming in winter since there was no room for them at the inn.  You may think of Israel as being hot all the time, but Bethlehem is just a few miles from Jerusalem, and I was in Jerusalem during the winter once when it snowed.  Perhaps her first uneasy cramping of labor had begun, and the panic of helplessness as the busy innkeeper turned them away.

Yet, we read nothing of any complaints on Mary’s part.  She’s not saying  This isn’t the way it’s done down here God.  I mean, no chocolate on my pillow at some nice inn, that’s all right.  But not even a pillow or a bed?  Not even an inn!  If I understand what’s happening right, this child is the messiah himself.  Your only born son!  So if every hotel and motel is filled, at the very least one would think you could have some nice surprise for us now that we’ve finally made it to Bethlehem.

Reading about Mary we are reminded again and again of pairs of opposites, causes for celebration paired with unpleasant circumstances.  The pain of childbirth joined with the exhilaration of having produced the child who was God.  The pain of the place—an animal shelter, coupled with the glory of the shepherd’s supernatural experience of angels.  Later on the excitement of the arrival of wealthy Gentile wise men from the east bringing worship and exotic gifts to the feet of a Jewish baby, paired with the pain of Herod’s massacre of the infants of Bethlehem and having to flee Israel to go to Egypt.  Mary’s little one was protected at the cost of all the lives of the baby boys of Bethlehem who died in his place. 

Joy and pain must have struggled for supremacy in Mary’s emotions as she tried, in her soul’s privacy, to put it all together, to weigh each event and wait for its meaning to come clear.  If she had lived today she might have gone on Oprah or written a book, but we read that Mary kept it all in her heart. 

Throughout Mary’s life with Jesus she found herself in situations where she was torn between celebration and circumstances that did not lend themselves to celebration.  As Jesus moved to maturity, he seemed to have kept some of his hardest sayings for Mary.  Feel, if you are a parent, the tone and impact on Mary of the words of Jesus at age 12 on the trip to Jerusalem that disclose a higher loyalty.  Jesus said to her, Why are you searching for me?  Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?  In other words, Why be so unreasonable?  Why search for a truant 12 year old?  Why feel anxiety when the son given to you by God turns up missing and you can’t find him for 3 days?  Why be astonished when you hear him not only asking, but answering the questions of the temple theologians? 

Mary’s womanly concern is demonstrated again at the wedding feast at Cana.   When she alerts Jesus to the problem of a wine shortage, he seems to distance himself from it and her when he says Why involve me?

In Mark 3 his family comes to visit him while he is tangling with the religious leaders and Jesus seems to be pulling away from his mother and brothers.  He is accused of performing miracles by Satan’s power, and Mark tells us that even his own family is worried that he is out of his mind.  Yet, when Jesus is told that his concerned mother and brothers are outside looking for him, he asks Who are my mother and my brothers?  And he answers his own question by saying Whoever does God’s will is my brother, and sister, and mother.  Can you imagine that those words stung the heart of Mary?

At the cross, under its very arms, near her son nailed there, we read about Mary in John 19, standing there with two other Mary’s.  And reading through the lines of Scripture at this point we can guess at what she is going through.  That long ago surrender at Christmas where she said in response to the angel’s announcement Lord, here I am, seems so easy compared to her thoughts at the cross—Lord, here is my son!

But consider this, less than ideal circumstances were not going to keep Mary from celebrating at the birth of God’s newborn king, and throughout her life.  We are all aware of people who are experiencing less than ideal circumstances at this time of year.  Some are recovering from surgery.  We have people on our prayer list in serious situations.  We have a friend who found that her ovarian cancer has returned.  We know of two parents this week who just informed their college age daughters that they are divorcing.  Many of us have family members who have never received this newborn king that we sing about into their own heart and life.  We have friends or family members who are still trapped in addictions.  For some, family gatherings always feature a big family fight so they like to skip those gatherings all together. 

So there’s lots of folks this Christmas with no chocolate…and no pillow…and no room reserved at the Hyatt or the Hilton.  But that doesn’t mean they can’t celebrate the miracle birth of this newborn king.  If the baby that was born is who we believe he is, then those who mourn can now find comfort.  Even less than ideal circumstances shouldn’t keep you from celebrating the miracle birth of God’s newborn king. 

One thing that does help us get through is the sure knowledge that the crises that we face will pass.  We may not know how they will work out, but most of us know that a week from now, a year from now, life will be flowing full scale and the newspaper will still be delivered every morning and the TV news at night will still be uncovering some new scandal about someone running for president, and the dishes will still have to be washed.

The trip to Bethlehem WAS eventually over and they DID find a place to stay, and the baby WAS born, and the shepherds DID come and find the baby in the manger and the wise men DID complete their journey.  The problems causing interruptions in our carefully ordered lives DO get dealt with, and through it all, things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.  Let me say that again, things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.

But there is also the promise of advent that we don’t have to deal with these despair bearing interruptions alone, for Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.  He says I will never leave you nor forsake you.  In the book of Isaiah God says  Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.  For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Oftentimes when these circumstances that bring despair to our hearts break in upon us, we want to cry out, Where are you God?  Why have you forsaken me? In Isaiah 49 God says, Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though SHE may forget, I will not forget you.  See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.  Though we might not like what we have to go through, the promise of God is that we never have to go through it alone.  God’s children are engraved on the palms of his hands, he knows his children by name, and he is with us. 

They called him Emmanuel, God with us.  So, yes, as you face that family problem God is with you.  And as you face that health problem, God is with you.  And as you face that problem at work, God is with you.  And as you face that problem in school, God is with you.  You can celebrate because God is with you. 

How can you celebrate in your heart when you could be overwhelmed by adversity?  How can you celebrate when not everything is the way you want it?  How do you commemorate an event like the birthday of the King who made the world such a better place? 

To start with, you check the impulse to concentrate on the negative, to rehearse the litany of your woes to your friends.  Instead, you work on focusing on God’s great promises.  In public you give testimony to God’s continued goodness in spite of your real and pressing problems.  In private you thank God for every evidence of his care, both large and small, and that’s regardless of whether or not your major problems have been resolved. 

In the midst of our oldest son, Luke’s, heroin addiction, at Christmastime he was out living on the streets somewhere.  It was traditional for family members to gather at our home for Christmas dinner.  For several Christmases we never knew if Luke might show up or not.  And everyone in the family knew about the situation.  If Luke did show up, all the women in our family were careful to keep their purses with them while Luke was in the house.  When we left our home at Christmastime we didn’t know if Luke might break in while we were gone and steal the presents.  That is what Christmas was like for us, several years in a row.  We actually felt safer when he was in jail.

But even in this difficult time we had reason to celebrate.  The Savior of the world was born.  And that Savior had come to me ahead of the Christmas season, during my sermon preparation one day, and said, Take a look at Isaiah 49:25.  It’s for you!  I had no idea what that verse said so I went and looked it up.  It says I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.  That promise that God would save my children sustained me during those dark hours.  And now that Luke is ministering on the streets of Brazil as a missionary saving the least, the last and the lost with God’s help, I know that God’s promises are trustworthy.  There is reason to celebrate even in the midst of unpleasant circumstances because the Savior of the world has come to help us.

God celebrated at Jesus’ birth.  He sent a whole army of angels to announce the birth to some shepherds.  He set a star in the sky for some wise men to follow to see this newborn king.  The shepherds came and celebrated.   The wise men came and celebrated.  Mary and Joseph celebrated, even in less than ideal circumstances. 

To put your circumstances into perspective you can pray a Well, at least it never came to that prayer.  In other words, if things are tough now, imagine what it would be like to be going through that situation without Jesus.  Use your imagination to describe what an incredible mess you would be in if you had to rely exclusively on your own strength, wisdom and insight.  You could pray, Jesus, the problems of this day are nothing compared to the mess I would be in were it not for you!  Celebrate that you are not the person you would be if Jesus hadn’t made a huge difference in your life. 

Take some time to put together a special Christmas prayer.  When you get home, get out a piece of paper and begin listing all the things you like about Jesus, all the things you are thankful for about Jesus.  Add to it each day between now and Christmas, and then take some time on Christmas day to tell Jesus what you have written. 

In spite of your circumstances, extend someone a Christmas pardon.  Knowing how pain feels, you don’t wish it on anyone.  So, in this season of goodwill toward all, work on showing love, on being forgiving, on bringing joy to the world of someone who is hurting. 

Even less than ideal circumstances shouldn’t keep you from finding a special way to show that you truly love and honor Jesus.  Yes, you recognize that your circumstances are not the best.  However, you make certain that Jesus is your focus, knowing that what he faced on your behalf was much harder than what you will ever have to go through.  Maybe, like Mary, you should go on a Christmas trip.  Maybe God’s been nudging you to visit a certain person.  You’ve been apprehensive, but go for it.  Take some baked goods to the neighbor across the street.  Visit someone in the hospital or nursing home or a shut-in. 

Ask yourself  What’s so exciting about Christmas? What difference does it really make in my life?  Explain to yourself so you can explain to others that you are commemorating a mind-boggling event, that you believe this baby born in Bethlehem was none other than God coming to earth.  That Mary’s child was different from other boys and girls.  That’s hard to believe until you see how different and wonderful Mary’s son was.  You see him as one who merits your allegiance.  You view him as your rightful ruler.  You seek to serve him with your whole life. 

        

So between now and Christmas day, you remove the bad times mask and show your face that reveals the joy of the Lord.  There are more than enough times to be down, but this is a helium filled balloon, confetti and streamers celebration time.  If Joseph and Mary could celebrate the birth of the Lord in a stable, you can certainly do so in your setting.  Remember we sing, O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.

Circumstances weren’t ideal that first Christmas Day, and they haven’t often been perfect for believers down through the centuries.  But Jesus comes to you this Christmas and asks Will you follow me?  Will you let my influence mark your life?

If you believe that Jesus can forgive your sins, enter into your life by his Spirit and begin teaching you to live under his rule, this is a great time to ask him to do just that.  It will set off an internal celebration with you.  But is also sets off a celebration in heaven, for scripture tells us that all heaven rejoices when a sinner repents.  It changes your circumstances so that everything begins to seem insignificant in comparison to this relationship.  It marks for you a marvelous Christmas, the Christmas you’ve always longed for.  And eternity alone will reveal the extent of the celebration staged in heaven when you and your King once again become friends.

12-11-11 Sermon

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CHRISTMAS COMES TO A CHURCH

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”  Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.  It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.  Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” 

         And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him.  Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 

         There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher.  She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four.  She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day.  At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.  Luke 2:22-38

A number of years ago a cartoon appeared in a newspaper this time of the year that pictured two shopkeepers in a mall looking at a Salvation Army worker ringing his bell by the red kettle.  The one shopkeeper muttered to the other unhappily, “What will those religious people try next?  Now they’re even horning in on Christmas!”

I suspect that most of us have no idea of the degree to which Christmas has been taken over by commercialism and secularism.  We complain about what’s happening when Christmas promotions begin even around Halloween, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.  Cards now feature the politically correct “Holiday Greetings” where they once announced “Merry Christmas.”  And they are called “greeting cards” rather than “Christmas cards.”  A governor, I believe in New Hampshire, recently took some heat for calling the Christmas tree in the capitol a holiday tree.  That would be like putting up a menorah and calling it a holiday candelabra. 

Some churches cancel their worship services when Christmas falls on a Sunday—because it is a holiday, or because Christmas is for children.  That will not be the case here at Forest Grove.  To me that’s the ultimate surrender to Santa, Frosty, and Rudolph.

Over the years the two major holy days of the Christian faith, Christmas and Easter, have been so captured by the secular culture and a commitment to political correctness that the cartoon message is correct. What used to be “Holy Days” have become mere “holidays.”  The main show at Christmas, the reason for the season has been commercialized and diffused. 

But you know that the first Christmas was a religious story all the way.  The events unfolded in a magnificent variety of places, including a conversation between cousins in a home, scholars doing research in an ancient think tank, shepherds doing their routine tasks on a chilly hillside at night, wise men attuned with God in a far away land beginning a trek following a star, and an emperor developing a new tax plan.  But the energy of the event that tied all these different elements together was profoundly religious.

It began with human need, as I shared with you in my message on the Scandal of Christmas.  Our ancestors found themselves unable to deal with the problem of sin—an inability that we still have today.  And although we may rename it as mistakes, or lapses in judgment, or some other nicer sounding term, sin is still sin and we are still unable to deal with it.  Christmas was our solution.  God sent a Savior when we could not save ourselves.

And when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and Herod was running a small portion of the Roman Empire under the strong hand of Augustus Caesar, the plot of the ages began to unfold in its lovely, unlikely way in some small towns in a province no larger than the state of New Jersey.  And it began with some people who were quite devoted to God.  Some of them were among the common, everyday people of the land, quite outside the ruling religious caste.  They were earnest in their pursuit of God.  The womb that carried Jesus was that of a Jewish girl who said to an angel, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word”.  And Joseph, the man who so faithfully watched over her was a “righteous man” who denied his own plans in order to fulfill the purposes of God.

Luke’s Gospel tells us how the Christmas event moved from its unlikely and miraculous beginnings into the traditional practices of the Jewish faith, climaxing at last in a house of worship.  Eight days after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and was heralded by the shepherds who had come in response to the angelic announcement, Joseph and Mary fulfilled the ancient laws of the Jewish people by having their baby boy circumcised.  It was at this point that he was officially given his name, Jesus.

Circumcision was probably the most sacred ceremony of the Jewish people.  It was the symbol of their covenant with God, going back all the way to their key ancestor, Abraham.  By this act, each new generation was declared to be part of the holy covenant.  In Jesus’ day, the ceremony was performed by the child’s father.  Of the event, Luke says simply, “And he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

Several weeks later, probably when the baby was about 6 weeks old, Joseph and Mary went to the temple for two other ceremonies, the redemption of the first born and the purification after childbirth.  For a devout Jew, these were routine ceremonies following the birth of a child.  The purification ceremony applied primarily to the mother.  The redemption of the firstborn reminded a Jewish family that God had delivered their nation from the bondage of Egypt centuries earlier, and that they owed each firstborn son to the Lord because of this deliverance.  Devout Jews practiced these ceremonies at the time of a child’s birth in the same way a sincere present-day Christian family arranges for a baby to be baptized.

So this is how Jesus was inducted into the faith life of his people from the very beginning of his life.  He was the product of a conventionally religious home.  When he was a boy of 12, he made his first pilgrimage to a religious festival, just as did all Jewish children who were following their faith.  It is significant that the only event that the Scriptures report from the life of Jesus from the time of his birth until he began his ministry at age 30 was a celebration from their religious tradition when he was 12. 

And I am sure that the practice of the traditional faith in Jesus’ day was less than perfect just like it is in the church today.  Jesus’ frequent controversies with the religious leaders of his people, for instance, make clear that many of them were missing the point.  The most prestigious movement within Judaism at the time was that of the Pharisees and we remember most of them now for the way they sought to block Jesus’ ministry.  The other major religious body, the Sadducees, was known for compromising themselves in order to win favor with the pagan Roman government. 

I suspect that the average synagogue in Jesus’ day was not a hotbed of religious fervor and devotion to God.  The synagogue services probably had a sameness, perhaps even a dullness to them.  Nevertheless, Luke tells us in 4:16 that Jesus “went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.  Jesus went to his church every Sunday.  In spite of the failures of organized religion, Jesus didn’t decide that he could do it better alone.  What does that say to the person who says “I don’t need to go to church”?  Jesus felt he needed to go to church regularly and you don’t?  Hebrews 10:25 says “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.”  Jesus brought himself under the weekly discipline of meeting with the people of God.    He felt this was necessary to be encouraged by others and to encourage others. 

In the week in and week out services at the synagogues I imagine that sometimes the speaker or teacher was not that great.  I imagine that sometimes it was boring.  I imagine that sometimes the soloist was off.  I imagine that sometimes they sang a hymn that not many people liked.  I imagine that some people were habitually late or absent.  I imagine that some came for the wrong reasons—they were looking around at others and not even paying attention to what was being said—totally missing the presence of God in their midst.  We read of at least two instances in the Gospels where Jesus encounters a person who is tormented by demons in a synagogue.  The devil comes to church to bother people, to distract people, to take their focus off of God.  

So, there were broken people, tormented people, imperfect people in the synagogues of Jesus’ day.  They might be imperfect people in an imperfect world but they were a people who were seeking, however imperfectly, to follow God.  And among them (just as it is in the church today), there were some wonderfully good people.

It’s not surprising that Jesus was impressed by the good people that the traditional practice of the faith had produced.  He was immersed in that spirit form his earliest infancy.  When he was brought to the temple, as a baby of less than 2 months, there were good people waiting there to greet him.  Luke’s Gospel reports that on that ritual day, two special people were on hand, a man named Simeon, and an old woman named Anna.

Nobody had invited them to the occasion, other than the Holy Spirit.  But Simeon and Anna were very remarkable people.  Anna was some 84 years old and had been a widow since her early 20’s.  Luke says that “she never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day.”  We sometimes say of certain persons, “They’re at church every time the door is open.”  Anna was that kind of woman.  But note Anna’s reason for being there.   It wasn’t to be with her friends or family.  It wasn’t because she liked the preacher.  It wasn’t because she liked the music.  She went to worship and fast and pray.  She went to be with God.  She went to encounter God.  Her focus was on God.  The House of God was her heart’s home, and she found her way there at every possible opportunity.  It’s no wonder, then, that she was there when the baby Jesus was brought for the high ceremony of dedication to God.  She wasn’t likely to miss the greatest hour that ever came to her place of worship, because she was there at all hours.  

As for Simeon, the Bible says that he was “righteous and devout”, and that the Holy Spirit was upon him.  We don’t know how old Simeon was, but he was well enough advanced in age that he was living just to see a promise he had received from God, a promise that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah.  On this particular day, he came to the temple under special inspiration from the Holy Spirit.  When Joseph and Mary brought their baby for the act of dedication, Simeon took the child in his arms and blessed him.  Christmas came to Simeon and Anna while they were in the place of worship, because Christmas comes to a church.

Suppose Jesus was born in our day; would we reject him again?  Would everyone, including people of the church, turn their backs on him?  Yes, probably the world as a whole would reject him again, just as it did 20 centuries ago.  And yes, no doubt many church people would also reject him, even though we claim the name Christian.

I don’t think Jesus would put up with the petty things that happen in a church.  What do you think he would say to the person who dropped out of church 20 years ago because of something that was said or done, but who still claims to be his follower?  What do you think he would say to churches who chew up pastors and spit them out one after another?  What do you think he would say to those in the church who seem to love to gossip, to tear down and criticize rather than build up?  What do you think he would say about those who speak ill of people because of the color of their skin or the language they speak?  What do you think he would say to pastors who don’t listen for his voice and who don’t preach his word?  No, I think it wouldn’t take long before he ruffled too many feathers and there would be a meeting of the Pastor-Parish relations committee and a call to the District Superintendent to get rid of him.  Jesus came as the Prince of Peace, but he was also a peacemaker who disturbs the peace when people get too comfortable where they are and he is calling them to deeper discipleship and service in his kingdom. 

Some in the church would reject him but I can tell you who would receive him.  It would be the Simeons and the Annas of our world.  People like Simeon and Anna will always be waiting for God, will always be wanting more of God, and will always be seeking for the will of God.  And those who seek, find.

Economists, sociologists, political scientists, and gamblers all agree that a wise person plays the odds.  A wise person chooses the most likely prospects.  Life produces some surprises, but don’t build your life on the hope that surprises will happen for you.  Plan instead on the predictable, the likely percentages.   In the Christmas story the predictable participants are Simeon and Anna.  If you want to be sure to make the Christmas scene, follow their lead.  The odds are all with them.

There are some wonderful surprises in the Christmas story.  You probably wouldn’t expect Christmas to come to a hotel, or a stable, or a think tank, or a bunch of shepherds on a hillside.  So it’s exciting to see that God did, indeed, choose to unfold the Christmas story in such unlikely places.  And it’s a reminder that God can’t be programmed, and that the grace of God can’t be predicted.  God is God, and God’s ways are past our finding out.

Nevertheless, the church—that is the committed people of God—is a predictable part of the Christmas story.  Wherever else Christmas might or might not come, it will come to the people who have built an altar in their hearts.  Simeon and Anna were that kind of people, the kind of people you would look for in a church.

I’m among the first to admit that the church has vast numbers of another kind.  I know we have a discouraging percentage whose religion is uncommitted and occasional.  But for those who really give the church a chance, the Simeon and Anna type, the church produces the finest and most admirable human beings that you can ever hope to find.  I certainly am sometimes distressed at the pettiness and half-heartedness that I sometimes find among church members, but I’m far more impressed by the kind, generous, godly people the church has produced.  I’ve lived long enough to know that goodness isn’t easy to come by or easy to maintain.  Becoming a truly good human being is a complex human enterprise.  As a result, I’m surprised at how often the church produces such beauty of character.

So the first Christmas came to a church.  Jesus was born into the Jewish equivalent of a church family, and before he was two months old, he had passed through three major religious ceremonies.  And he continued to be part of that religious tradition even though it was corrupt and flawed in so many ways, and even though its very leaders opposed him.

That’s why I want to be in church every Sunday, even when we are on vacation.  Because while God can be found any number of places, and while God is not about to be fenced in by our expectations, the Bible makes it clear that God is found by those who seek him.  And at its best, the church is just that:  a body of people who are seeking to know God, to be in his presence, to please God, and to do God’s will.  They’re not perfect, but they’ve caught the message and they’re seeking to bring it to pass.  That’s why Christmas came to a church.

12-4-11 Sermon

To listen to the sermon, click here.

CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS IN A HOTEL  12-04-11 Sermon

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.  This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.  All went to their own towns to be registered.  Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.  He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.  Luke 2:1-7

When Wilbur and Orville Wright finally achieved their historic airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, one December day in 1903, they sent home a telegram reporting their success.  The telegram concluded with the words, “Home Christmas.”

That commonplace message may seem like an anticlimax for a telegram that announced success for one of the most revolutionary inventions in human history.  But not if you’ve ever been in doubt about getting home for Christmas!  Anyone who has ever sat in an airport, a railroad station, a bus depot or in stopped traffic on an interstate during the Christmas season, or anyone who has ever guided a car down an icy highway toward a Christmas destination, knows well enough that “home Christmas” is as lovely a brief declaration as human language can carry.  Of course we want to be home for Christmas.  Even those who have been neglectful of home throughout the year think about it at Christmastime.  And those of us who have grown older, who no longer return to a childhood home, still return there in memories at this season of the year.

So it is ironic that the first Christmas came to a hotel, of all places.  A hotel is where you stay when you can’t be at home.  A hotel serves its purpose very well through the rest of the year, but on Christmas day or even Christmas eve, even the best hotel seems rather dismal.  The few workers on duty are likely to act as if they have been drafted into service.  Many times the dining rooms are closed.  There’s a peculiar stillness about the building.  Christmas decorations are everywhere, including perhaps a big tree in the lobby, but somehow the decorations seem like someone is trying too hard to be cheerful.  A hotel just isn’t the place we choose to spend Christmas.

In spite of all that, the first Christmas came to a hotel!  It wouldn’t have qualified for a modern chain, like a Hilton or Marriott, or even a Motel 6.  As a matter of fact, it would have made even the most meager of our contemporary economy chains seem luxurious.  But it was a hotel.  It was probably a series of thatched rooms built around a central courtyard—looking more like covered porches than like rooms.  Travelers brought their own food—and even the pot to cook it in.  They brought their own bedding, and often their own firewood. 

One Christmas season a first grade teacher was teaching her students about Christmas customs around the world.  It was an ideal opportunity to share the Christmas story.  She explained that Mary and Joseph had gone to Bethlehem to pay taxes.  And that it was time for the baby to be born so they needed somewhere to spend the night.  She told her students that when they got to the inn there were no empty rooms and she compared the inn to a modern-day hotel or motel.  She was leading up to the stable when she asked, “What do you suppose they had behind the inn?”  One little guy, who had been listening intently, began to frantically wave his hand.  He knew that he knew the answer.  And his answer was “A swimming pool!”

The hotel in Bethlehem was probably a shabby sort of place, perhaps several hundred years old.  If so, it was like most hotels out in the provinces.  They were usually dirty, uncomfortable, badly kept, and badly managed. Innkeepers in those days generally had an unsavory reputation, probably because their properties were so often used for immoral and criminal purposes.

This is the sort of place to which the young carpenter, Joseph, and his wife, Mary, came.  They were tired and dusty from the road.  Even though the voluminous garments of the Middle East were quite concealing, almost anyone could detect that the girl was soon to deliver a child.  So the couple asked for a room.  Have you ever traveled too long, wanting to make just a few more miles, and then come to a place without having a reservation?  Even with a car and with money or a credit card in your pocket, it’s an unpleasant experience to have a desk clerk shake his head negatively.  But how would you feel if you were traveling by foot, carrying your luggage along with you?  [Note that the scripture never mentions a donkey that often appears on Christmas cards or in Nativity paintings.]  And how would you feel if you simply can’t go to another town?  Joseph had to go to Bethlehem by law.  And still worse, how would you feel if you were a woman, ready to deliver, or the man responsible for her care?  You can only imagine how it felt when the innkeeper says, “Sorry, no room.  We’re all filled up.”

But you know what?  I’m glad Christmas came to a hotel!  Hotels and all that they represent as temporary lodging, are part of life.  If Christmas isn’t inclusive enough to come to a hotel, it would seem that some of the most inevitable elements of our human experience are somehow beyond God’s concern and redemption. 

But Christmas did come to a hotel.  That means, for one thing, that Christmas comes to the world of business.  And that’s a good thing.  All of us have to spend a certain amount of time on matters of business, whether in writing checks or paying bills online, or signing contracts, or purchasing items.  And some of us spend a good share of our lives that way, especially this time of the year.  If Christmas bypassed the hotels of life—the world of cash registers, and stock market reports, and computers and business trips—it would leave us feeling that somehow the basics of daily life didn’t matter to heaven.  In the beginning of John’s Gospel he says that the Word, who was God, became flesh and dwelt among us.  God sent Jesus to come live among the everyday issues of our daily lives. 

Hotels not only represent the world of business, they represent a particularly complex kind of business.  Novelist Arthur Hailey says that hotel employees become used to seeing “an exposed slice of life.”  Most of what happens in a hotel is routine, of course, and not at all glamorous or shocking.  It’s mostly people on vacation, people staying the night so they can continue their travel the next day, people attending a conference or convention, or people needing a room from which to carry on their business for a few days. 

But there is a seamier side to hotels, too.  Hotel managers know they must not inquire into the private conduct of their guests as long as their activities don’t interfere with the rights of other guests.  So for some people, a hotel is a place to go for a weekend of blind drinking, and in some places gambling, and for others, it’s a place for extramarital sex; and for some a hotel provides the anonymity that allows conduct that would otherwise be forbidden.  This is nothing new.  Even in the first century, many hotels were frequented for immoral purposes. 

Like it or not, that’s part of the world in which we live.  While the Christ child was being brought to birth in the stable of the hotel, it’s likely that several soldiers were gambling in some part of the hotel, and two government employees were padding their accounts in another, while in still another area, a man was choosing a young woman for the night.

When we think of the first Christmas, we usually think of angels singing for a group of shepherds, or the “cattle lowing” where the “baby awakes”: but in that Bethlehem hotel it was no doubt business as usual.  Through the years of Jesus’ ministry, he never tried to isolate himself from the shoddy, shadowy side of life.  Indeed, some condemned him for associating with what they would call the “less desirable elements of society.”  He was called a drunk and a glutton because he ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners.  But Jesus was always trying to redeem human life, always seeking to restore it to its divine purposes.  His birth was appropriate for these intentions, for he was born behind a first-century hotel.  Christmas comes to the world of business, even to businesses that are less than reputable.

Further, since Christmas comes to a hotel, it comes to the lonely.  A hotel may seem like a lively place when you’re attending a convention, a wedding reception, or a family reunion or birthday party, but for many people it’s the loneliest place in the world.  That’s part of the story for the person behind the desk or for the sometimes nearly faceless people in the housekeeping crew.  The salesperson who spends half his life on the road will tell you that the four walls of a hotel room are the living definition of loneliness.  Every city has some permanent hotel-dwellers.  Often they are people with no family ties, living in the busy, crowded loneliness of a hotel. 

Christmas comes to the lonely and says, “God loves you.”  The news reports at frequent intervals that the world is growing more crowded.  Ironically, it’s also growing more lonely.  So many are learning that you can live in the midst of lights, action and crowds, and yet be desperately alone.  In a world where loneliness is almost epidemic, Christmas announces, of all things, that it’s a friendly universe, because the God at the center of the universe is a loving God who sends his Son into the world to embrace its lonely heart.

But let me say something still more important.  When Christmas came to that first-century hotel, it reminded us that Christmas comes even to those who don’t want it; specifically, for those who don’t have room for it.  You remember that this first Christmas story carried a sad line—“There was no place for them in the inn.”  Christmas comes not only to those who choose to seek it, like Simeon and Anna, who we read about in Luke 2, but it also comes to those who are indifferent and preoccupied.  It invites even them to share its benefits. 

When I was younger, I thought of that ancient innkeeper in the Christmas story as cold hearted and uncaring.  However, as I’ve grown older I’ve come to see that at times I am like him.  I realize that he probably didn’t refuse a room to Joseph and Mary because he was a mean, evil person; it was simply a case of no room. 

In those days, government officials and soldiers on the march could claim free lodging in the hotels, and there was a census of the empire going on.  It’s quite possible that he was a sympathetic person, and may have even preferred to house Joseph and Mary—especially if they were going to be paying guests.  But the inn was full.

I’ve learned that so many shut God out of their lives, not necessarily because they are hostile to him, but simply because they are already “filled up” with other things.  That’s the tragedy of so many lives.  So many times people pass through a critical illness and they say that at the edge of death, they get a new understanding of what is important in life, a new understanding of what is worth living for.  Everything seems to conspire to fill our days with less important things and then, when Eternity knocks at the door, we have to report that our rooms are all full, and maybe they have been for some time. 

You and I are often like the innkeeper.  We shut Christ out, not because we hate him, but because we are preoccupied with other things.  In fact, the innkeeper never knew that he had shut out the very Son of God; he was simply filled up.  And that is just the way some of us go through life—not knowing that Jesus is knocking at the door of our life.  We get so occupied with other matters that we don’t even recognize God is calling.

Jill Briscoe wrote:

Room in my inn for my business affairs; Room in my inn for my worries and cares.  Room in my inn for the drink and the smoke, room for the act, for the off-color joke.  Room for my family, room for my wife.  Room for my plans, Lord, but no room for Your life.  And room for depression, when the party’s all through, room for myself, Lord, but no room for you. 

Room in my stable, Lord, room out of sight.  Room in the darkness and room where it’s night.  Room with the cattle, the pigs and the sheep, room where  a newborn babe can’t get to sleep;  Room with the dirt, Lord, the rats and the mice, room with the maggots and room with the lice.  Room, you can have it, how generous am I--, I like to be good when my Savior comes by;  Room in the filth and the mire of my sin, Room on the cross by redemption to win, Room in my stable, but no room in my inn!

And so Christmas comes even to those who aren’t seeking it, who don’t particularly want it.  It comes to hotels that are filled, to lives that are crowded, to people who are preoccupied.  And always, it comes saying, “I love you.  May I come in?”

One word more.  Because Christmas comes to a hotel, we know that Christmas comes to those who are away from home.  I said earlier that Christmas is the holiday when we want most to be home.  But a hotel seems the opposite of home.  It’s a place of transience, a place that says we’re away from home.  And that’s another glory of Christmas.  It comes to those who are homeless.

Which is to say, Christmas comes to all of us, to all in our wandering, homeless human race.  We humans are never quite at home on this earth.  Something within us knows there is another home, an Eden we somehow lost long ago.  I wonder if a great deal of our running may spring from the instinctive sense that we don’t fully belong where we now live?  Those who analyze the wide use of drugs, ranging from alcohol and marijuana to heroin and pills say that people are trying to escape.  But what are they trying to escape from and to where?  Is it because our hearts know that our address should be Eden, or heaven, and we’re constantly hoping to find our way home?

So Jesus was born away from home.  Not in the village where Joseph and Mary had lived, and to which in time they would return, Nazareth.  But Jesus was born in Bethlehem, where his family had gone to enroll for taxation.  And he was born, not in a quiet peasant cottage, but in back of a poor hotel.  He was born away from home.  Indeed, he was!  Because, as the New Testament writers tell us, his home was heaven, and he made himself homeless in order to restore us to our original home.

So it is that Christmas comes to a hotel.  It comes to the world of business, where sometimes we shut Christ out and where the style is sometimes so very contrary to his.  He comes to the lonely place.  And he even comes to the place where he is not wanted, where there is simply no room for him.  He comes, especially to those who are away from home—to you and to me.

And then, of course, the question comes, just as it did over 20 centuries ago, will we make room for him?

One final story.  There was an old woman who lived in a big, old Victorian house filled with the many treasures she had collected over her 81 years.  When the time came that she could not care for herself any longer, her relatives arranged for her to have an estate sale.  They told her that everything had to go because there wasn’t going to be much space in her room at the nursing home. 

After the sale, they packed her few remaining things into a big leather suitcase and an old chest of drawers that she had inherited from her grandmother.  The woman also insisted on taking a very large battered wooden trunk, which she said her father had crafted from scrap lumber when he worked at the trunk factory.

When they arrived at the nursing home they expected that she would be very sad, that it would be a day of many tears.  But the old woman was smiling as they walked in the door behind the cart that carried the suitcase, the old chest of drawers and the battered trunk.  She was absolutely beaming, as if this was one of the happiest days of her life.

Just then the load on the cart shifted and the contents of the trunk spilled out on the floor.  There were packets of carefully folded Christmas wrapping paper, bundles of aged Christmas cards tied with string, a carolers songbook, hand-knitted monogrammed Christmas stockings, a string of red, green, blue and white lights, a porcelain angel in a yellowed plastic bag, more than a dozen Christmas ornaments in their original boxes, and a miniature nativity set carved from ivory. 

Oh my, the old woman laughed, I guess I need to travel lighter!  She knelt down, picked up the tiny baby Jesus figure from the nativity set, and gently laid him in the manger.  You are all I need, she whispered, as if speaking to Him alone.  Then she gathered up the remaining pieces of the nativity set—the stable, the donkey, the cow, the sheep and lambs, the shepherds, the wise men, the camels and Mary and Joseph—and tucked them all into the pockets of her coat.  And turning to her nephew, the one who had driven her to the nursing home she said, Jerry, why don’t you take the trunk home.  And if you don’t want it, give it to one of your sisters. Maybe they can get some use out of some of this old stuff. She laughed again as Jerry helped her to her feet.

One of the aides who had come to escort the old woman to her room asked her how she could be so happy on a day like this.  She said to the old lady, You haven’t even seen your room yet.  And she said it in a tone of voice that implied that it wasn’t going to be very nice. 

The old woman smiled and said, Oh, I don’t have to see it.  I know it will be all right.  I’ve learned to be content wherever I am.  God has been so good to me.  I feel so blessed.

You see, all those years that woman had been packing Christmas in her heart, the kind of Christmas you can take with you wherever you go.  She had made room in her heart for Jesus

Let us pray: 

Is there room in your heart for Jesus today, or do you need to do some housecleaning?  What needs to get thrown out before the Lord can come in and fill your life? 

Lord, we blame the innkeeper for only giving you the stable, when his inn was full.  But what about all the others who lived in Bethlehem that night when you were born?  Why were all their houses that weren’t filled with guests fast closed against the one who was carrying you?

God bless the little homes of our hearts this Christmastime.  Make them big enough to welcome you.