Isaiah 63:7-9
I will recount the gracious deeds of the LORD, the praiseworthy acts of the LORD, because of all that the LORD has done for us, and the great favor to the house of Israel that he has shown them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 8For he said, “Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely”; and he became their savior 9in all their distress. It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

What now?  The Sunday after Christmas is always a low Sunday.  Families are visiting or families are traveling.  People are taking advantage of the opportunity to be off and sleep in.  That’s why this Sunday is typically called “Associate Pastor, or Guest Preacher” Sunday.   Two Senior Ministers were in worship at Wesley this Sunday while their Associates were holding down the fort back home!

The Sunday after Christmas represents what we think about Christmas. It’s over and many of us are glad. My wife and I usually ask each other on Christmas day about 2 pm, “So, when do you want to take down the tree?”  Someone told me this week that they believe we feel this way because our culture starts Christmas in September.  We are just done with it. It’s time to get back to “normalcy”. It’s time to move on. It’s over.

But in that time between Christmas and New Year’s, I want to very briefly remind you that Christmas is not over at all. For Christians, it has all just begun! The birth of Jesus does not represent for us an ending, but rather a beginning. This is why the church calendar year begins with Advent.  For us, the message of Christmas should propel us through the year!  And just what is that message?

Isaiah tells us…
“he became their savior in all their distress. It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them”  My hope an prayer is that you will take this passage of scripture and make it your home screen, put it on an index card on your bathroom mirror, or mark it in your Bible.  The beauty of Christmas is that God did not reach out to us in some abstract, untouchable way.  Christmas is the story of God with us in everything at all times! It is God’s own “presence” that saves us.  God didn’t send a messenger or an angel…God came Himself!  His presence saves us.

How can we carry that forward?  I have a suggestion.  As you clean up your Christmas decorations this year, pick something to leave out.  It could be a shepherd from your nativity or the nativity itself.  It could be an ornament or a Christmas candle.  It doesn’t really matter what it is except that it is something you use during Christmas.  Keep it in a place you will see all year and as you walk by it remember the message of today.  “his presence saves us”…

Jesus continues. He will continue the actions of God our Heavenly Father who sent him to be with his people. He is Immanuel, God with us, and we are His chosen ones. He will care for us and love us in our deepest distress, will redeem us, lift and carry us as his God has done from the beginning.

Isaiah 9:2-7
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

What a beautiful poem Isaiah gives us. It is a poem that follows the historical setting in verse 1, “There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations”  This historical setting is a carryover from Isaiah chapter 8 which describes a time in Israel’s history when God was silent (or at least not listened to).  From Isaiah’s perspective, this poetic message is a sign of hope. The throne of David is reaffirmed. This king referred to will bring the promise of transformation, recreation, and perpetual peace all with justice and righteousness!
The Darkness will become Light – we have seen the power of light on Christmas Eve as the one light of the Christ candle makes the entire sanctuary awash in soft light. We have seen the power of light in the life of Ebenezer Scrooge as he reflects in front of his grave marker of the message of Past, Present and Yet to Come.  Scrooge cries out, “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

The bright light from the Ghost of Christmas Past that Scrooge fought hard to snuff out, continued to shine in his life – revealing his true character. The light overcame Scrooge’s darkness and can overcome ours as well, if we will open ourselves to see and hear the message Christ brings.

Isaiah also points to a great celebration – people shout and sing to God as if it were thanksgiving at the end of a great harvest or when war had ended! When our lives are touched by Christ in us, we are not the same. Scrooge was completely transformed.  Dickens shares these final passages from A Christmas Carol – “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”
The poetic celebration of a life transformed.  The celebration of Christ’s redeeming work.

This Isaiah passage also speaks of something deep and universal – perpetual peace. The tramping boots and the bloody uniforms will all be burned. This is God’s desire for his creation and we must do our part to make it a reality – as we shine the light of Christ through our lives every day.

Finally, the scene in Isaiah shows us the future. It moves to the throne room of the King and even beyond! The newborn king is shown to be the true king, seated on the throne of David. This king will administer justice, establish righteousness, and bring a reign of peace.  This is God’s will and this reign will extend forever.

Always be open to the challenge of God’s word! Examine your past and allow Christ to help you overcome the limitations of it. Remember the simplicity and purity of our faith and live in the present – with love for God and those around you every day. Don’t be afraid to let God disturb you from any course of the future that is not in line with his will.

Christ has come. The time for redemption is at hand.

Isaiah 35:1-10
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”   Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

What is more fearful? Death? Or a meaning-less life?

As we look ahead into the future, we hear a voice from long ago – a call from Isaiah of the future Christ ushers in – a future that disturbs.  Disturbing? Really? Many of us read these prophetic passages of Christ’s coming into the world and we like them. They don’t disturb, do they?  The truth is that this passage is deeply disturbing to those of us who are comfortable. God seems to always afflict the comfortable. Look at every story of God’s dealing with humanity in scripture from Adam and Eve, to Noah, to Abraham, to Joseph, to David, to Paul – God’s word causes quite a stir because it always challenges our view of the world.

Isaiah says, “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” That’s not disturbing? This is exactly what happened to Ebenezer Scrooge when he was visited by the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come. Confronted with the disturbing truth, Scrooge sees the future of his unchanged life. His grasping, greedy, and relation-less life ends with no fanfare and no compassion. The Spirit takes him to a back alley shop where a woman is selling Scrooge’s bed curtains. Scrooge hears her say, “If he wanted to keep ’em after he was dead, a wicked old screw, why wasn’t he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he’d have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.”

The consequence of an unreflective life lived only for ourselves is highly disturbing.
And this is our danger; most of us are unaware of how selfishly we live our lives. Many of us are so comfortable with how the world works and our place in it, that we have learned to care for only those who are like us!

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book An Altar to the World, writes, “We have just enough religion to make us hate one another but not enough to make us love one another. Because we are human, which is to say we are essentially self-interested, we are always looking for ways to add a little more authority to our causes, to come up with better reasons to fight for what we want than to just say, “Because I want it, that’s why.” If we can convince ourselves that God wants it too – even if that means we cast God in our own image so we can deny the image of God in those not like us – than we are free to harm others not for our own reasons but in the name of God, which allows us to feel holy about it instead of feeling bad.”

Look again at Isaiah’s word’s – look how he crafts the image of Christ’s coming into the world. Total redemption, total transformation, total reconciliation – not just in the way you and I define it for our self-interested personal spirituality, but for the entire world: Isaiah says that when the Messiah comes, every person, every tribe, every race, in every situation will be redeemed and recreated – the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame leaping… this passage speaks of waters breaking forth into the deserts…a highway of God where the unclean may not travel.
God will reset everything to the original default settings – a total RE-CREATION where the poor and the hungry have a seat at the table with the rich and sated.
This is disturbing because the person we deem least worthy to share a meal with will be seated at God’s table with us. This is disturbing because the person we refuse to forgive will be forgiven. This is disturbing because the person we hate is the person God loves. This is disturbing because our constructed order to the universe will be shattered and God’s order to the universe will be the only image.
This is disturbing because scripture says if we don’t usher in this new reality – if we fight it or limit it or try to sustain it – we will be just like Scrooge staring straight at his own tomb.  Our names will be on the tombstones in front of us if we remain totally self-interested and neglect living in God’s pure love and mercy (and share it with the world).  This is disturbing because Jesus gives many images of what happens to those who don’t get this message and work toward this end – trust me it is not pretty – it is filled with fire, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. But the good news is we can change.

So I ask you once again…What is more fearful? Death? Or a meaning-less life?

For many of us, our own names are on the tombstones of life staring back at us. This is the result of living life in our own self-interest.  How will we respond when we see our names written on the marble in front of us?  What will our response be?  How will we live our lives going forward?
Will we continue the same?  Or will we work with God, ushering in Christ’s Kingdom and be re-created fully in God’s image and live a life of love?

Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

In the continuing struggle to live in this world and figure out life, I am here to declare that it really isn’t as difficult as it seems.  We make it harder than it really is. We are the ones who turn grace into legalism – God doesn’t do that. We are the ones who turn mercy into unforgiveness. We are the ones who take love and turn it into control.

Early in my ministry, I was amazed and often disappointed to find out that for most people and for most churches, that the true heart of Christ’s message, the true heart of our religion was being obfuscated by our own desire and need for control and security. I have found in many churches, religion was much more about law and much less about relationships and grace. One of the reasons I actually considered dropping out of seminary in 1993 and going to law school was because what I found in churches when I began working in them was not what I found in scripture. Isn’t that sad. What does that say about our churches that a young preacher actually thought it would be purer and more real to be a lawyer??

This Advent, we hear the message of John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness to get ready! Make way for the coming of the Lord. John was the great illustration of the Old Testament prophet (in the wilderness, crying out, wearing animal skins, living like a hermit) but he was announcing a NEW message. John declares that in the coming of Christ, what you thought was true religion will be dashed on the rocks. Law will be supplanted by grace. Unforgiveness will be supplanted by mercy. And anger, gossip, and pettiness will be supplanted by love.

We are now the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming out to John to proclaim we want this baptism of Jesus – we want to share in this message – yet we cling to old ways. We are the ones who take pure religion and turn it into a farce – a hypocritical institution where the rest of the world refuses to enter in because, they say, “I know those people, I see how they live, how they treat people, how they talk to others, and how they refuse to love those not like themselves. I don’t really want that kind of religion.”  As Thomas Merton reminds us, pure love desires only one thing – the good of the one loved. Yet we have made it a selfish love – many of us love for what it does for US.

For most of our lives, we church folk never realize this great tragedy. We justify, reify, and glorify (ourselves) into believing that the way we do religion is the right way. The way we worship is the right way. The way we live life is justified totally because …. it is how I live it. And that is enough of a rationale and reason to make it right – because it is the way I do it and the way I want it done.  Simply put, we stand in our own way of freedom, grace, love, and mercy.

Now before any more of you think about getting up to walk out this morning, just know that is John’s message – (not John Stephens but John the Baptist) crying out in the wilderness. Are we ready for Christ to really come and be Lord in our life? We are confronted with this question today – what does your religion look like? Is it the true religion of Christ who came to transform, recreate, and make new? Or is it the religion of old – the religion that Jesus came to confront – a religion of rules, control, power, security, – a religion fashioned in our own likeness rather than the likeness of God.

The great contemplative Thomas Merton also wrote, “Every person becomes the image of the God they adore. He whose worship is directed to a dead thing becomes a dead thing. He who loves corruption rots. He who loves a shadow becomes, himself, a shadow. He who loves things that must perish lives in dread of their perishing. The man who leaves the Lord the freedom of the Lord adores the Lord in His freedom and receives the liberty of the sons of God. This man loves like God and is carried away, the captive of the Lord’s invisible freedom. A god who remains immobile within the focus of my own vision is hardly even a trace of the True God’s passing”  And this was exactly the message of the Ghost of Christmas Present to Ebenezer Scrooge; “Let me show you what Christmas really is and not the limited construct humanity has made it.”
Dickens writes of Scrooge’s journey with the spirit , “Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery’s every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.”

Scrooge, believing Christmas to be a farce and an invention of rich men to steal accuses the spirit of all the selfish things done in the name of Christmas and faith, the Spirit replies, “There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”  The Ghost of Christmas Present is similar to John’s voice crying out in the wilderness. “Be careful that you think you have it all understood – it is much simpler and richer than you could ever imagine, but you have to get out of your own way first.”

True and pure love is the simple answer. Not in control, not in legalism, not in unforgiveness, not even in buying stuff!  This lesson is beautifully lifted up as the Spirit of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to the Cratchitt’s home. In watching that poor and simple family celebrate the simple essence of love, Scrooge learned that:
• True happiness cannot be bought, that it begins and ends in the heart, and that the fulfillment of our living is found in relationships not in regulations.
• That the value and worth of a person is not found on their net worth, but in the quality of their character.
• And he learned that redemption is found in seeing and caring for the poor.
Not the most profound and intricate of philosophies and theologies. No scripts, no expectations of what religion looks like from you or me or some other overly pious control-ridden Pharisee or Sadducee. True joy and happiness is found in relationships – true religion is rooted in love.

When it is all said and done, the secret to living life fully is not that difficult to figure out.  Let us move beyond control, legalism, and judgment toward to power that can set us free.  Love.  The greatest of these is love.

Romans 13:11-14
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

I would be lying to you if I said there were never moments when I wish I could journey back to my past and change things. I have this occasional dream of being able to go back in time – knowing all the things I know NOW. I would not want to go back if we were not allowed to take the knowledge I have now.  I think about what I might have done different. I think about relationships that were broken, whether my fault or someone else’s. I think about hurtful words and actions towards others. There are moments and events that we probably all wish we could change, that we wish turned out different.

Remembering the past can be a good thing – if we use those memories to learn how to move forward. After all, the philosopher George Santayana warned that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The past can teach us.  The past can form us in positive ways.  But there are some memories that don’t help. They haunt us. They enslave us and bind us.

Some of us have never been able to live fully in the present (or even have any vision for the future) because our past is so oppressive. These powerful, limiting forces come from haunting memories.  The question for us today has to do with the memories of our disappointing and even sinful actions in the past. The remembrances that form chains around us that enslave us. What chains of the past bind you? How do you need to be set free?

Paul writes in Romans 13, “you know what time it is, this is the moment to wake from sleep. The night is far gone and the day is near. Lay aside the works of the darkness and put on the armor of the light. Live honorably in the day.”  In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the light that shines on our past is reflected in the Ghost of Christmas Past.  While Paul uses the term, “the night is far gone and the day is near,” Charles Dickens uses the powerful image of the Ghost of Christmas Past, who shines light in the corners of our life.  Dickens writes, “But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.
The light was so bright issuing from the spirit’s head that Scrooge immediately asked that the spirit put the extinguisher cap over its head to shield the light, to which the spirit replied, “”What!” “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!”

Dickens identified the fear in every one of us: When we are confronted with light that shines in the darkness of our lives, our first impulse is to extinguish it. We don’t want to confront the debilitating pains and mistakes of the past. Who does?
We are familiar with Scrooge’s journey into his past. He travels to his boyhood schoolhouse, to his former place of work, and to the moment on Christmas Eve when he chooses gain and success over the love of his life.  Can we imagine being forced to relive the most painful parts of our past? I wonder how we would respond. Would we be moved to act in ways that are redeeming? Or would we want to close our eyes and like Scrooge, beg to see no more?  Unfortunately for many of us, we carry our painful reminders with us all the time. We don’t really need any spirits to take us there, because we relive them regularly.

I remember a young girl in a former church who shared with me that her father had repeatedly told her throughout her childhood that she was worthless. Can you imagine the effect that had on her life? It was no wonder she struggled in so many areas. She did not want to revisit those words, but she needed to hear that her father did not define her – her father had no power over who she was or could be.

I remember a friend whose spouse had violated his trust. For many years, he was a prisoner to mistrust. He just couldn’t bring himself to fully trust another. He needed the light of truth to shine and communicate to him that what one other person does, does not define all the rest. Love is a risk, but the love of God never disappoints and is the only power that can heal.

I remember my own story, struggling with emotional connection and trust, blaming it all on my father and telling myself – this is the way I am. I can’t change this disconnected part of me because that is what my experiences have shaped me to be. I believed for many years that my own experiences defined me in such a way that I couldn’t emotionally connect to another person.

But the truth of the Gospel is we can change. I speak from experience as one who has been changed. Over the past 20 years, God has literally changed my personality. I have become more forgiving, more feeling, more intuitive, and more emotionally connected – I still have a way to go, mind you. That work was God’s work in me – but I also had to face some darkness that I didn’t want to face. It didn’t happen in one night, like Scrooge, but it happened for me – and it can happen for you.  It happened through prayer. It happened through friends who nurtured me. It happened through close friends who would listen and comfort and guide. It happened through the Church. All of these resources of healing gifts of God that help us make sense of the darkness and step into the light. These gifts of church, family, friends, and pastors helped me identify the chains and allow Christ to set this prisoner free.

Paul said to wake from our sleep and face the day. The prophet of Isaiah said it this way in Isaiah 61:1-3, “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.”

If you want to be set free from your debilitating past then it is time to step into the light and connect with the resources God has given us to set us free!  Let’s not extinguish the light as Scrooge did. Scrooge sought to put out the light, to run away from the truth of who he was.  Dickens writes, “Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.”

“it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Live honorably in the day.”

Luke 16:19-31
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”

And thus Dickens’ classic Christmas story, A Christmas Carol, begins. A story of hope; a story of preparation. Marley, as dreadful an apparition as he is, is the prophetic bearer of hope – your reclamation and salvation will be offered this night through three messengers. Will you listen? Will you heed their message?
A hope filled warning, if you will.

A hopeful warning is something we all need from time to time to show us that we have veered off the path. It is easy to see others who veer off the path God has for us in their lives – those who so blatantly live against God’s will and word.
Ebenezer Scrooge is easy enough. Charles Dickens sets him up as a foil, a character who represents us all. Yet in his eccentricities and oddities, we laugh at him and then rejoice to see such a scoundrel who is redeemed. What we fail to really see is how much of us is really in Scrooge.
We look at others and say – “They need preparation and salvation,” We can identify them easily!  But not so much ourselves.

A CNN story recently showed us what this kind of unrighteousness looks like – we easily identify it in others.
• In West Palm Beach, Fl. Three women had over $1,000 stolen from their cars in a Best Buy parking lot. They had camped out since Wednesday night to be first in line on Black Friday. One woman was quoted, “Just cruel, what they did. Just wicked.”
• In Wisconsin, a woman was arrested for cutting in line. Now you might say, that’s not so bad, right? This lady cut in front of several hundred shoppers – threatening to shoot each one if they didn’t let her in front of them. When interviewed by the police, the woman said, “I just wanted to get my daughter the toy she wanted for Christmas, which probably won’t be there after all these people go through the line.”

Ahhh, the spirit of Christmas.

That kind of unrighteousness is easy to spot and easy to agree upon. But, and I could be wrong, I don’t think these are our problems. No our problems for far more sinister because they are far more veiled and disguised. As a matter of fact, many of our sins are hidden to us because we are so desensitized and even complacent.
Do we even know what our problems are? Do we even know our own frailty and sin? Or are we too close to our own situation, unable to hear the prophetic words that call us to repent and prepare our hearts for Christ’s reclamation.

Charles Dickens uses Marley as the prophet who offers salvation to Scrooge. He literally is one who comes back from the grave to warn Scrooge as a symbol of God’s warning that already exists for us all in Scripture. Marley cries out to Scrooge:
“Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed, not to know, that ages of incessant labor by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”

“That is no light part of my penance,” pursued Marley. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.”

Advent is a season of hope and preparation. Hope in that we celebrate the coming of Christ into the world – God with us, Emmanuel. Preparation, because whether or not we are willing to admit it we all have areas in our lives where we are living against God’s will – maybe we are unloving, maybe we are selfish, maybe we refuse to forgive someone, maybe we have hatred or revenge in our hearts, maybe we are afraid. So many ways that we close the door to the Holy Spirit, not just at Christmas – but every day. Advent is the season of hope and preparation – Christ has come into the world to set us free from all the powers and principalities that seek to restrain and bind us, the chains we forge in life. Advent calls us to a life of preparation – be ready, open your heart, see yourself clearly and be ready for God’s redemption.

This is why Advent is such a special and interesting season. The Scripture readings for Advent say nothing about a baby in a manger. Rather, the scriptures of Advent lead us to focus on the coming of Christ and the fullness of God’s kingdom. Advent is a season of hopeful preparation.

The coming of Christ was the fulfillment of the hope of humanity. Each year at Advent, we focus once again on preparing our hearts for the coming of Christ – for the reality of hope. And while we understand that Christ and the message of Christmas are not for one season of the year, this is the time we anticipate a hopeful yearning that Christ will come again to us and reclaim our lives and our souls.

That is why in this passage in Luke, we find not the poor man who needs salvation, but the rich man who needs a message of hope and reclamation. While the poor and needy are all around us at Christmas (and every time of the year), I think we would be remiss if we declared that only the poor need Christ at Christmas. The danger for those of us who are rich in this world (both in spirit and resources) is that we often miss the message of salvation altogether – relying on our own means and sufficiency rather than on the hope and grace of God.

Advent lifts up the prophets of Isaiah and John the Baptist to call us with their prophetic voice to hear the message of salvation and reclamation. Be careful, lest you think you don’t need to heed the prophet’s call.

Isaiah 40:3-9 says “A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”

Dickens writes, “The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one.”

In Advent, we will hear again the call of the prophets. They will visit us each week and cry out to us to open our eyes to the world around us!

It is the prophetic voice that has been given to us to call us to heed God’s word for our lives and our salvation. Do we hear? Do we heed?  Think on these questions as we move forward the next three weeks:  Are there chains of the past, decisions or actions, that bind and enslave you?  Do we know where true joy and happiness if found in the present?  When confronted with who we really are, will we withdraw, engage, or embrace?

This past Sunday at Wesley, we spend some time exploring what Proverbs has to share with our families.  A few thoughts for children and parents:

Wisdom for Children
Proverbs 13:1 says, “A wise child loves discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.”

Maybe I’ve just never met any wise children because I don’t know of any who love discipline.  The reality is the word “discipline” is always associated with punishment in our culture.  But in the Bible, the word “discipline” means more.  Discipline and disciple contain the same root.  To discipline a child is to teach them and to mentor them.  I’ve learned more from teaching and mentoring than from punishment.

One of my favorite stories to model this is the story of the farmer and his son.  One summer, the farmer took his son out to teach him how to plant rows of beans in their family garden.  It was a large garden and there were many, long rows.  The farmer modeled the distance between planting the beans, how many beans to put in each hole and how to cover them up.  After a row or two, the father gave the beans to his son and and left him to complete the field on his own – hoping to teach him the value of hard work and careful planting.  As the day went on and the temperature went up, the rows seemed longer and longer.  The son began putting fewer beans in each hole and the spacing grew wider.  Finally as the son was about 2/3 finished, he walked off the side of the field and dumped the rest of the beans along the pine trees near the field.  He was done.

A few weeks later, the father told his son, “Come with me.”  As they walked out to the field, the boy saw the first row of beans coming up nice and even, but as they passed more rows, the beans became more sporadic and farther apart.   Finally, the father and his son stood at the pine trees and there on the ground were bean sprouts coming up everywhere.  The son knew he had been found out and was ready for his punishment.  The father simply looked to his son and say, “Son, I am disappointed.  But I hope this will teach you a valuable lesson about life.”  The son asked, “What lesson, Pa?”  The father replied, “The beans always come up, son…the beans always come up.”

Proverbs 6:23 – 20 says, “My child, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.”

Let’s pray that our children will long to be mentored by Godly parents.

Wisdom for Parents
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it.”  This is a conditional proverb.  Parents should never abdicate their responsibility to raise up their children.

I heard some great advice given to a Wesley member the day her daughter was born.  The advice came from the Rev. Dr. Wright Culpepper, a former pastor of Wesley.  When she asked Wright how they did such a great job raising their children he simply said, “So many people spend so much time going to everything their child does when they are young.  Then, when they reach middle school and high school, they stop participating thinking they don’t need it or they want to do more for themselves.  We found that those are the years you need to be MORE involved in everything.  When they grow up, they won’t remember that you went to their dance or ballgame when they were 7 years old.  But they will remember that you went when they were 15, 16, and 17.”  Wise advice to stay involved in our children’s lives.

Here are a few tips regarding raising children that I have found helpful:

1. make sure what you ask of your child is reasonable and they are capable of accomplishing it
2. always speak to your child as you would be spoken to – never talk down to them, demean them, or belittle them – your words are life and death to their spirits whether you realize it or not
3. be firm and specific when you discuss things which your children
4. allow for negotiation and flexibility which builds your child’s social skills
5. let them experience the consequences of their behavior – if they never have to face the consequences of their behavior when they are young, they will never face them when they grow old
6. consequences should come immediately, relate to the rule broken, and move on quickly to move on to positive feedback
7. make sure your expectations for your children are appropriate to their age

Remember, the most important things you pass on to your children are a loving household and the gift of faith.  Don’t ever underestimate the power of a home filled with love.  As Proverbs 15:17 says, “Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.”

Read Genesis 11:1-9

In our lives we are all faced with decisions about who we are, what we do, and what we want to leave behind. Whenever we are confronted with the thought that one day we may be gone, or changed, or old, or ineffective, we wonder, “How will people remember us?” “What will we have accomplished in life?”

This is why the story  of the Tower of Babel is appropriate both for Pentecost and for Graduate Sunday. The passage calls us to examine our reason for doing what we do. It exposes the underlying cause for building monuments (to ourselves or to others). But even more importantly, the passage reveals to us how to face the future with peace in our heart, living God’s plan for us.

God’s decision for humanity was that they should spread abroad throughout the earth. But humanity stayed together for their safety and protection and self-preservation. They felt that venturing forth across the earth was dangerous.
So they did what they wanted, which was not what God wanted. This made them feel secure. They lived together and built a monument as a testimony to the power of living together. Is that a bad thing??

It wasn’t that building the tower was wrong. It was their disobedience to God’s sending forth to spread out across the land. And as they grew comfortable together, not venturing out, they grew arrogant, rebellious, and prideful.  As my 12th grade history teacher, Mrs. Kellett used to say, “the civilization grew fat and happy.”  And so in their moment of yawning and wondering about life, they built a tower. The problem was disobedience. God sent them abroad to impact the world, but they stayed in one place and just tried to build something big…rather than be something big.

These people could not conceive of blessing and security coming as a result of being sent out into the world, even though God commanded it. They felt most secure when they were living close together. They saw the future as brighter when they could leave a monument to their success.

But God said, no…I want you to venture out…take risks…populate the earth…depend on me…not on your own strength.

Mark Twain once said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

We are called to trust in God. To listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. To not become complacent, fat and happy, but to heed God’s call to spread out across the world to impact the world for God.  We do this not for ourselves and our own lasting memories…but to be a part of God’s plan of salvation and grace to a world in need.
We are not being called to be everyone else. We are called to be ourselves. The selves God created us to be.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” ~e.e. cummings, 1955

John 19:28-29
28After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.”29A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.

Of all the words spoken on the cross that day, these words were the only ones where Jesus seemed to focus on his person alone. All others last words of Christ on the cross were focused on others – either those present or to God his Father.
It was as if at the lowest point in his life, abased to the lowest levels, his soul takes center stage and while Jesus’ humanity seems to take center stage, it is at this very moment that the divinity of the Messiah is made known. The divinity of Jesus was never more real and present than when Jesus was most fully human. The divinity of Jesus was never more real and present than when Jesus was most fully human.

We have been walking through these last words of Christ on the cross the past few weeks.

First he forgives directly the soldiers who mock, beat, and nailed his battered body to the cross, but we learned that forgiveness extends to all of us for whom this cruel at was necessitated, Jews and Gentiles alike. And it also means we are to forgive.

Next he promises a dying penitent rest and peace and paradise. He had not broken faith with his Father despite the suffering, for this thief had heard him call God Father and the thief heard him forgive those who ill treated him. The dying thief saw Christ and responded humbly.

Jesus fulfils his familial duties by entrusting his mother to the disciple whom he loved. He gives his mother a son in place of the one that is being lost that day, for even on that cross he was still her child. This is only the second time Jesus calls his mother woman- at his first miracle and at this his final miracle. The word of relationship calls puts us in God’s care and calls us to care for one another.
He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” echoing Psalm 22 when he feels the weight of sin on himself and the heaviness calls him to lament. He is the obedient servant of the Lord, sensing the loss and suffering of the world on his shoulders. His cry was your cry.

And then he returns to focus on his body and his suffering and cries out; “I Thirst”. The Living Water says this, the one who announces that all who thirst may come and drink freely of himself.

Maybe we can join him in his thirst, at least in thirsting after righteousness, justice and peace this Easter season, but in our bodies, the place of our conscious acts, in our bodies, the place we share with others intimately or otherwise and in a way that translates into fullness of life for other bodies.

Matthew 1:18-25
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

I remember standing over the sink in our bathroom at our home on Hiawatha watching the blue line come in clear as a bell on the pregnancy test. We had been trying to have a baby, we were expecting it to happen, but the moment it becomes a reality it’s a different story. The staggering reality hit me like a brick. I remember standing there for a while with this blank look and Stephanie asking, “aren’t you happy”? I was thrilled and scared to death.

Joseph is really one of the overlooked characters of Christmas. The baby gets top billing and Mary is right there with Jesus. As a father, I can relate to Joseph. I mean, when I assemble the nativity set in our home, I can pick out Mary and Jesus – even the wise men are pretty easy with their crowns and gifts, but come on…let’s be honest – how many of you confuse Joseph with the shepherds? This is the plight of fathers everywhere. I watch our home movies from the past 15 years and I think I show up in about 2 minutes of over 100 hours of family footage.
I can relate to Joseph.

The only thing we really know about Joseph shows up here in Matthew, but the little bit we see tells us a lot!

First, we know he is engaged to Mary, but they are not living together. The custom of Joseph and Mary involved in a two-stage process of marriage. The first stage was the betrothal, or engagement, but this is a much stronger relationship than what we think of when we say engagement today. When a woman was engaged in ancient Palestine, she was bound to him through formal words of consent. Engagement and betrothal would occur quite young, 12-13 years old. At this point, she was viewed as the man’s wife, waiting a period of time, usually a year, for the second stage of the process, which was moving her out of her parent’s home and into the home of her husband. Joseph and Mary were between these two stages. Viewed as “married” but not yet living together.

Second, we know about Joseph’s moral sensibilities. Matthew tells us Joseph is a righteous man which means he is very scrupulous about keeping the commandments of God, the OT law, and striving to live his life in harmony with God’s will. Joseph’s morality puts him in an extremely difficult spot. He would conform to the expectations of his day. That’s what you did. If you tried to be different, you were ostracized. You weren’t different in their day. He is an honorable and kind man, but he is a man of the law. Mary is pregnant and Joseph knows he is not the father. There is only one logical conclusion. Mary has been unfaithful to him. The OT law is clear on how to proceed. The woman is to be cast aside, possibly even put to death. But we see that Joseph is a compassionate man. So, his intention is to deal with Mary quietly, but since he is a righteous man, he is not going to put away the law of God. Mary will be dismissed.

But here is where the story makes an unexpected turn. An angel comes to Joseph in a dream and reveals that what he sees as a moral outrage is really God’s holy disruption. The child of Mary is not a violation of God’s will, rather an expression of God’s will.  As the angel speaks to Joseph he says, “Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.”  We hear in this statement from the angel, two things.

Joseph is in the line of David and as Jesus’ adoptive father, he bridges the historical kingly connection. Jesus will be a “son of David” as well.

We also hear the angel say to Joseph, “do not be afraid”. In every way imaginable, Joseph was afraid. To keep Mary is to go against law he is so faithful to. God is doing a new thing, do not be afraid of how God will move in new and different ways. This reminds me of Peter’s vision in Acts 10 when he is told to eat from the unclean animals. Every fiber of his being would be to fight against that command, but God declares something new and that opens the door to ministering to Cornelius and to all Gentiles.

So Joseph is not faced with a difficult test. Will he hold to the old law? Or will he shatter the old law in order to keep the new law? Joseph is transformed. He is surprisingly responsive to this new and strange work of God.  By accepting Mary as his wife and receiving Jesus as his son, by going against the old law, he becomes a model of discipleship in Matthew’s gospel. Here is true righteousness in Joseph. Here is faithful responsiveness in Joseph. In this brief look at the father of Jesus, Matthew sets the stage for how God will enter into our lives and challenge our sensibilities.