The story of the German and American soldiers during WWI of when they laid their guns down to sing Christmas songs on Christmas Eve has become quite famous. I found a similar story that took place in WW2 and I think it’s just as cool. I love the lady in the story who showed great hospitality along with grace, courage and a touch of firmness that allowed the two groups to be fed, get some rest and maybe even gaining a new perspective
Pastor Fred took this week of Advent and preached out of John 1 and I think it’s the first time I heard this passage preached apart of the Christmas story. It probably doesn’t get preached as a Christmas story because it doesn’t have animals, angels, shepherds, or Mary and Joseph. I had this realization that this passage is like the rug that ties the room together. It wraps up the birth narrative by stating that Jesus wasn’t some plan B or that He randomly showed up one day in Bethlehem as a baby. Jesus is not only the Son of God, but He is eternal and the second member of the Trinity who participated in the creation of the world. Here are some thoughts that I took away from this weekend.
The first one is that our sin has deeper consequences than we realize. In John 1:5, we are told that Jesus (or the light) came into the world but the world did not recognize Him. We didn’t recognize Him because of our sin and open rebellion. Throughout this series, there has been the theme of missing Jesus. Are we missing Jesus because we have different expectations of what He should do or look like, or is it because we are so centered on doing our own thing that we miss Him. In essence we are consumed by are sin or darkness and that’s is the only thing we see or do. So what are those areas in our lives that we need to find Jesus in and let His light take out our sin and darkness?
My second thought is that the Gospel of John tells is that we are needing to be born again. We can not get into heaven unless we are. This is found in John 3 with the story of Nicodemus. I find it interesting that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Whether it is a representative of his own sin or that he didn’t want to be seen with Jesus because of his position, I find interesting. Being born again means we don’t have to believe the lie that our culture tells us that we are born a particular way and we might as well lean into it and embrace it. Jesus tells us that we are to put away those things and to be born of the Spirit and to cloth ourselves with righteousness and not selfish desires or sin. When we do this we become a witness like Johnny the Baptist preaching the message of repentance to a world that is in the dark, rebellious and clueless. So what does it mean to be a witness and what does it mean to be born again?
My third and final thought is that the Son of God became man and dwelt among His creation. I don’t know of ant other deity that would become like their creation to show them how to live. Jesus not only came to pay the price for our sin, but to show us who God the Father really is and who we are meant to be. He also displayed humility and submission to the will of the Father by doing this. In Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul shares the famous early church hymn of how Jesus humbled Himself and came to earth so He could be a witness to the Fathers love and was even obedient to go and die a brutal death on the cross only to be raised three days later. So how are we supposed to be humble and obedient to Gods calling, even when it is difficult?
I love me a good sermon series and this series on Advent has been a home run in my book. I loved how all three pastors got to preach a different part of the Advent story and how they all connected. So if you are willing, leave a thought or what impacted you the most in the comment section whether here on the blog or on the churches facebook page, I encourage you to do so. Let’s go be the light in a very dark world
This week Pastor Ben preached on Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus and the witness of John the Baptist while in the womb (chapters 1-2). He also covered the main characters in the story. Mary/Joseph, Zachariah/Elizabeth and the shepherds. There are many things that are amazing with this story. Whether is is the Son of God who helped create all things taking on human form to a teen that was a virgin becoming pregnant with the Son of God. Here are some observations that I walked away with.
The first one is that God used a bunch of nobodies from the back woods to fulfill His promise of a Messiah. In essence, God took a bunch of outcast to display His glory and to shake the world. Here is the thing, we all want to do something great or to be famous. Whether it’s taking the game winning shot to finding a cure for a dangerous disease. There are even people who want to be YouTube famous and it is usually them either doing something stupid. All that being said, are we being responsible with what God has given us and the situation that He puts us in? If not, why is God going to give us more responsibility when we can’t handle what we are given. The major players in this story were faithful in what they did and worked diligently with the task and talents that God has given them.
The shepherds were outcast because of any number of reasons. To put it in modern terms, shepherds would be the people who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, a long criminal record and the only jobs they could get are either the dangerous ones, or the ones no one else wanted to do. So why did God open up the sky and have the angels proclaim the birth of Christ to a bunch of stinky shepherds that no one really cared about? Is because the religious people thought that the coming Messiah would come in to overthrow the Romans and set up the nation of Israel. Instead, God chose to reveal Himself and His plan to a bunch of shepherds because they would check out what they were told. Is our faith like the shepherds and we go out to seek what God has promised and then bow down in worship? Or is our faith like the religious leaders and write it off? When God reveals His promise to Zechariah, he doubted God. So when God reveals His promise to us, does our faith becomes snark and we laugh at or questions the promise? God still came through with His promise and Zechariah was mute until John was born because of his unbelief
To wrap it up, we are all outcast because of our sin. Romans 3:23 that we are all sinners and an outcast. We are separated from God. The only way we can stop being an outcast is accepting Gods free grace and to repent of or sins and to follow God. It doesn’t matter what we have or who we know, because at the end it is how we respond to Gods grace. I will close with mentioning my favorite Christmas song, Hark the Angels Sing by Charles Wesley. There are three lines in the song that I appreciate and they are
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
This week Pastor Haven continued with the Advent story by preaching out of the first two chapters out of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew gives us the account of Jesus birth and detailing Josephs family tree along with the visit from the Magi, King Herod’s response to Jesus birth and the trip to Egypt. Most importantly, Matthew was showing the unbelieving Jews that Jesus was actually the promised Messiah and not some crazed lunatic. Here are some of my observations from the passage.
My first observation is how many of us have actually seen King Herod in the nativity sets that come out this time of year. They have all the other important people except for King Herod. I mentioned this observation once to my mom and her response was that it’s because “he’s crazy.” I’m not going to argue that point, but I’m also guessing why he is missing from the nativity set is the we see a little to much of ourselves in him. Just as Herod lied to the Magi about wanting to meet Jesus, he saw Jesus as a threat to his personal safety and ego. What do we do when we feel threatened or our ego gets bruised? Do we go on the offensive and burn every relationship and good thing to the ground? Or do we run, hide and shut down? The lesson from Herod is that there can only be one king and we are lousy kings when we put ourselves on that pedestal.
My second observation is that the Pharisees were busy looking for the Messiah but they missed Him. How often do we keep looking for our misplaced car keys and they are often sitting in plain sight and we keep overlooking them. The Pharisees were that way with Jesus, because He was right there and they didn’t see Him. The Pharisees also had a different idea of what the Messiah was going to look like. They wanted someone to come in, overthrow the Romans and set up Gods kingdom here on earth. Instead, the Messiah came as a baby, grew up, spent three years doing ministry only to be crucified for our sins. With the resurrection, that means Jesus is coming back to not only make things right, but to make all things new
My third observation is that God often shows up at the most inopportune times for us. Mary was an unmarried teen who was pregnant with the promised Messiah and it was God who got her pregnant. Also, going to Bethlehem eight months pregnant on a donkey is no trip. Joseph was going to be a dad to a kid that wasn’t his, which is never easy. He also plans for him and Marry and he was working on when all this happened. So here are two things to ponder. The first one is when God does show up and changes our plans, do we revolt and say no or do we learn to trust Him and walk in obedience to His will? The second observation is that Joseph had every right under Jewish law to at least divorce Mary, if not stone her publicly. So here is my question, if something is permissible by culture, should we do it? Are we more concerned with doing what is right by Gods standards or by people standards? Joseph choose to do what was right instead of doing what is acceptable. Are we willing to do the same as Joseph or do we look to take the easy way out?
Grace and Peace
Tom Boustead
