The Story of Christmas Continuing

December 29, 1996

Luke 2:21-32

Galatians 4:4-7

Revelation 3:8, 20; 4:1

It was just another commonplace ritual in the Temple. It came about the fortieth day of Jesus' earthly life. There were no angels as Mary and Joseph brought their Baby into the Temple for the purification ceremony. No worshiping shepherds, no adoring Magi, at least not yet. Scripture tells that the sacrifice The Holy Family brought was the one prescribed for people who couldn't afford the higher priced sacrificial lamb. It The wonder of that first Christmas night was nowhere to be seen.

How quickly Christmas does seem to disappear! You probably noticed that again this week. One day it was total Christmas, and a lot of original thoughts, like "Why can't we have this warm Christmas feeling all year long?" The very next day it was "back to normal" with not a mention of Christmas with the exception of wonderful post-Christmas sales and bargains.

It isn't hard to discern the difference between a pagan and a Christian observance of Christmas. The pagans leave the Baby on the doorstep— they never bring the Baby into the house. And in some respects you can't blame them. A baby is inconvenient! ANY real commitment costs something.

I. THE INCONVENIENCE OF COMMITMENTS

Families are not primarily places of convenience. They are places of costly love. In our families we experience the heights of joy and the depths of pain. As Christians our families are to reflect to each other the self-giving, unconditional love that God our Father has shown to us in His Son, our Brother, Jesus Christ, both in good times and (more importantly) in bad times.

The Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus, in the suffering and tragedy they endured together, is a model for us and our own families as we confront the many tensions and crises that threaten the stability, peace and unity that are the joys of being a family. In our Gospel lesson today The Holy Family was quickly learning some of the costs of commitment. One of the things they had to do as a family was present their son in the Temple for rites of circumcision and christening. These were rituals that demanded a sacrifices.

Babies bring a lot into a home. Babies are exciting— for a while. Then they become very demanding. Babies are cute, whatever that word means. But sometimes babies are downright upsetting! It is usually six weeks before the parents of a new baby get the semblance of an unbroken night of sleep. Babies demand commitment. Are they worth it?

The commitment to marriage itself demands the inconvenience of commitment. No matter how well a couple prepares, and no matter the premarital counselling— they are shocked to find out that every marriage that succeeds takes WORK; no commitment was ever made that did not demand some measure of life changing inconvenience.

A commitment to God Himself is not a matter of convenience, either. Our church family ought not be a matter of convenience. As a matter of fact, a commitment to God just may be the most inconvenient thing imaginable. God never "fits" into our activities until He is given his rightful place.

Which is one answer to the question "Why can't we have this warm Christmas feeling all year long?" Christmas is a beginning, a birth, and not a goal and ending in and of itself. It is a happy welcoming of the Babe into our hearts and homes. It is a challenge to be REAL!

II. THE CHALLENGE OF COMMITMENT

The challenge to be real.

Our culture doesn't like plain old reality. There is a real question in my mind if it is possible for people who have to be excited and entertained and stimulated all the time can ever find the attitude or receptivity to come to know and receive the Babe of Christmas.

William Willimon wrote:

" ...If every day at church were like Christmas Eve, then nothing would be like Christmas Eve. Show me a church where everything is happy, upbeat, joyous every Sunday and I'll show you a place out of touch with life. I don't care how developed your spiritual sensitivities, in life there are always peaks and valleys, sunshine and rain. Life is a rhythm. If your religion is only a faith of Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday, it isn't much, because life has a lot of low times, too. It's great to go up to the temple at Jerusalem. It's a wonder, on some mountaintop or Bethlehem of a place, to witness the heavens opening and to catch a wisp of angels' wings. But that can't be for always. . . . the ordinary returns after the extraordinary, and everyday life resumes. "

The story of Joseph taking Mary and Jesus to church "as he was supposed to do" is as much an affirmation of Emmanuel, GOD WITH US, as the more familiar part of the story earlier in the chapter with the angels and the shepherds and all. God is with us here the Sunday after Christmas just as much as Christmas Eve. God is with us NOW, going to church, doing what we're supposed to do, obeying the rules, going back to work, back to the office, back to the pots and pans as much as God was with us at Bethlehem.

The challenge of commitment is to walk with Jesus when it is exciting, and when it is routine and difficult. My challenge to reality is to tell Jesus every single day that I am available for Him to use as He sees fit!

Your walk with Jesus is not peripheral to all the other things you do. All the other things you do are peripheral to your walk with Jesus.

Your time of prayer with God each day is not simply a chore to get over with— but it is a request that He will take His rightful place in your life, and that you will come to reflect His love. It may not be exciting every day. But it is LIFE!

There is a danger in the virtual reality of the media-dominated culture of our times— the excitement and the vicarious experience that pushes aside the inconvenience and the investment of time and effort required in finding authentic LIFE!

I have heard for years pastors complain that their members are always comparing a local church and program to, say, some great TV church or cathedral. But it is not just in the areas of religion— the TV pictures all of life as exciting, and glamorous— marriage is supposed to be one thrill after another. But real life isn't like that at all.

[Aside: a comment on the appetite for bizarre, etc.??

I think one of the most discouraging things I have read lately is the statistic that a recent movie release of vulgar TV cartoon characters {Beavis and Butthead} was the top-grossing money maker over the Christmas holidays. I don't thing the movie itself will send us down the tubes— it simply indicates that in many ways we are already there!

Sometimes the erosion of all that is noble and good and holy seems to be accomplished not by a great frontal attack or a dramatic moral collapse, but simply be frittering away our days and our hours with our backs to the Babe of Bethlehem until God seems less real than Oprah and Bill Parcells or whomever.]

The challenge to be loving.

But being "real" is not all of the challenge to make the Babe oif Bethlehem "at home" in our lives:

The glamorous lies that promise satisfaction without commitment tend make life more and more self-centered. But "bringing the Baby into our lives" challenges us to care about people besides ourselves. Real "Christmas love" cares about others.

A wonderful man named Lawrence Jenco died last July 19, 1996. His name probably doesn't ring a bell for you. He was a Servite Priest who was kidnapped and held captive in Lebanon for 564 days— until he was released July 26, 1986. The next ten years Fr. Jenco was a living testimony to the power and quality of forgiveness. A friend of his, Fr. Joe Nolan, told a little story that gave great insight into Lawrence Jenco's love for others. Fr. Jenco's mother was dying. As he came near her bed she attempted to speak. He bent low to hear her last words of wisdom. With great effort she said, "Did you have lunch?" She died within the hour. His mother, on her death-bed, was thinking of others. Fr. Jenco came by his spirit of love honestly!

[ I had a very similar experience as pastor of this church. The people we remember with love and awe are those who genuinely cared— who loved! Fifteen or so years ago one of the most beautiful ladies I ever knew, Dee Starr Sullivan, was dying in Beth Israel hospital after a long and painful battle with cancer. As I came to her bed the family parted and her husband Bernie and her dad said, "Dee, the pastor is here!" She opened her eyes and said very plainly, and with her sweet caring spirit "How ARE you?" I have not gotten over that reality she showed— of living for others.

Transition: This is the last Sunday in yet another calendar year. Perhaps this IS "2,000 A.D.!!" A few days ago I was reading in Revelation, coming to the end of my "One Year Bible" again— and I saw again how COMMITMENT IS GOD'S OPEN DOOR INTO ALL HIS PROMISES.

In his messages to the churches the Risen Savior spoke of at least TWO different "doors" in two different cities.

III. COMMITMENT: GOD'S OPEN DOORS INTO LIFE

A Door in Philadelphia. Jesus said, "You have (just) a little strength." But I have put an open door in front of you! Is there risk involved? Certainly. But NOT to enter the open door is certainly a sentence of consignment to insignificance for ever and ever. To follow Jesus COSTS! But it is the way of life.

But there was another door Jesus spoke to a church about; that other door was mentioned after the message to Laodocia.

A Door In Laodocia. Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock!" Laodocia may not be exactly our address. But we do understand its language. "I am the greatest!" "We're Number One!" Sound familiar?

In sadness, the Savior says to a smug people: "You really don't know what you are talking about! You have never even SEEN real health and wealth!" Then the Savior says, "I have pure gold for the asking— it is paid for! I have all the wealth that you REALLY need! Would you really like to be rich?"

There is a closed door which stands between the Christians at Laodocia and all the promises of the Book. That door represents commitment!

This door is a door we open when Jesus saves us. "One door, and only one, and yet its sides are two—" and "Into my heart! Into my heart!" But that door is also the door by which we go IN AND OUT AND FIND REALITY!

God has set an open door before us. God is asking us to keep an open door to Him all the days of our lives.

God's open door can not be forced shut by all the hard things that come. But at the same time, God will not push the door of your heart and your personal life open if you choose to keep it closed.

The biggest challenge to you and me as we face a New Year and the rest of our lives is not to do something great and spectacular— but rather it is to keep the door open and keep walking day by day with Jesus!

Your walk with Jesus is not peripheral to all the other things you do. All the other things you do are peripheral to your walk with Jesus.

It was just another commonplace Temple ritual of purification, just another Jewish baby. But not for Mary and Joseph and Jesus. And not for two old saints who knew how to keep their eyes and ears open to spiritual reality. They were tuned in to the Reality of God. That day God revealed to Simeon, and then to Anna wonderful truth. God enabled them to be witnesses to the Savior even before He could speak.

And if we stay tuned to the Reality that is our God, He will show us what it means that the church is not peripheral to this world, but the world is peripheral to the church. Amen.

Prayer

A Prayer for Just After Christmas

Father God, you have given us the Gift of your only begotten Son to be born of a pure Virgin, to take upon himself our nature;

Grant that we by faith may receive Your life through Him, and be truly made your sons and daughters, and may find grace to daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God eternal, world without end. Amen.

Hymn #192 Angels from the Realms of Glory or #617 A Closer Walk with Thee