The caveat I through out, however, is that it may not sound like the sermon you heard. I believe I preached a slightly different sermon at each of the three services this week. So if you think you heard something, but don't see it here...it's possible it's words that the Spirit gave me in the midst of preaching. That being said, the basic point at all services was hopefully the same...
Thanks for reading.
January 4, 2014
2nd Sunday of
Christmas
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 147:12-20
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:(1-9)10-18
Please pray with me,
May the words of my mouth
and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight O God, our
rock and our redeemer. Amen.
In my previous call, I
sang in a community choir. Our Christmas
Cantata one year was called Hope Has Hands.
We had the opportunity to sing the story of Jesus’ birth.
The chorus to one of those
songs was the following:
The Word became flesh and
lived among us heaven was shining it’s light, he was unfailing love and
faithfulness
The Word became flesh and
now hope is alive.
The Word became flesh and
now hope is alive.
That is the message we
hear in our gospel reading from John this morning. The Word became flesh…and brought grace and
truth into the world.
In our celebration of
Christmas, we celebrate God becoming flesh, living among us and bringing us grace
and truth. That’s a life-changing event,
don’t you think? Heck, that’s a world-changing
event.
Because, think about it,
God came down to dwell with us.
Think about your homes….if
you are single…how did it change when you got married? How did you share that space? How did things change because someone else
lived there, too?
Maybe you, like me, grew
up as a single child for several years and then “Surprise!” you were a big
brother or a big sister! How did that
change things? Now that you would live
with a new addition to the family?
Or maybe, you’ve been
living alone for a while and now a son or daughter is moving back in or you may
be moving in with them….either way, life changes when someone comes to dwell
with you…and that, in essence is what we’re talking about with today’s Gospel
lesson.
The presence of God in the
world among us, changes life as we know it.
The Christmas story we
hear this morning, isn’t like the one we heard on Christmas Eve. The birth of Christ is told differently
through the Gospel of John. Our text
this morning does not include Wise Men, angels, shepherds, an inn, or even
Joseph and Mary. The Christmas story
that John tells, points us to God through Jesus Christ.
The Christmas story that
John tells, is exactly what all of scripture does…it points us to Christ.
When we gather together to
read or hear scripture, we do so to hear God speaking to us, and when we do
that, we listen for how God is present in our lives, and how we meet Jesus
through the Word of God.
As we deep our
relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, through scripture, we are aware
that God came down to us, to be present with us, with all humanity throughout
history….and today.
Through the Old Testament
prophets and stories, we read about how God was present with God’s people
throughout time.
God loved and blessed the
world.
People messed up.
God forgave them…and
continued to love them.
God loves and blesses the
world.
We mess up.
God forgives us and
continues to love us.
We see this cycle
throughout all of scripture and in the world around us today.
As we listen to the
reading from John this morning, thinking about Emmanuel, God with us, the Word
becoming flesh and living among us, we hear a Christmas story that points not
only to Jesus, but to the presence of God in the world around us and the
presence of God in our lives.
And as I said earlier…that
is a life changing event.
We see the presence of God
as we gather in this place, as we confess our sins and are blessed with
forgiveness.
We see the presence of God
as we take of this bread and wine, a meal that was given and shed for the whole
world.
Yet, we also see the
presence of God in places where we least expect it to be…
God is present with
families who struggle to make life decisions for a loved one who is ill.
God is present with the
children and families throughout the world who go to bed hungry every
night.
God is present in
war-ridden and poverty stricken nations.
Emmanuel, means God with
us. Whoever hears that, hears that God is with them, through thick and thin,
through bad and good…God is up to something, always.
As we begin a new calendar
year, God is with us.
Have you all made any
resolutions?
One year I decided that it
would be the year for a diet resolution.
So I started the Cheesecake diet.
Yup, you heard me right, the Cheesecake diet. I figure if there can be a Subway diet, and a
Taco Bell drive-thru diet, there can be a cheesecake diet.
It started off well…
New Year’s Day: Chocolate
Chip Cheesecake.
January 2nd:
Double Chocolate Cheesecake.
January 3rd…
New York style cheesecake with my lunch… J
It helped that I did a
wedding for friends who made cheesecake for their reception, which stocked my
fridge for a good while.
I know, it was a silly resolution…which,
wasn’t really all that healthy…but the new year does offer that time to reflect
upon last year and think about changes to be made for the year ahead.
It think it’s a good time
for us as a congregation to think about what it means for God to be present in
our lives.
What does it mean for us
to hear the Christmas story, to think about how God came down to earth just
because God loves us?
What does it mean to us as
a congregation that God is on a mission in the world around us? How are we jumping aboard that mission?
How are our own ideas,
opinions, or agendas hindering God’s work in us as individuals and as a
congregation?
God did not send Jesus
into the world to pull people out of the struggles, challenges, fears, pains,
and sicknesses. God sent Jesus into the
world to be present with us as we face those challenges and struggles.
God is with us in the
midst of all that we face…God’s resolution never changes.
God loves us, even when we
mess up, and continues to bless us…as we struggle, talk, pray and move forward
in faith that God can still work with us to teach the world about a God who
loves and saves everyone.
God’s resolution never
changes. BUT….it changes us!
Because that’s what it’s
all about…God working through us, in spite of us, to proclaim the good news of
forgiveness, grace and unending love.
That is the message we
hear each Christmas that permeates our lives every day of the year…
And now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep our hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus, and let all God’s people say, amen.
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