Sermon for Sunday, November 27, 2005PREPARE TO CELEBRATE WHAT’S RIGHT WITH CHRISTMASbyRev. Cindy Bates First Sunday In Advent |
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Scripture: Mark 13:24-37
This morning’s scripture passage may sound a little out of place for celebrating Advent. In this season when we are preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus, our lectionary (the Church’s calendar for scripture) wants us to be studying a passage that talks about the second coming of Christ, not his birth. It seems to be filled with a lot of doom and gloom! Frankly, I was doubting the wisdom of those that select the lectionary passages each year and was about to choose another text when I began to notice that maybe this particular passage really did have something to say to us about being prepared for God’s coming to us, as Christmas once again is upon us. Our scripture says, “Heads up!” “Pay attention!” “You don’t know exactly when God is going to show up!” “Keep awake!” Perhaps this really is the message we need to hear as we are prepare for Christmas. If your life is anything like my life you may be saying, “Wait, how did it get to be this time of year? I’m not ready for this!” Our culture is not very helpful in preparing us. Even before the Halloween decorations are down and the candy has had time to get stale, the Christmas decorations are up and the department stores are playing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” For many, this causes the stress level to go way up. Everything from the not so significant stressors…. like wondering when the house will get cleaned for the guests and when this year’s Christmas letter will get written…. to lying awake at night worrying about how the bills will get paid and somehow still have enough money to buy those Christmas presents that everyone is expecting. It is enough to drag us down and wear us out. The other day I picked up a coffee cup at Peaberry’s that said, “Good morning! Let the stress begin!” I think this is how many people think about this time before Christmas. “Merry Christmas. Let the stress begin!” This was not the original intention of Advent. The original intention of Advent was to prepare ourselves spiritually… not to wear ourselves out physically and emotionally, but to prepare our hearts and minds to receive the love of God into our lives all over again. How are we going to prepare ourselves to receive God’s gift of love this year? Please do not get me wrong… no one loves the parties, and the shopping and the presents and the gathering with family and friends more than I do. And even though I applaud and participate in the Alternative Gift giving idea, I still do my share of contributing to the consumerism that entices so many this time of year. But our faith says, “Wait! “Pay attention!” “Keep awake!” “You don’t know when God is going to show up in all of this! Webster’s Dictionary defines the word advent as “a coming into being.” What will be “coming into being” in your life as we celebrate this season? I had an opportunity to see a video the other day entitled, “Celebrate What’s Right With The World” narrated by Dewitt Jones, who was a photographer for National Geographic Magazine for twenty years. The title of the video intrigued me and I began to think about how easy it is to think about Advent and Christmas in the context of the materialism and commercialism and all the stressors around all of that and I wondered if perhaps we might be so focused on what Christmas has become and so troubled by what is wrong with the season that we have lost our ability to focus on what is right and what is important. Dewitt Jones tells how his experience of being a photographer with National Geographic gave him a worldview of being able to look for the possibilities. He said that he used to believe in the adage, “I won’t believe it until I see it.” But he learned that was not how it should be. He said if we believe that way we have it backwards. What we need to know is “We won’t see it until we believe it.” Take a look at this video clip. He says it much more eloquently than I can. (3 MINUTE VIDEO CLIP BEGINNING WITH DEWETT @ CAMERA & ENDING WITH LITTLE BOY AT THE FOUNTAIN) So, what do we believe we are going to experience? What are we going to see this Christmas season? What if in the midst of the hectic pace and the long check out lines and the crazy traffic and maybe even some grumpy people, we look for something else? The French philosopher, Teilhard de Chardin, in his work The Divine Milieu, affirms that “nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see. On the contrary, everything is sacred.” There are so many things that are right and good and sacred about this time of year. Let’s celebrate what’s right. Advent says we are preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus… God becoming human to dwell with us. Now that’s something to celebrate. The author, Macrina Wiederkehr, says, “God can never be born enough.” When it comes to recognizing the presence of God with us, it can never be too much. How will we see all the ways that God wants to be with us this year? Yesterday I returned home from spending Thanksgiving in Michigan which meant spending time with lots of nieces and nephews… eight of them being 10 or under. I learn so much when I’m with them! They are so genuine and so full of life. I really think God shows up every year when we spend time with our children. If you don’t have any of your own, borrow some. That might be a great Christmas present for their parents. Invite some neighbor children over. Throw an impromptu party to decorate some Christmas cookies or help them make a gift for someone in their family. See their excitement, creativity and their wonder about this season of giving and it just may affect your excitement, creativity, and wonder about it all. God chose to show up in a child. I think God still chooses to come to us through our children. Christmas is a time when we want to be with family and friends, to gather around us those we know and love. God seems to show up there…but what if we made it a point to do something for a total stranger this year. Give something away…do an unexpected kindness. Remember that verse about “entertaining angels unaware.” What if this year we looked for God in the stranger, the neighbor we have never met, a nursing home patient with no family, the guy at work who seems like such a loner…and we made a gift of ourselves. I don’t see the bumper stickers as much anymore but I think doing “random acts of kindness” is a really good thing. And just think, at Christmas we can do them and people might not think we’re crazy. I have a friend who every once in awhile, when she’s at a drive up window will not only pay for her order, but also the order of the car behind her…and then she just drives off. Just think how much easier it is for God to show up in this world when we are willing to show up. What if we asked God to not only help us see and celebrate what is right about Christmas this year, what if we asked God to give us new eyes to see what is right about our family, our work, ourselves. What if we asked God to help us suspend our critical eye and ear that helps us focus on the negative, and for the next few weeks ask God to help us see the best in our surroundings. Do we really think it is possible to be so transformed by the gift of God’s love that we can really see things in a different light? Remember our Call to Worship this morning? “And now God said, I’m going to change the light.” Not just the Light he gave to us in the birth of a baby, but God desires to change the light within each of us so we can see this world and one another more clearly, more compassionately, more lovingly. As we prepare for Christmas. Let’s celebrate what’s right! |
