BE THE CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS

Third Sunday in Advent, Geneva, Chesley
Sunday, December 15, 2019

Today, the third Sunday of Advent is called ‘Guadete Sunday’ which means ‘Joy’ or Rejoice’. The opening antiphon for our liturgy asks us to Rejoice in the Lord always. Indeed the Lord is near. Today, on the Advent Wreath we light the pink candle to mark this day of joy.

St. Paul’s advice and encouragement from the first reading in the liturgy this morning gives the third Sunday of Advent its traditional name." Joy is the central message of our readings and prayers, and indeed the whole of Advent and the celebration of Christ.

Not too coincidentally, one of the most well-known Christmas carols is ‘Joy to the World.’ The words to this carol were written by Isaac Watts in 1719. At Christmas it will be sung all over the world. The music for it comes from Handel’s ‘Messiah.’

The first words that Mary hears when she is told that she is going to be the mother of Jesus are, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured.’ Mary is to be filled with joy because God has called her by her name and her son will be the long awaited Messiah. When she goes to see Elizabeth her cousin, she breaks into song, singing loudly, ‘My souls proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savour’. 

Mary does not keep her good news or her joy to herself, she freely shares them with Elizabeth and the whole world. When the angels appeared to the shepherds they heard this life-giving message, ‘Do not be afraid, I bring you news of great joy.’ The good news of Jesus’ birth is meant not only for the shepherds, it continues to be good news for each of us today.

We are called to wait for the birth of Jesus and we are to wait in hope joyfully. As we wait, we are not to be afraid, anxious or worried; we are to wait in joyful hope. Why? Because, as the opening antiphon tells us, ‘The Lord is very near.’

Like Mary who shared her joy with Elizabeth, today each of us is asked to be a person of joy and we are asked to share that joy with others. There are many people, some of whom we may even know, who have little reason to be joyful at this time of the year. 

As Mary did with Elizabeth, may we follow her example and share our joy with all those we meet during these last few days and weeks of Advent. May we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

You know...Every year around this time, we see news stories and facebook posts and tv coverage of the “War on Christmas.” There’s conjecture about whether or not you can say “Merry Christmas” anymore or if you must say “Happy Holidays.” 

Others urge us to remember that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” and warn against “taking Christ out of Christmas.” Maybe you’ve even been frustrated by the secularization of the season. 

I certainly get frustrated by the consumerism, the commercialism, as if spending more and more money will somehow bring us a more joyful and meaningful experience celebrating the birth of Jesus. But I wonder, as we reflect on this season, what might happen if we worried less about how others might try to “take Christ out” of Christmas, if such a thing were even possible, and wondered more about how we, how you and I can produce any evidence that we’re working to put Christ into our preparation for Christmas. 

We can’t control what other people do or think, much as we might like to. But we are, in fact, totally responsible for how we conduct ourselves. And so, when it comes to Christ in Christmas, we have to ask: Are we in fact putting Christ in? 

A clergy friend writes, “Nothing can take Christ out of Christmas as long as I strive to be Christ in Christmas.” And that’s his sort of slogan for the season: “Be Christ in Christmas.” He tries to think of tangible, meaningful ways that he can act and live and interact as Christ in Christmas, and urges others to do the same. How can we be Christ in Christmas?

We’re the messengers of God in these days, the ones tasked with sharing the message, the good news. What kind of messengers are we? Today, we turn our attention to making sure we know exactly what our message is. What is the message that we’re delivering? 

We need look to Luke’s gospel for a little more insight on the message that John the Baptist was sharing. 

As our text opens, crowds are coming out to John to be baptized. Baptism like this was a cleansing ritual, practiced in many traditions. It signified renewal, a fresh start. So folks are coming to John to be baptized. But he’s not exactly warm and welcoming when he sees them: “You brood of vipers!” he hells. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” 

He goes on to say that the crowds should not expect to rely on their Judaism, their families, their history, their cultural identity, to give them a free pass from responsibility. “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” 

In other words, yes, God has had a special relationship with His people. But that doesn’t give you the freedom to do anything you want. You still have to hold up your part of the relationship, the covenant. John continues forebodingly: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

*John obviously catches the attention of his audience – they begin asking him what they should do. He replies to them, to tax collectors, to soldiers – whoever has two cloaks must share, whoever has food must share, whoever has power, whoever has money must be fair and just. 

The people are filled with expectation at John’s words, and they wonder whether John himself might not be the messiah they are waiting for. But he insists he is not: “I am not worthy to untie his sandals,” John says. But, he leaves them, and us, with a compelling image of the messiah.

“His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” A winnowing fork was a farming tool used to toss wheat into the air, so that the wind would catch the good grain and separate it from the useless chaff. Our passage concludes, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

Is John’s message “Good News?” There’s such an underlying tone of threat, between the vipers, the ax, and the winnowing fork. And yet, obviously his message was compelling enough to have crowds flocking to him to be baptized, ready to say: I’m changing things in my life starting now. 

John is sharing with the crowds, with us, his vision of what the messiah will be. In fact, John will eventually have to send word to Jesus to find out if he really is the messiah, because Jesus certainly acted differently than John was expecting. 

John sees judgment, just as surely as Jesus comes with salvation – a bit different in emphasis. John has a picture of the messiah that is his own – but the good news still comes because of the core of what John is preaching, as we read last week: Repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 

What John is preaching, at heart, is that all this preparation is for one who is coming, who has the power to free us from the consequences of our sins; one who has the power to cancel out the results of our messes. And that, certainly, is good news.

As Christians, we celebrate what is called incarnational faith. Incarnation means for us first of all the event of Christ’s birth – God became human. It means embodied. Jesus is called God-with-us, Immanuel. As the gospel of John puts it so beautifully, “and the word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” 

Our faith is embodied in God incarnate. Jesus is God-in-the-flesh, come to live among us. We celebrate it as a sign of God’s great love for us, that when we failed to get the message in so many other ways, God made the message tangible, made God’s own self into the living embodied message in Jesus Christ, the light of the world.
But our incarnational theology doesn’t end there. It isn’t just that Jesus is the light of the world. The gospels tell us that we, then, as followers of Jesus, are the light too. We’re the light of the world, meant to shine for others to see, so that they might see Christ within us. 

We are the body of Christ in the world, the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. We are the body of Christ, the embodiment of Christ, in fact the incarnation of Christ that lives in the world today. We’re not just the messengers. We embody the message. We have the potential, the power, the responsibility to be Christ in Christmas.

Here’s the amazing thing. When we seek to be Christ in Christmas, which is exactly what we incarnational folks are supposed to be, called to be, created to be doing, we are not only the messengers of this good news. We actually embody the message itself. 

If we are Christ in Christmas, we become living, breathing, walking and talking messages of good news. And when we do that, when we live and breathe the good news, there’s no way we can miss the meaning of Christmas. 

Friends, if you find yourself worrying that we’re losing our grasp on Christmas, the best thing you can do is look into your hearts, and see if you find Christ there. Is the light of Christ shining from you? Are you not only a messenger, but the message? 

When people meet you, talk to you, interact with you – and by people I mean everybody – are they seeing Christ in you? If they do, we won’t have anything to lament! Be the message. Be Christ in Christmas.

...And have a good old-fasioned merry time doing it in the traditions of your family-- and your faith! -- Amen.

A RIGHT CHRISTMAS

Delivered to St. Andrew's Chatsworth, Dec. 8, 2019

For some lay preachers, dare I say preachers in general...the Advent or Christmas season may not be the easiest in the church lectionary calendar for developing meaningful messages that are just a bit different from what you have heard hundreds of times before a this time.

Nevertheless, I could be talking to you this morning exclusively on the subject of Advent -- the "waiting period"; but because, as it turns out, that this will be the only opportunity for me to be with you (St. Andrew's Chatsworth) in the month of December, I choose to place total emphasis on the birth of Christ.

While proclaiming the story of Jesus’s birth is a tremendous privilege, the number of potential preaching texts, in reality, is limited.

Neither the sandwiching gospels of St. Mark and St. John include the an account of Jesus birth. And to make matters more difficult, at least two passages in Matthew’s account do not appear to be listener-friendly. One seems too mundane, the other too disturbing.

But there is another challenge facing preachers. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’s birth have been overlaid with centuries of interpretive misunderstandings and legendary elaborations and assumptions. It is that acknowledgement that I want to expand upon this morning.

Initially, however, it is interesting to observe the reaction of people to the Christmas season which is now fully upon us with Second Sunday in Advent.

Christmas, of course, means different things to different people...Fun, presents, shopping, parties, good food, increased business.

But Christmas, and what it represents, means much more to the real Christian than Santa Claus, tinsel and mistletoe. It means that God loves us. It means that God has regarded his lost condition and has done something about it.

It means God has given the best gift the world has ever known and that the Saviour is born: to set an example with His life, to die for our sins, to be raised for our justification, to ascend on high and make intercession for him, to give him the hope of His coming again to gather all believers unto Himself.

Christmas means to us that we have a Companion for life--a Friend in the hour of death--a loving Brother for eternity.

Christmas has also become synonymous with some assumptions of an interpretive nature, the nativity story being the most common.

We're all familiar with the protrayal of the night Christ was born. We have seen it in Christmas concerts and pageants since we were knee high to a grasshopper. We see it in Christmas cards and religious art and nativity displays of all descriptions.

Through the years artists have portrayed that scene as they have imagined it. Each of us can readily visualize it--the straw on which the baby Jesus lay, the rough-hewn wooden beams of the stable, the animals nearby, and the star-studded sky overhead.

But, how does this compare to the actual word of God?

Scant information about Christ's birth is recorded in the second chapter of Luke which served as our primary Gospel Lesson this morning, and again I read:

"Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." I'LL COME BACK TO THAT IN A MINUTE.

In reality, the Bible does not provide us with many more details than this about the birth of Christ. The passages in Luke 2 discuss the angel's announcement of Christ's birth to the shepherds and the shepherds' subsequent visit to see Jesus, some believe as much as two years after his birth.

A few points must be made as we compare the modern retelling of the birth of Jesus. First, the Bible certainly teaches that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but it does not state that Joseph and Mary arrived in that town just in time for her to deliver.

In fact, this scenario is highly unlikely since it is doubtful that the two would attempt to make the arduous 70-mile trip from Nazareth on foot and in the final stages of Mary's pregnancy. Also, Luke 2:6 implies that they were in Bethlehem for a while before Jesus was born ("while they were there, the days were completed", it is stated in Luke).

The Gospel of Luke also says that Mary gave birth to Jesus and placed him in a manger “because there was no place for them in the inn", but does not explain where Jesus birth actually took place other than a reference to a manger.

It must be recognized that the books of the Christian New Testament are widely agreed to have originally been written in Greek, even though some authors often included translations from Hebrew and Aramaic texts.

Right off the top, it should be acknowledged that we are talking about 2000 years ago when there were no such things as lodges, motels or inns. Travellers from distant locations would normally have stayed with extended families or relations.

The Greek word kat-al'-oo-mah may be translated as either “inn” or “guestroom”, and biblical scholars have speculated that Joseph and Mary more reasonably would have sought to stay with relatives, only to find that the common area of the house where everyone slept, was full; whereupon they resorted to the shelter of a separate lower room with a manger. This could have been be a place to keep the sheep and a logical option for Mary and Joseph to have privacy during the delivery.

Jesus used the same Greek word in Luke 22:11 to refer to a "guest room." This room is now known as the Upper Room—the scene of the Last Supper, the meal that Jesus ate with His disciples the night before His Crucifixion.

It must be remembered that Joseph and Mary returned to Joseph's ancestral home of Bethlehem because of the census proclaimed throughout the Roman Empire and requiring many Jewish families to travel long distances.

Archaeologists have excavated first century homes from the Judean hill country, that was common for its cave dwellings. They have discovered that the upper level served as a guest chamber while the lower level served as the living and dining rooms. Oftentimes, the more vulnerable animals would be brought in at night to protect them from the cold and theft.

This sounds strange to many of us, since we wouldn't dream of bringing some of our farm animals into the house at night, but even today in some countries of Europe (e.g., Germany and Austria), the farmhouse and the animal quarters are often different parts of the same building.

This is where the manger comes into play. And again, Mary more than likely gave birth to Jesus in the lower level of a crowded dwelling, and in which some of the animals, probably sheep, had been brought in for the night. No "lowing cattle" as mentioned in the late 19th century carol "Away in a Manger".

In fact St. Francis of Assisi, is credited with staging the first nativity scene in the year 1223. According to his biography, St. Francis got permission from Pope Honorious III to set up a manger with hay and two live animals—an ox and an ass—in a cave in the Italian village of Grecio. He then invited the villagers to come gaze upon the scene while he preached about “the babe of Bethlehem.”

The nativity scene’s popularity took off from there.
Keep in mind that the proper understanding of any word is based on its context. In Luke 2: verses 7, 12, and 16, Jesus was born and then placed or laid in a manger. He was not born in the manger. It makes sense that Mary wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and then laid him in a feeding trough carved into a wall, which in turn served as a makeshift crib.

Now, the significance of this reinterpretation of the story is that it undercuts the idea that what made Jesus remarkable was that he was born to humble, outcast parents in a stable, of all places. “In the true sense of the Christmas story, Jesus is not sad and lonely, born some distance away in a stable of some sort, needing our sympathy. Rather, we should see Him in the midst of family, and all the visiting relations, right in the thick of it and demanding our attention.

This should fundamentally change our approach to enacting and preaching on the nativity.

Admittedly, it makes for a less compelling scene than the one most nativities capture. There’s an appealing and fitting degree of vulnerability to these popular Nativity images: the holy family, huddled around a newborn, exposed to the elements, and illuminated only by the light of a bright star. The idyllic visuals may explain why this detail stuck, and was further cemented in the cultural consciousness by the lyrics of countless Christmas carols that have followed.

Paul says that what is extraordinary about the birth of Jesus is that it shows God shifting from the divine to the human. If that happened in a crowded family home, the message is preserved. If it happened in an isolated stable, “that just shows that the descent was from a respected human to a disrespected, lowly human.”

Of course, we should never become so focused on the peripheral details of this account that we miss the most important point. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became a descendant of Adam so that He could ultimately go to the Cross and die in our place...The descendants of Adam saved from an eternity of separation from their Creator.

God gave His Son to this world. Let us celebrate this truth and tell the world about His amazing love.

If you and I are to have a Right Christmas, we must make time to worship Him in spirit and in truth. We, too, need to come with haste like the Shepherds, and bow down before Him in love.

A Right Christmas includes the matter of telling others about Jesus. The shepherds are our models. "And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this Child ... the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for the things they had heard and seen" (Luke 2:17-20).

When John introduced his Gospel, he pointed out that men were in darkness and Jesus came as the Light.

There is a plan for the spread of the Gospel and that is for us to be witnesses. Success in witnessing is sharing the story of the Lord Jesus Christ and then leaving the results up to Him.

There is no true Christmas without Jesus...He IS the reason for the season.

Let us all acknowledge that the meaning of Christmas is in His birth, His death and resurrection, and His coming again.

In truth, less emphasis should be placed on the questionable interpretation of "inn" and "innkeeper" in our Christmas accounts...Certainly something we should think about in the stories we tell youngsters each year at this time.

It is the "room" we make in our hearts for Jesus that really matters. That is an analogy that we can all accept.

In one of his prayers, St. Augustine is quoted as saying: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

I know for some of us who have the nativity embedded in our minds, it may be easier said than done, but let's leave here this morning not preoccupied with the speculative conditions under which the virgin's child was born, but with hearts filled with the spirit of Jesus Christ who ultimately gave His life for us. Only then will we have "A Right Christmas."