Here is my 2010 Christmas Eve Message. Merry Christmas!

You can follow this link to Good Shepherd’s website where the audio is posted.

Luke 2:8-20 • December 24, 2010

Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our savior and lord Jesus, who is the Christ. Amen.

I want to begin by offering a Christmas insight in the spirit of one of my favorite contemporary theologians – David Letterman. The top 10 things to say about a Christmas gift that you’re not quite sure about –
10. Hey! There’s a gift.
9. Well, well, well…
8. Boy, if I had not recently shot up 4 sizes, that would’ve fit.
7. This is just perfect, for wearing in the basement
6. Gosh, I hope this never catches fire!
5. If the dog buries this, I’ll be furious!
4. I love it, but I fear the jealousy it will inspire.
3. Sadly, tomorrow I enter the federal witness protection program.
2. To think I got this gift on the year I vowed to give all my gifts to charity.
And the number 1 thing to say about a Christmas gift that you’re not quite sure about. … I really don’t deserve this.

When we hear the Christmas story as we just did during worship on this most holy of days, do we hear it as a boring old over-romanticized theatrical production that we’ve heard a million times before – or do we hear it again as if this was the very first time. Do we hear it like the shepherds in the field heard it on that first Christmas? They were struck with fear when the saw the glory of the Lord around them, but an angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, I’m bringing you the good news of a most unexpected gift. A gift for all people, not just a select few, but for everyone.” They seem to drop everything they are doing and head out without fear to find Mary and Joseph and the gift that the Lord had made know to them through angels. A gift that they didn’t deserve. A gift that you and I don’t deserve, but a gift we have received anyway. We gather together as a community of faith in worship glorifying and praising God for all that we have seen and heard – through a gift that we don’t deserve.
What do you mean I don’t deserve the gift? I’ve worked hard, I’ve given a little of my time to volunteer and shared some of my money with others this year. I’ve treated others well, most of the time. I’ve share my love with those around me, at least when they weren’t annoying me. What do you mean I don’t deserve the gift?

I heard someone recently say that they think this Christmas will be the best Christmas ever. I think that is a great attitude, but for a Christian, the best Christmas ever was the first Christmas. The gift that you and I were given on that first Christmas is the best gift any of us will ever receive and we really don’t deserve it.

The best Christmas ever is what I think the writer of Luke’s gospel wants us to remember as we celebrate today. He wants us to hear the Christmas story like the first time, every time we hear it. Luke wants us to see the faces of the shepherds, to see the faces of Mary and Joseph and the animals, to see the face of the baby Jesus and to find ourselves once again filled with awe and wonder, to find ourselves realizing that we too might glorify and praise God this Christmas Eve for all that we are being invited to experience because of the life of the Christ child born on that night.

I don’t believe that Luke wants us to simply be fascinated by the Christmas story’s romantic quality and splendor. Luke is inviting us to explore the Christmas story’s depth and the unconditional and unmerited love God has given us in the gift of this child. This gift calls us to live beyond setting aside a few hours each year to remember its significance or working really hard at getting God to pay more attention to us than he does to our neighbor.

A theologian with a little more weight and clout than David Letterman is C.S. Lewis.

C.S. Lewis was visiting some of his friends who were begging him to play cards with them. Lewis hated playing cards, especially playing cards for money which is what his friends wanted to do. He finally said to them, “OK – How much money do you want to win from me?” He pulled out his wallet and put some bills into their hands and took the fun right out of the card game. Lewis was making an analogy that in our human games of wheeling and dealing there are some who will be winners and others who will be losers. In the gift of Christmas, God enters our bloody world of winners and losers, and offers the most incredible prize of a savior for everyone – winners and losers.

I don’t know why you are here today, though I’m glad you are. Maybe you’re here because you feel a sense of obligation. Maybe it’s just a tradition for you to worship on Christmas Eve. Maybe your spouse or grandmother made you come. Maybe you’ve experienced a significant loss in your life this past year and you are trying to capture that old feeling that Christmas used to bring to you. I don’t know why you’re here. What I do know and believe is that we are given a gift today. A gift for all of us. And it’s not the gift that the Visa and MasterCard bills won’t come due for another 30 day or that all of the holiday parties are finally over so we can get back to real life again.

The gift of Christmas is not given to those who deserve it the most or have worked the hardest to be good this year. The gift of Christmas is not found in anything that divides us into winners and losers over a game of cards or the journey of life. The gift of Christmas is that the God of all creation, the One who created you and loves you, knew that we could never find our way to God on our own in a world dominated by winners and losers and sin, so God went on the quest for us.

May that gift, the gift of a Savior born today richly bless and keep you on this day and in all the days to come. And may you be confident knowing and believing that the gift we celebrate today in the savior Jesus is greater than any gift you deserve or will ever receive.

Merry Christmas! Christ our savior is born! It truly is the best Christmas ever. Amen.

This week’s sermon. We are working through a worship series in Advent titled “On Earth as it is in Heaven”

You can follow this link to Good Shepherd’s website where the audio is posted.

Isaiah 11:1-10 • Matthew 3:1-12 • December 5, 2010

Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This passage in Isaiah is one of my favorites. It paints a picture with some of my deepest hopes and dreams for the world and communities in which we live. Even though Isaiah’s vision is probably not the reality in which most of us live. We long for a world in which the wolf can live in harmony with the lamb; the cow and the bear graze peacefully together in the meadow; an infant is playfully hanging out with one of the most deadly snakes know to humankind – simply enjoying each others’ company. A cast of natural enemies that no longer see themselves as enemies at all.
Isaiah’s time is full of extreme unrest and war. Just when things seem to appear completely lost and the future holds little hope of anything good ever existing again, this prophet comes along and offer a promise from God that includes someone being sent who will rule with justice toward all, and with mercy toward the most vulnerable. We hear of this one rising like the branch that grows from the root of the stump of a tree. The stump of the tree that looks dead and lifeless with no meaning and no hope for anything in the future. And out of this desolation new life comes.
It’s difficult to think of the desolation that Isaiah speaks of at this time of the year. We are bombarded with one happy Christmas scene after another. There seems to be an endless stream of Christmas movies and songs. I actually stopped long enough to watch one of my favorites Christmas movies the other day. A Charlie Brown Christmas. As I was watching this movie and thinking about our worship together today, I remembered a different Charlie Brown movie – one that has this great scene where the wonderful theologian Snoopy is working feverishly on a new novel. He begins his story in the same way he begins every story he writes, “It was a dark and stormy night…” Lucy happens to walk into the scene and takes one look at what Snoopy has written and goes crazy about the ridiculous way his story is beginning. She shouts back at Snoopy, “Don’t you know that all good stories start with, “Once upon a time…”
So our wise theologian Snoopy starts his story again. He writes, “Once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night…”
Don’t you just feel like that some times? No matter how you try to begin your story with “once upon a time,” it often begins with, “It was a dark and stormy night.”
Isaiah gives us a picture of a “once upon a time” world that is nothing like the “dark and stormy night” world in which he lives. The gospel writer of Matthew introduces us very quickly to the “Once upon a time…” story of Jesus birth – in a few short verses at the beginning of his gospel – and quickly transports the story to the “it was a dark and stormy night” world in which the wild and crazy preacher and baptizer John the Baptist was living.
One of my favorite pastors and theologians is Henri Nouwen. Nouwen once wrote, “The small child of Bethlehem, the unknown young man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher, the naked man on the cross, HE asks for my full attention. The work of our salvation takes place in the midst of a world that continues to shout, scream, and overwhelm us with it claims and promises. But the promise is hidden in the shoot that sprouts from the stump, a shoot that hardly anyone notices.”
Our faith does not just challenge us with what we see right in front of us. It challenges our very identity as living creatures in the world. It challenges us to believe in something that we do not yet see. At least, something that we do not think we see. It takes faith to believe that God is really at work in this broken world, making it right, shedding a little “once upon a time…” into our stories when all we seem to see before us are stories that begin with “it was a dark and stormy night.”
Advent sheds light on the new hope of God’s activity in our lives. God’s coming to us in Jesus breaks through every “dark and stormy night…” that may cause thoughts or deeds or actions to separate us from each other and from God. John the Baptist may sound a little excited and crazy and even a bit angry and out of control. God coming to us in Jesus is a big deal. It should cause us to scream and shout just a little bit. With the arrival of Jesus that John is proclaiming, newness has come into the world that radically changes everything forever. New life that emerges from the stump of a tree that nobody noticed before as anything but a dead tree. I think Snoopy was on to something.
We live today as a congregation celebrating the “once upon a time, it was a dark and story night…” stories that we share in the second of our three 50th Anniversary celebrations today. Jesus’ presence among us as a community of faith has caused our story to change a time or two along the way. The stories that we share have at times begun with “It was a dark and stormy night.” But we also celebrate the many “once upon a time” stories when the wolf has lain down with the lamb and the cow and the bear have shared a meal together. There are countless times when Jesus’ presence in our congregation has caused unexpected and amazing things to happen, just like a shoot growing from a stump that we thought was dead.
During Advent, we wait and hope and pray for the one to come who will change us forever and restore peace and justice to this world. My hope is that we don’t forget how the story begins and just how incredible that beginning was, how incredible that beginning is for the world in which we live today, and how incredible that beginning will be for the world that is to come. The Apostle Paul in the book of Romans writes, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” As people of faith, we confidently live believing that our “once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night” stories are always filled with the hope and light, and justice and peace, of the coming Savior – on Earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.