Christmas Eve :: Dec 24, 2012 :: Luke 2:1-14

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

As much as we’d like them to be, beginnings are rarely marked with the kind of lavish extravagance we imagine and hope for.

Think about it, that first day of school when we were gearing up all summer for a new year begins with the bell ringing, attendance taken, and homework sent home. Hardly the kind of lavish beginning we expected all summer.

Or how about when we begin a new job. In anticipation of the new beginning we go and buy a new set of cloths, we get up and ready extra early, and we show up about 15 minutes before we are supposed to. And then when it is time to clock out for the day, the flourish is gone, the work to do has piled up on the desk, the phone calls have been endless, and the sense of accomplishment is no where to be found.

Or how about the first snow fall. With anticipation we look forward to the moisture, the pristinely white cover of all that is brown and dead, the feeling of a white Christmas soon. And then there is the shoveling, and the cold, and the slippery ice.

Beginnings are strange. With all of the anxiety and anticipation we put into them, they rarely are marked with the lavish extravagance we imagine they should have.

Our story this evening is a beginning, too. So much history, so many stories have built up this moment that we’d expect a grand, lavish extravagance would mark its occasion as well. The story of this beginning, the birth of Christ, should be marked with lavish extravagance, too.

And yet this story is like every other story of beginning that we know. Just like the first day of school or the first day of a new job, or the first snowfall, the story begins with humility and ordinary occasion. In fact, this story begins with the complete opposite of lavish extravagance. A young child, born in a stable, the animal bedding pushed aside for the young mother, a feeding trough for a crib, a dark night lit only by a single, bright star in the sky.

This is an ordinary beginning for the birth of God in Jesus Christ. As far as beginnings go, this one is about as plain as it can get; maybe even downright crude given the barn, the feeding trough, and the cold, darkness.

As much as we celebrate this birth and build it up in our Christmas Eve worship; as much as we like wearing our best to church, doing our hair so it looks just right, singing louder than we normally do, lighting candles, putting on an impressive display of devotion and honor for the birth of this little baby, this beginning is quite ordinary, quite crude even.

A young woman, her terrified fiancé, a few animals, some straw, a feeding trough, and a dark, cold night; hardly an extravagant beginning for the birth of Christ our king.

As if that all weren’t enough, we are told even more about the beginning; a group of shepherds, living in the fields, keeping watch at night, show up at the stable, there to witness this ordinary beginning. If you can’t quite imagine the scene, thinking about the children in our Christmas program should help. Imagine our kids after they’ve been with the sheep for weeks at a time, no shower or change of clothes, wandering into the stable that dark, cold night to see the baby boy lying in the manger.

Shepherds themselves were not quite known for their reputations, often crass and dirty folk, unfit to even testify in court because of their lowly existence in the fields. And here they are, unable to witness in court, but the first to witness Jesus, the Messiah, a small baby in the arms of his mother.

An ordinary, humble beginning for the Son of God. And yet, we have a God who wouldn’t have it any other way. This God of ours is renowned in the world for this kind of humility. For caring for the widow and the orphan, for feeding the hungry and healing the sick, even raising the dead to life. We have a God whose favorite material to work with is nothing. In the beginning, out of a dark and formless void came all of creation, out of dirt and wind came the life and breath of man. Our God, the one, true God of heaven and earth, likes to begin with nothing. Fallow, unworked soil is the blank canvas of a God who takes the lowliest, most humble beginnings and does something remarkable in the end.

Tonight is a celebration of humble beginnings; so humble that God can actually begin the kind of work God prefers to do: forgiving and welcoming home God’s children. God’s favorite material is a humble and contrite heart, ready for planting and tending and reaping; God’s favorite material is you. Your life, whether it is full of sorrow and pain, full of pride and prejudice, full of sickness and sadness, or full of joy and hope, your life is a good beginning for a God who likes to take nothing and make it something.

This incredible God we have begins incarnated life as a young baby, born to an unwed mother, in a dark, cold stable, on a bed of straw, lay in a feeding trough, and visited by lowly shepherds straight from the field. He lives and does his work in all the wrong places, eating with tax collectors and sinners, healing the sick on the Sabbath, touching the untouchable, and raising the dead to life.

And not only that, this incredible God we have begins life anew in life’s most humble and lowly point of death. In this dark and formless void of death on a cross Christ is resurrected for your sake, to take your life and make something completely new.

This Christmas, celebrate humble and lowly beginnings. Celebrate ordinary. Celebrate the dark and the formless. From these things God brings the grand, the extravagant, the extraordinary, the light and the well-formed life of his new kingdom. In Christ, the baby born in the dark, the light of God shines in all the world and we see that humble and lowly are, in the end, grand and extravagant.

May God bless all your ordinary, your humble, and your lowly beginnings and may God do something as grand as he did in the birth of Christ for you.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Advent 2 :: Dec 9, 2012 :: Joel 2:12-13, 28-29

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The prophet Joel continues to prepare us by heralding the coming of Christ way back in Old Testament times. Joel’s prophecy proclaims the God who is both goodness and mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

In this Advent season, as we prepare ourselves for celebrating God-with-us, or Emmanuel, we are bombarded with busy-ness. We are rushing, huffing and puffing through our days, barely taking the chance to slow down, to savor the season of expectation and hopefulness.

We rush, we dash, we even sprint through our days, busily preparing for the annual Christmas family get together, wrapping the presents for under the tree, putting the Christmas lights on the house. With breathtaking pace we ask our neighbors, “So, are you ready for Christmas yet?” or, “How are your Christmas preparations coming along?”

And yet, as we remember the story of Christ’s birth, we forget that this season in the church year, this season of Advent, is not about being busy, but about slowing down. This season is about waiting, along with Mary and Joseph, for the birth of Christ. Imagine if Advent were nine whole months of waiting, of expecting, of hoping!

This waiting and expecting and hoping is not always pleasant, however. Some of us do not look forward to this holiday season. Some of us dread getting together with our family while others of us dread being alone for the first time during the holidays. Christmas preparation can be very hard for some of us.

And yet, there is hope. The words from the prophet Joel for this morning point to something far beyond all of our rushing and our dread. Joel proclaims to the people of God, who are dreading a tough time ahead.

Joel proclaims these words, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart.” God is after you, God is seeking you, looking for you to return to him with all your heart. Even for those of us who do not look forward to the Christmas-time homecoming can return to the Lord. This is a different kind of homecoming, a homecoming to the Lord. Joel proclaims that God desires our whole heart, not just the parts of our heart that are not busy, not just the parts of our heart that our happy for the season; God wants our busy and dreading hearts. God wants all of us this Advent season.

Returning to the Lord is like doing a 180 degree turn. Turning to the Lord and facing him when we wander off and struggle to find our way. Rend your hearts, tear your hearts, God says, not your clothing. When the Israelites wanted to repent, when they wanted to return to the Lord, they would tear their cloths to show their repentant hearts. But now God wants them to tear not their cloths, but their hearts. God wants their hearts.

And it is because of God’s mercy and goodness, it is because of God’s slow-to-anger nature, it is because of God’s steadfast love for his people. God knows what you desperately need this Advent season: you need a heart that has returned to the Lord.

But you will not do this on your own. That is the promise of Jesus Christ. God will have to come to you, born a little babe, in a cold and dirty stable, in a world that was in chaos. He was born for you, he died for you, he was raised on the third day for you. Your hearts are torn in two.

And he does this because, as Joel says, “Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.” God will send his Holy Spirit to mend your torn hearts. You will return to God with a clean heart. Your hearts will be stitched together again and God will give you a clean heart; a heart that is ready to love and serve the Lord and your neighbor. You will not look with dread on this season of Christmas, you will not rush and huff and puff your way through Advent. You will look forward with a holy expectation, a hopefulness like you’ve never had before.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Advent 1 :: Dec 2, 2012 :: Daniel 6:6-27

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Let me set the stage for this book of Daniel. No doubt many of you know the story of Daniel in the lion’s den from your Sunday School classes, but there is some interesting back story that’s good to know.

Daniel was a prophet in an unsteady time. God’s people, the Israelites, whom he had blessed to be a blessing to the whole world, were being tossed around between the ruling nations of the time. Like a game of four player ping-pong, they were tossed from the Assyrians, to the Babylonians, to the Persians and finally to the Romans.

Daniel lived at the time of Israel bouncing from the Babylonians to the Persians. His calling from God was to be a spokesperson for God in the middle of the reign of some of the most ruthless kings of all time. The Babylonian kings were notorious for their ruthlessness; at times dragging around their slaves, including the Israelites, on large hooks placed deeply in their chins and strung together by long chains. This was no ordinary slavery, as if there was such a thing.

Daniel’s people, especially Daniel and his friends, were in a bit of a pickle. You see, the law of the day was that worship meant bowing to the king. Refusing to worship the king and instead worshiping God meant sure and certain death.

You might remember some of the other stories about Daniel and his friends. Three guys named Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were some of Daniel’s friend who were thrown into a fiery furnace because they refused to worship the King Nebuchadnezzar. In their faith they would not worship anyone but God alone. And you might also remember that the three guys were kept safe from the fire by the God whom they worshiped. When they were released from the furnace, they came out unharmed.

Or maybe you remember the dreams of King Nebuchadnezzar and how Daniel interpreted the dreams to mean that God would crush the king because he forced everyone to worship himself? Or how about the strange story of the floating hand that appeared out of nowhere, writing on the wall of the palace after King Nebuchadnezzar died and his son followed in his footsteps. Daniel interpreted the writing to mean that God, too, would crush this king.

After so much warning, you would think the kings would get that Daniel was right about God crushing them. And yet, the king’s officials plotted against Daniel and God. They wanted to have Daniel killed. And so King Darius was forced into a law that said if anyone worshiped a god besides the king that person would be put to death.

Daniel worshiped God. He did not worship the king. And so Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den. Our story today tells of Daniel’s incredible faith as he spends the night with the lions but emerges the next day, completely unharmed.

The Israelite people, especially people like Daniel and his friends, were faithful people. They looked to God to save them. God would deliver them from the evil kings. In fact, all that waiting for God to deliver them is why the Jewish people were always waiting for a Messiah. They wanted someone who would deliver them from the evil kings. Daniel’s people were anxiously awaiting deliverance from the Babylonians and the Persians. They were waiting for the King of all to come and set them free from their slavery.

And this, of course, leads us into thinking about Advent, and teaches us about the people who were anxiously awaiting the Messiah. As we are led toward Christmas, the day we celebrate Christ finally coming to God’s people to set them free, it is good for us to remember these stories, stories like Daniel and his friends having patient and yet anxious hope for God to deliver them.

Except the Messiah that God’s people were given was not what they had expected. In a manger, in a stable, behind an old dusty motel, together with the animals and the cold, a baby was born; a King to end all kings, a Messiah like no one expected. And yet, he was the Messiah. Christ was born, he lived, he died and he was raised to set God’s people free. Not from evil kings, but from the power of evil itself. 

In Christ, we are set free from the power of sin, death and the devil and we anxiously await the coming of Christ again, a second Advent. We are a hopeful and anxious people once again, waiting for the Messiah each and every day.

This is what baptism is for. Christ sets us free, once and for all time, in baptism. Our anxious wait is over when Christ arrives with his word of grace and hope and promise; and we pray that Christ arrives daily and abundantly. One day Christ will have his final triumph. But now were are like Daniel and his friends, anxiously awaiting amidst the rulers of our own time, waiting to be set free once again from sin, death and the power of the devil.

As we pour water over the head of little Macy Mae this morning, as we proclaim that her a child of God in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, our Messiah arrives. He shows up unexpectedly in simple water and word. Here is Christ for us, the Advent of our God and king.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.