Christmas ( Dec 20, 209)

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CHRISTMAS M3 SERMON NOTES DEC. 20, 2009

TITLE: Trading Spaces

TEXT: Galatians 4:4-5; John 1:1, 14; Luke 1:26-35

(Track Quotes more cleanly.)

BIG IDEA: God becomes like us so that we might become like him…

According to Dr. Martin Sanders, 80% of all exercise equipment is purchased in the 2 weeks before Christmas and the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but typically by spring: 85% is no longer being used: it sits idly for a year or two then is eventually posted on Craig’s list or e-bay.

Change is hard to come by.

Dr. Edward Miller, who has served as the dean of the medical school at Johns Hopkins University, has said that patients with heart disease so bad that they must undergo heart bypass surgery could avoid the return of pain and the need to repeat the surgery and stop the course of their disease before it kills them by switching to a healthier lifestyle. But, very few do. Dr. Millers says, "If you look at people two years after heart bypass surgery, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle (by diet and exercising)… Even though they know… they should change their lifestyle… they can't."

According to Alan Deutschman, author of Change or Die, the scientifically studied odds of being able to change are nine to one. That's nine to one against you.

Change is hard for anyone, but change is especially hard for someone who is homeless and addicted to drugs.

This week in The Vancouver Sun, I read a front page story about a man named Thomas, (show photo and article as a prop) who has been addicted to drugs from the time he was a young boy and homeless for years, has been experiencing real change because God has shown up in his life through a woman from Kerrisdale whom some of you know…

On this fourth Sunday as we look at the story of God becoming a human being, we’re going see how we too can experience real, lasting change.

In Galatians 4:4-5 we read that God in the fullness of time sent his Son Jesus Christ to be born of a woman so that that we might become the sons and daughters of God.

Please turn to Luke 1:26-35.

In Luke 1:26-35 we read these words:

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called [a] the Son of God.

We read here that Mary was greatly troubled when the angel Gabriel appeared to her.

People in Scripture are always troubled at first when they encounter an angel. When we think of an angel perhaps we think of a chubby, baby-faced cupid strumming a love song on a guitar, but angels are breathtaking creatures that inspire awe.

The angel Gabriel says to Mary, “You have found favour with God, and you will be with child. You will give birth to a son and you will give him the name Jesus.”

Mary responds by asking the angel, “How can I give birth to a son since I am a virgin? How could I give birth to a son since I have never slept with a man?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you so the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.”

In the passage we read how God’s Spirit comes upon Mary and as a result she miraculously conceives. And she will give birth, as unbelievable as it sounds, to the God who becomes a human being. The God-man.

In John1:1 we read:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The “Word” here, logos, to the Greeks referred to “the eternal rational principle that governs all things.” The Jewish people, on the other hand, used it as way to refer to God. John makes it clear that the Word here was God.

Then in verse 14 we read, “The Word became flesh.”

John 1:14:

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In Eugene Peterson’s rendering of this verse in the contemporary version of Scripture The Message, we read, “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood.”

The mystery of Christmas is that the maker of all things shrank down, down, down—so small as to become an embryo, a single fertilized egg, barely visible to the naked eye.

“Immensity cloistered in thy womb,” said the poet John Donne.

“He made himself nothing,” said the Apostle Paul.

Augustine, in the 5th century, wrote:

Maker of the sun,

He is made under the sun.

In the Father he remains,

From his mother he goes forth.

Creator of heaven and earth,

He was born on earth under heaven.

Unspeakably wise,

He is wisely speechless.

Filling the world,

He lies in a manger.

Ruler of the stars,

He nurses at his mother's bosom.

He is both great in the nature of God,

and small in the form of a servant.

This is remarkable. God became an embryo, a fertilized egg, a little baby, born in a cave under the watch of the animals, a baby who had to be breastfed, burped, taught to sleep, toilet-trained, a baby who had to learn to walk, talk, to read, and then to write. A young person had to learn from his father Joseph how to hammer a nail, how to use a saw, and use a carpenter’s plane.

Why?

He became what we were--a son of man, so that we could become who he is--a son of God, a daughter of God.

God becomes like us so that we might become like him…

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we read:

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

How was one person, Jesus Christ, able to pay for all the sins of the whole world?

Jesus was able to pay for and take all of our sins upon himself because he was both God and human. If he were just a perfect human being then, he could only pay the sin of one other person. But because Jesus also was fully God, he was the one person as both a human being, but also as the infinite God, who was able to pay for all of our sins when he died for us on the cross. His humanity plus his infinity as God enabled him to pay for the sins of all people on the cross.

Mark Batterson commenting on these verses, said, “Jesus makes us a deal we can’t refuse.” He says, “Give me all your sin. I’ll give you all my righteousness. And we will call it even.” He trades places with us. He trades spaces with us.

“He came to our place. He took our place. And he invites us back to his place.” (Dick Foth)

God becomes like us so that we might become like him…

Like Mary, when we say “yes” to God, when surrender to God, God enters us like an embryo and his life grows within us and we become like God.

God becomes like us so that we might become like him…

Marian Wright Edelman says,

“When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, He goes about it in a very singular way. He doesn’t release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes. God simply has a tiny baby born, perhaps of a very humble home, perhaps of a very humble mother. And God puts the idea or purpose into the mother’s heart. And she puts it in the baby’s mind, and then – God waits. The great events of this world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts. The great events are babies, for each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity, but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life.”

The great events of the world are babies being born… because each baby, each human being has the potential to become a person who carries in their body the very life of God.

The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4 we have this treasure of God’s life in our jars of clay, our earthly bodies, and the life of Jesus is revealed in us…

God becomes like us so that we might become like him…

Cynthia Maus writes:

God became man so that human beings might become like God. (i.e., through the Spirit).

He took residence on the earth that earth might be more like heaven.

He showed us in His own Son that flesh need not be a devilish thing, but full of grace and truth…

God writes His truth not in flaming letters on the sky, nor does He cast them in bronze or chisel them in marble for the guidance of the race. He writes His truth in human life.

When God’s spirit lives in us, we can become like God.

The promise of Christmas is that God becomes like us so that we might become like him…

This past Tuesday on the front page of The Vancouver Sun there was a story about a homeless young man named Thomas Willis (show photo) who had lived in front of the London Drugs in Kerrisdale and at nights slept in the back alley.

Thomas is not sure, but he believes he was born in Winnipeg. He did not know his father, and his mother, who was addicted to drugs, abandoned him when he a baby, just five months old.

He went on to live in a series of group and foster homes. After he was five, he changed homes about every three months. He was physically and sexually abused in them.

When he was seven years old, he was introduced to cocaine by one of his foster parents, who started Thomas using heroin when he was 8.

As a boy he ran away from his foster homes again and again, but when was 13, he ran away for good. He has lived on the street since he was 13.

He came to Vancouver about 5 years ago.

Four years ago, he was on the streets when he met a woman Kerrisdale from our community whom some of you would know, Sherrill Mair. Sherrill (in the same spirit another member of our community Dr. Kerry Telford Morrissey who died in the plane crash off the waters of Saturna last month) saw Thomas as a person, not as a problem. She saw him as a neighbour. At first, they would talk occasionally, and they got to know one another a little, and she would help Thomas out in small ways, though she never gave him money because she knew it would go to buy drugs.

Sherrill said, "I knew he had caused problems in the neighbourhood from time to time, probably when he was high, but there was something in his eyes that said there was a longing in him, that told me he wanted help."

Sherrill one day asked him what it was he truly wanted.

"He told me he wanted to get off the street," Mair said.

"'REALLY?' Sherrill said. “Yes, REALLY!”

One of the first things she did was drive Thomas to the hospital for an ultrasound. Thomas said, "People don't usually let a street person in their car," he said. "That just doesn't happen. But she was the only one who would drive me to appointments. She is a very brave woman." She drove him to detox. She drove him to doctors' offices and government agencies. She got him signed up for welfare. She picked him up when he got arrested. She gave him gift cards for food. She helped him find a place indoors to live. She started a small trust fund for him. (One of the donors is Mair's 14-year-old son, who donates $10 a month to it from his allowance.)

But, Thomas still struggled with his addiction and Sherrill wondered if her help had done any good. But, Thomas is now in a recovery house, attending AA and NA meetings regularly. He has even helped other homeless people get off the street. In January of this coming year, Thomas Willis, 27, will enroll in high school.

His friendship with Sherrill has ignited in him a passion for a new life.

"If it weren't for her," Thomas said, "I'd still be on the street, if I hadn't killed myself by now.

"She's my angel. She is the thing that God sent me to believe…"

When a human being like Sherrill adjusts her life to become friends with someone like Thomas (a person who has been homeless and who struggles with an addiction), Thomas can change. Mental health experts say that the simple act of being a person’s friend can alter their brain chemistry and improve their functioning in the world.

God adjusted his life for us in the ultimate way. He left the comforts of heaven to come to earth—a journey far greater than one of us moving from the penthouse at the Shangri-La Hotel into a back alley on the Downtown Eastside. God in Jesus Christ, the God-man, took our sin upon himself so we might be forgiven, filled with the Spirit of God, enter into a friendship with God, and be made new.

God becomes like us so that we might become like him… and when happens, as is true for Thomas this Christmas, earth becomes a bit more like heaven.

Pray:

Making Room for Christ (Dec 6,09)

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CHRISTMAS M1 December 6, 2009

TITLE: Making Room for Christ

TEXT: Luke 2:19

Props: Backpack, water bottle, books, pointer, EPIC, WV catalogue, concert invite cards.

BIG IDEA: We savour the Christmas story by worshipping fully and by a different kind of giving.

Kerry and Sarah Telford:

Christmas Concerts:

The movie Jingle All the Way is about a busy, inattentive dad named Howard Langston played by Arnold Schwarzenegger who is trying to get the 'hot toy' turbo man for his son Jamie...



After breaking his word again by missing Jamie's karate award, Howard resolves to redeem himself by fulfilling Jamie's ultimate Christmas wish…buying an action figure of Turbo-Man, a popular children TV superhero. Howard had promised to buy that figure earlier in the year, but then promptly had forgotten about it. Turbo-Man toys are the must-have gifts of the season, and stocks of Turbo-Man toys are quickly drying up all over the country. Desperate not to disappoint his family again, Howard embarks on an epic city-wide quest to find the toy everyone's looking for. Howard competing with another dad… in their race for the last action turbo-man toy!

Not of all us will be fighting for the last turbo-man at Christmas, but Christmas is a busy time for most of us.

We can feel the pressure of feeling like we need to buy presents we can’t afford (sometimes going into debt), wrapping them, writing and sending Christmas cards and letters, attending parties, and all extra events to attend. All good things, in and of themselves, but taken together we can cause us to feel stress, anxiety, and be more likely to snap at others.

Ironically and sadly, our busyness can cause us to miss the Saviour… the very reason for the season.

In the frantic pace of this time of year, I am drawn to the example of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, experienced an extraordinary amount of stress the time around Jesus’ birth, the time we now refer to as Christmas.

Mary was betrothed to Joseph. In their day, betrothal was considered very close to marriage and the couple was legally bound to each other. Mary became pregnant. Joseph was not the father. In their time, that would have been scandalous. People would have assumed that she had been sexually unfaithful to her betrothed, which in her day was tantamount to adultery. The penalty for adultery was death by stoning. This is why Joseph, before he became aware that Mary had conceived because the Holy Spirit had come upon her causing he to conceive, wanted to quietly divorce her, so as not to subject her to public disgrace and endanger her life.

We also read in Luke 2:1-5 that in those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. Anyone who was considered the head of their household had to go to their home town to register. So Joseph and Mary (who was 9 months pregnant) traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem is about 100 kilometers as the crow flies (MAP). Samaria lay between Nazareth and Bethlehem. There was so much animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews that any sane person travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem would have travelled east (MAP), crossed into modern day Jordan, and then travel south along the east side of Jordan River, and then crossed back west into Bethlehem. And so, with Mary nine months pregnant and travelling by donkey, would have required about a week, or more. (Now technically, Mary did not have to accompany Joseph to Bethlehem for the census because she was not considered the head of her household, but perhaps because of the scandal surrounding her pregnancy, she felt she couldn’t stay in Nazareth alone.)

When they are in Bethlehem, Mary goes into labour, but Bethlehem is now filled with people who are there because of the census, and so Joseph and Mary are not able to find any room at their relative’s home or at any of the motels in town. They end up going to a cave where animals dwell and Mary places her newborn baby in a feeding trough used by the cattle.

When Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph had some unexpected guests—shepherds. Shepherds were despised in Mary’s day. When people thought of shepherds, they thought of “thieves.” Some shepherds would steal a sheep and report to its owner that it was lost or eaten by a lion; in fact, their reputation was so bad that their word was not considered as admissible evidence in a court of law. So the scandal, the travel, the stress of giving birth to a firstborn child in a cave surrounded by animals and by shepherds could have easily have distracted Mary.

But we read in verse 19:

19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 2x
We read earlier in Luke 1:46 that after Mary learns she will become the mother of the Saviour figure, Mary sings:
46 "My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
Mary savours the birth of her son, the Saviour of the world.
When I am talking with a couple who is about to get married, there is one piece of counsel that I always give them about their wedding day. It is a piece of counsel that I received before I got ready for my wedding day. It is simply this: “Savour the day. Be present in the moment.” A wedding day can be so busy. A person can be so focused on looking right, walking down the aisle without tripping, reciting the vows correctly, being able to get the ring on his finger, forgetting to thank someone important at the reception… that they are not present for one of the greatest moments of their life.
So Mary’s savouring birth in her heart is a call for us to savour God’s gift to us, to be present and fully attentive to it.
Simone Weil, the French mystic, defined prayer is paying absolute attention.
As a mentor of mine says: “If one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, the snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. Something is ‘given’.”
When we look long enough at Christ, something is given.
One of the ways that we savour Jesus is by making space to pay attention to Jesus by simplifying our lives at Christmas. I know that simplifying our lives at Christmas sounds like a contradiction in terms because there is so much to do at Christmas.
But some things, even good things, are worth dropping at Christmas so we can pay attention to what matters most.
Before becoming a pastor here at Tenth Church, I interviewed a British minister that I have deep respect for, Dr. John Stott. I was working on an article where his ideas were being featured. After the interview I stopped the tape recorder. I turned to Dr. Stott and said, “I have been called to serve as a pastor at Tenth Avenue Church. I am young and inexperienced. I am wondering if you might have a word of counsel for me.” Dr. Stott paused and said, “Don’t get caught up in a frenzy of activity. Practice planned neglect. Study the Word in the world.”
We can practice some planned neglect at Christmas.
In my late teen years, our family with five kids decided that instead of buying gifts for everyone in the family--we would draw names. One gift for one person. We would draw names from a hat and buy one gift for one person in the family (If my younger brother would draw your name—you knew you’d be getting some of his homework for Christmas—one of his art assignments—where he had blindfolded himself and thrown paint backwards at the canvas.). Less shopping left more time for other things. Planned neglect.
I remember Charles Swindoll, a pastor with a well known radio teaching ministry, once said, “I don’t send Christmas cards and I don’t attend Christmas parties.” I am sure that the reason that he made those decisions was so he would not neglect his family and the people closest to him at Christmas. Hearing Chuck Swindoll saying that liberated me from feeling the need to write Christmas cards--on top of everything else. Though I enjoy attending Christmas parties, it liberated me from the feeling that I needed to be at every Christmas event. (One Christmas I spoke at 18 different events. I was too frazzled to attend to the mystery of Christ myself.)
Planned neglect creates the space for us to savour the Saviour.
Mary savoured the birth of Christ that first Christmas.
We can savour the Christ through planned neglect by paying attention to Christ in the Scriptures that describe his birth in Matthew, Luke, and John. Through prayer and meditation. Through worshipping in community as we are doing today.
A movement that encourages us to spend less time shopping more and more time worshipping the Christ is advent conspiracy:
ADVENT CONSPIRACY VIDEO (Show Video HERE):
The advent conspiracy calls us to a new tradition (it’s actually recapturing an older tradition): spend less, give more, love all, worship fully.
We can savour Christ through planned neglect…by simplifying our lives, by shopping less and so we pay attention to Christ and worship fully.
We can savour Christ by giving in different way.
Spending less which most of us we likely agree is a good thing, doesn’t mean we won’t give at all Christmas, it simply means w will give in a different way.
Mary gave a lot that first Christmas.
As every mother here would know, or someone who has cared for a newborn baby would know, Mary gave Jesus, God, the gifts of her body--her womb for nine months and beyond that as she nursed him. She gave him the gifts of his swaddling cloth that he was wrapped in as her new born son. She gave up sleep for him.
And Mary savoured the birth of her son, the Christ, through the gifts that she gave him.
And others gave gifts to Jesus too. The shepherds in Luke 2 brought the gift of their presence.
The Magi, also known in tradition as the three Kings, of course, featured in Matthew, brought gifts of their presents: gold and frankincense and myrrh to Jesus.
Part of the way that we can savour the Christ is by offering gifts that would honour him.
Savour Christ doesn’t mean that we don’t give gifts; it simply means we give in a different way, in a way that would honor Christ and express his love.
It is possible to become so preoccupied in buying gifts that creates more stress than joy, that makes us feel like we are being drawn away from Christ, rather than to him. If that’s the case, we do well to practice some planned neglect here so we can savour Christ.
But, it’s also possible to find and give gifts in a way that enable us to savour Christ as we express something of his love in our giving.
Before Sakiko and I got engaged to be married, she assumed that because I am a Christian pastor I was so deeply spiritual that I would have seen it as beneath me to actually buy her a ring. But as my sister (who was living in Japan at the time) can tell you, and Sakiko’s sister can tell you, with their help and without asking Sakiko, I discovered exactly what kind of ring she would like (by getting them to raid her jewelry box). I spent a lot of energy looking for rings in both Montreal and Vancouver to find the right one, that drew into space of joy and a sense of God.
As a young teen I was not a follower of Christ, but I remember how I really enjoyed buying (some jacking) gifts for my family. It was an expression of love that in a small way honored a God that at the time I wasn’t following.
Buying less can certainly be a way to savour Christ, but giving can also be a way to savour Christ.
We read in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, that when we give to the “least” of these, we actually are giving directly the Christ.

Sometimes the “least of these” is a member of our own family or someone in some kind of need. We can give them a gift of our presence or some other kind of gift they may need.

But many of the “least” in the world are people we have never met and live geographically (or culturally) distant part of our world.

Kerry Telford Morrissey (show photo), a medical doctor in our community, loved to give.

Kerry had worked as a doctor at the Bridge Clinic for refugees in here Vancouver.

Kerry spent time each year for the last 9 years as volunteer doctor serving the rural poor in jungles in Peru as part as a part of a Catholic mission there.

Kerry gave to Christ by giving to the least.

As you will see as you read this edition of EPIC, some people in our community at this time of year love to give clean water, classroom books for kids, or goats for underprivileged people in the developing world.

Some of the most meaningful Christmas gifts that I have been able to give (actually, in most cases given by others in my name) have been offering live chickens or lamb to underprivileged children through the World Vision catalogue.

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Goat


One healthy dairy goat can yield up to 250 litres of milk annually to provide essential protein and life-changing income. Two goats can be bred to produce from 2 to 3 kids a year and eventually multiply into a whole herd.

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Piglet

Everybody loves the practical gift of piglets. They're simple to raise, can plump up to 90 pounds in three months, and are a great source of protein. One sow can produce a litter of piglets every year to sell at market. One pig is great--and three are terrific—to help a family break the cycle of poverty!



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Sheep

Sheep are great providers for a family in need. They produce lots of wool for making warm clothing—plus protein-rich meat and milk. Sheep often birth twins or triplets, which can be sold for income or bred to produce a whole flock of woolly grazers.
I’m getting these images from the World Vision Canada website (www.worldvision.ca) which you can find at the bottom of the sermon outline in your program. There are a few World Vision catalogues at the back of the church.

If you want to give something to someone in need more locally, every year people at Tenth help fill back packs (show) to fill them with such things as a toque, a sweater, socks, snacks, a rain coat.

Another way you can give to someone local, of course, is by opening your heart or home to someone.

Marian and Jonny B, a couple in our community, have three children Sammy, Lukas, and Gracie.

This couple, as many of us enjoying doing at Christmas, invite people who have no family in the area to celebrate Christmas with them.

One year in the midst in the midst of their own financial challenges they had 26 people over for Christmas dinner in their relatively small home. (I have been there a few times).
We can savour Christ this Christmas through planned neglect, worshipping fully, and by giving in a different way.
Pray.