Home for Christmas

This is the sermon I preach tonight. It's based on the scripture passage Luke 2:1-20. Click here to read the scripture passage first.

Home for Christmas

Home for the Holidays or Home for Christmas are two of those phrases that you hear a lot during this time of year. It’s in the songs played on the radio and played in the stores while we shop. It’s talked about in commercials. Television shows and movies bombard us with images of everyone being gathered around a warm glowing fireplace, laughing and telling stories, maybe even singing the occasional Christmas carol.

Holiday cards paint a warm colorful picture for us of that magical nativity scene. Curious shepherds and sheep are gathered around awestruck Mary and Joseph as everyone tries to catch a glimpse of where that warm radiant light is coming from, everyone is trying to catch a glimpse of baby Jesus lying peacefully in the manger. A stable has never looked so cozy or so much like home as it does on the front of a greeting card. Home for Christmas was even on the Christmas Eve invitations we sent out. It seems like everywhere we turn people are talking about being home for the holidays.

All this talk about being home for the Holidays raises the question, where exactly is home? Where is home? For some people the answer to that question is really simple. But I can tell you that as a child of two Army officers, that question was a difficult one for me to answer. Is that the place I currently live? Is the place where I was born? Is it where my family lives even if I’ve never lived there? For awhile I would list all the places we had lived … but then the list started to get too long. So instead, when I was asked where I was from, I took to saying, “I’m from the US Army.” We even had little plaques in our house that said, “Home is where the Army sends us.” Or “Home is where the heart is.”

This time of year there is so much talk about being home for Christmas, but where exactly is home? If home is simply where you live, or where you’re from, then none of the people in the original Christmas story were home on the first Christmas. All of the people we read about in Luke’s account of the Christmas story are away from home that night. While most of us this season travel towards the comfort and familiarity of home for the holidays, the people in the Christmas story were traveling away from the known towards the new and uncomfortable.

Mary and Joseph were literally half way across the country from their home. Luke tells us that Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken. That meant that everyone had to go to their ancestral town of origin to be counted. So even though Mary was very far along in her pregnancy, Mary and Joseph both had to leave their home to go to Bethlehem. Only God knows how difficult and tiring that journey must have been for her. It must have been difficult for Joseph too, worrying about how he would care for Mary on such a journey, or wondering where they would sleep with all the inns filled. That first Christmas, Mary and Joseph were far from the comforts of their own house.

The shepherds were in the fields, their familiar realm, tending their sheep like any other night. When an angel appears proclaiming the good news of the birth of a savior, the shepherds are propelled from their comfortable and familiar territory into the unknown as they search for the messiah. Luke tells us that the shepherds hurry off towards Bethlehem and they find Mary and Joseph and the baby just the way the angel had described. That night the news of the birth of Christ sent the shepherds on a journey away from the familiar realm of the field to seek out strangers they did not know.

Even, Jesus, the little child that all this fuss is about, even Jesus left his place with the father and has gone to the little town of Bethlehem to be with us. Jesus is Emmanuel, the name itself means God with us. What an incredible thing. The creator of heaven and earth, the one who formed each of us in the womb, is himself formed in the womb of Mary. The one who breathed life into each one of us, the one who is himself the breath of life now depends on normal human breaths for his own life. The one who formed the mountains and carved out the valleys, the one through whom all things were created humbles himself and takes on the form of his creation. What an incredible thing, that God would give up such power and prestige and would become one of us, to be God WITH US! Jesus leaves his home with God, to live with us in this world.

None of the people in the Christmas story were at home that night. Each of them in their own way were far from home, far from the places that were comfortable and familiar, far from the places where they belong. They’re not with the people they would have chosen to be with. Instead they’re with a group of strangers, people they don’t even know and that they have little in common with. Not exactly the picture portrayed on most greeting cards.

And yet maybe that greeting card picture of being home in a stable really isn’t that far off. All the people in the Christmas story end up gathered around the baby Jesus. The really ironic part of the story is that they have journey away from the known and the comfortable and ended up in the place where they belong. It doesn’t seem that unusual to us because it’s such a familiar image but the group gathered around the manager that night was a really eclectic group. Who would have thought this group of strangers, from such very different backgrounds would all find their belonging in the same place. And yet they do.

In this tiny stable, in a strange and far off land, is the child who is home to us all. It is in this child, in Jesus, that each of us finds our belonging. It is in relationship with God that we come to know who we are and whose we are. It is in relationship with Jesus that we come to understand what it means to be loved and accepted.

Whether we’re the rough and tumble, blue collar working shepherd who’s looked down upon by society or the proper and distinguished wise man who’s respected by kings and commoners alike, we belong with God. Whether we’re the young and pensive Mary, quick to agree with God’s plan or the righteous and reserved Joseph wondering what the right thing to do is, we are home when we’re with Jesus. Whether we’re awestruck Christians or curious people wondering what this good new the angels proclaim is all about, we all find our belonging in God.

That’s part of the miracle of the Christmas story. Jesus gives up everything to be human, to be God WITH US. It is in this small child, far from home, that we all find our true home. As we gather together around Jesus, with people from all different walks of life, we find that this rag-tag group of people has been transformed into a community, into the community with Christ at its center. That’s really what the church is intended to be, it’s intended to be the community that gathers around Jesus Christ, the community that realizes it’s left behind all that’s familiar and comfortable and yet has found its belonging in Jesus.

If you are wondering who you are or where you belong, come home for Christmas. If you’re far from where you grew up or far from family and loved ones, come home and be a part of this community, a community that gathers around Christ. God goes to incredible lengths, even becoming human, in order to invite us home tonight. Come home for Christmas. Come home.

Amen.

What do you expect?

Below is the outline for my sermon this morning.

Read Isaiah 40:1-11

What Do You Expect?

I. One of the things that has always amazed me about the Jewish community is their sense of expectancy. The Jewish community as a whole has a much high sense of expectancy, of expecting to see God at work in the world and in their lives than most Christians do.

II. Jewish expectations of what the Messiah would look like and how the messiah would act

a. King, who would re-establish the nation of Israel

b. Military ruler who would conquer their oppressors

c. Would uphold the law perfectly – all 613 commands

III. They kept this sense of expectancy that the Messiah would come by integrating it into their lives.

a. Sabbath worship – opening the doors, turn towards them and pray for the coming of Elijah who is believed to proceed the messiah.

i. As part of the concluding hymn, an appeal is made to God that Elijah will come during the following week. “Elijah the Prophet, Elijah the Tishbite. Let him come quickly, in our day with the messiah, the son of David.”[35]

b. Passover remembers the saving activity of God in the past and points to God’s continuing presence and God’s future deliverance.

i. This was especially poignant when they were in exile or being oppressed.

ii. The Elijah cup – At each Passover meal, a cup of wine was placed in the center of the table. This cup was reserved for Elijah and no one else drank it. It was an act of hospitality towards Elijah, but it also served as a visual reminder that Elijah would come any day.

1. Many Christian theologians believe it was the Elijah cup that Christ picked up from the table at the last supper and blessed as a part of the celebration we now call Communion.

IV. Judaism cultivated a sense of expectancy in their life together. Yet, we often point our fingers at the Jewish community for missing the birth of Christ. We say how silly it is that they had the wrong expectations of the messiah. Since Jesus didn’t fit their preconceived notions of what the Messiah would be like many don’t recognize him as the messiah. We tell ourselves it’s such a shame that they had the wrong expectations.

V. But at least the Jews actually expected something. At least they actually expect God to be powerfully at work in their midst. Like our prayer of confession said, a lot of us don’t really expect Christ to return in our life-time, let alone before the next Sabbath like the Jewish prayer talked about.

VI. It is in this context with a lack of a sense of expectancy that these familiar words of Isaiah come to us. Isaiah calls out a reminder for us that God is here and is on the move.

a. Isaiah says, “Here is your God! See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him….He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart”

VII. So how do we cultivate a sense of expectancy of God’s activity in our midst?

a. When we expect a guest in our house there are certain things we do to prepare.

i. Clean

ii. Make up the guest room

iii. Plan what to cook.

b. If we expect God to be present in our lives then there are things we should do to prepare for God.

i. Prayer/devotional life

ii. Recounting the ways that God has been active in our midst

1. We do this corporately as we celebrate special events in the church calendar

a. Christmas

b. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday

2. We should also do this individually and as families, we should be intentional about remembering how God has been active in our lives.

3. Part of recounting the ways God has been active in our lives is sharing those stories with other people. As we hear those stories from others, we begin to expect it in our own lives.

iii. Looking for ways to partner with God’s work in the world.

1. It may be something relatively small like talking to the person sitting next to you on the plane.

2. Inviting someone to church

3. Going on a mission trip

VIII. Advent is a season of expectancy. It’s a time where we remember the birth of Jesus, the Word made flesh, God among us, but it’s also a time where we wait in hope and anticipation for the return of Christ.

IX. How will you cultivate a sense of Expectancy this year? Let us prepare the way of the Lord! Amen