Anticipate

Sermon to be given at Sydenstricker UMC on December 14th and 15th, 2019 (hope you caught I am doing something new by posting before preaching)

^NRS Isaiah 9:6 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. ⁷ 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.

Advent is the season of anticipation. It is what it is named for. Wikipedia says this about Advent. Advent is a season of the liturgical year observed in many Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for both the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas and the return of Jesus at the Second Coming. Advent is the beginning of the Western liturgical year. Therefore, as Eric did to you several weeks ago on the first weekend of Advent, Happy New Year. We celebrate the Christian year at Advent because it makes sense to start the year with the anticipation of the celebration of the birth of Christ. Some people go over the top and refuse to put baby Jesus in the manager and the Magi in the Christmas scene until we celebrate those specific events. I am not one of those people by the way.

What did the Hebrew people anticipate and in some ways, why did they not get the connection between the prophetic message that we just heard and the birth of Jesus? First and foremost, I think they were looking for a royal birth from a royal family. They were looking for King David to be born again if you will. Someone who would rise up the people against Rome and make Israel a great nation again. All of these things are part of the Messianic prophecies that the Hebrew people are still looking to be fulfilled today. Imagine for a moment that you are living under intense conditions not unlike those of our ancestors who lived in Egypt. Conditions that make day-to-day living difficult and oppressive. Those are the times of the life of Jesus and the Hebrew people of that day. Their lives in some ways have not dramatically changed in the last two thousand plus years as evidenced by the tragedy in New Jersey this week. But if you imagine that then you can make the connection to how they were looking for one thing while God was doing something new. Yes, we have much to anticipate in this celebration of birth.

Jesus came into the world in such a humble way that many missed it. Herod certainly understood what was happening and within the next two years would have all the male children of Bethlehem put to death under the age of two in order that he could stop this rise to royalty. Even in that is a great hypocrisy is it not. If God was doing, an incredible thing and fulfilling Hebrew prophecy why then would a Hebrew King try to stop it. That has always been one of my questions and it leads to how then could the Hebrew people have missed it. Jesus’s birth fulfills 41 of the prophetic messages of God; some of them in Psalms and Isaiah were given as much as 700 years before His birth. He would go on to fulfill over 351 prophecies in His lifetime. Jesus was proclaimed by God to be born of a virgin young girl, born in Bethlehem, David’s birthplace and then spirited to Egypt where He would then come to fulfill His ministry. Jesus birth, life, death and resurrection did cause Israel to rise as a great nation in the form of Christianity, which now permeates all the known world. Yes, we have much to anticipate in this celebration of birth.

So let us explore this a little today.

·       We know that He is from the line of Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. Numbers 24:17: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.”

·       From Isaiah 11:1 we know He is from the line of Jesse, the father of King David: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him.”

·       From Jeremiah 23:5-6 we know He is from the line of King David: “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land … This is the name by which he will be called: the Lord our righteous savior.”

·       From the prophecy of Micah, 5:2 we know He was born into the tribe of Judah in the region of Ephrathah, in the town of Bethlehem: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

·       From Isaiah 7:14 we know that He was born from a virgin: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and you will call him Immanuel.” The name Immanuel means “God with us” and indicates the divinity of Jesus.

·       That Jesus would be worshipped by shepherds from the desert, and that foreign kings would present gifts to Him is revealed in Psalm 72:9,10: “May the desert tribes bow before him and his enemies lick the dust. May the Kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him. May the Kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts. May all Kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.”

·       When Jesus was born, King Herod slaughtered a number of children in an attempt to kill Him. This is predicted in Jeremiah 31:15: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

·       In response to this attempt on the life of Jesus, Joseph is warned in a dream to take Jesus to Egypt, where they stayed until Herod died. This is predicted in Hosea 11:1: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”

Yes, we have much to anticipate in this celebration of birth.

So how do you and I view this birth?

·       We celebrate it every year and every year His importance for the season seems to become less and less a factor. We celebrate with the giving and receiving of gifts.

·       Yes, we do give more eagerly to those less fortunate than ourselves but we give extravagantly to ourselves first. Did that hurt? Not sorry!

·       Do we celebrate with our children on Christmas morning by singing Happy Birthday to Jesus or have a cupcake or birthday cake for Jesus at our Christmas meal? Not usually! Do we truly appreciate what God has made new for us in the birth of God’s own son in this humble birth?

·       Do we sense the changing of the old guard for something new in the birth of Jesus that will overturn Hebrew leadership and tradition and the whole world order by the time we have reached this place in our lives, some two thousand years later? We should!

We should realize that God wants us to appreciate what God was and is doing in the humble setting in Bethlehem with a birth to two ordinary Hebrew people who are of the lineage of David. God proclaimed over 700 years before the birth where it would happen and to whom and we still do not get it or appreciate even though it becomes more obvious the more we study it. God is making the world anew in the midst of corruption, violence, oppression, hate and hurt. And we are the instruments of that desire to make the world a world of peace, compassion and love. Yes, we have much to anticipate in this celebration of birth.

We come to this moment, at least I hope that you do, a little humbled by what we have just heard about what God is doing in this season. God is proclaiming to you and to me how important we are to God, how much God loves us and how we are to proclaim the Good News to the world. God in this season is calling us to learn new things, new ways and new attitudes about our fellow human beings. God sent us God, as a newborn baby in a humble cave, laid in a manger, a feeding trough for animals so that we might know that God is doing a new thing. Yet, for all of this God is not done with the world or with you and me. God is calling us even now to share this story to the world. Not through the commercialization of gift giving and receiving though at Epiphany, I will elaborate more on that, but by sharing love. It is my message today, tomorrow and the rest of my life. I wonder as I wonder what the world might look like if we celebrate this birth by renewing our desire to reach out to the world in love. God is reaching out to us to say to us, I love you beyond your deepest understanding and I want you to love one another the same way. Jesus arrived in a humble way, in human form that we might see God’s love in a way we could understand it. Jesus died on the cross that we might experience that love in our lives and receive the greatest gift or all, a promise of eternal love. Jesus will come again to transform the world into the peaceful kingdom God intended from the beginning. But between His death and resurrection and His coming again, we have been passed the mantle to share love in the world. Yes, there is much to anticipate in this season.

Why are there breaks in sermons

Some one asked me why there are breaks in sermons from week to week. I am not alone here now at Sydenstricker, thankfully being joined with an Associate Pastor, Eric Kleppinger. He preaches at least once a month and you should enjoy his sermons on our website as well. We also have had a wonderful cantata for the second week of Advent.

Greatness of God

^{Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC on November 23rd and 24th, 2019}

^NRS Psalm 8:1 <To the leader: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.> O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. ² Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger. ³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; ⁴ what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? ⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. ⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, ⁷ all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, ⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. ⁹ O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Have you ever pondered about God? What is God like? How can we interact with God? Has God ever talked with me and I missed it? David was a favored child with God and yet in all the stories of David we never see one on one interaction with God. Moses had one on one interaction with God throughout the exodus story. Abraham had one on one interaction with God throughout his journey to what is modern day Israel. Yet David never did. His interaction with God came through the prophets that were instrumental in his rise to being King. Samuel and then Nathan shared the messages of God to David. Yet, David loved God with all that he was. We see that in the Psalms that David wrote. David shared the ecstasy of God’s loving relationship and the sorrow when David did not feel God’s presence. Our Psalm today is all about the glory and majesty of God that David knew and understood.

Why my focus on David? Because like David, the majority of us have never had a one on one encounter with God. We have received God’s messages in our lives from Pastors, Sunday school leaders, our own reading in the Bible and numerous other sources that bring us what God wants us to hear. How many of us use those encounters to enrich our lives and those around us? How many of us ponder the events of our life as God inspired and then praise God in the ways of David?

Have you ever gone out on a starry night in places where you can truly see the beauty of the heavens above? Have you ever wondered at all that is there and how it got there? If not, then maybe one day soon take a trip west of here to get away from the city lights and spend some time gazing up into the heavens. Have you ever watched a hummingbird work a flower or the feeder you placed on your deck? Have you ever marveled at the grace of fish swimming under the water while watching birds fly through the air? I ask all these questions because I am hoping to open you senses to the glory of God that is all around us everywhere. God created all that we are and all that we know. God created the heavens, the earth, the plants, the trees and of course, you and I. What a magnificent creation it is. Have you ever pondered how the intricacies of the body all work together for the common good of each of us. All those parts interrelating, interacting and constantly changing as we grow from child to adult. God created all of that and yet we all too often fail to give God the praise and glory that God deserves for it.

Some might even say, there is no God or that we came into the world by chance. Buried deep inside of us is a recognition or knowledge that there is a God. If not, why then when ancient cultures all looked into the vastness that is the universe, the blooming of a flower or the taking of a breath to live, did they acknowledge God? Every ancient culture, every human being that has ever lived has at one time or another acknowledged that there is a higher power that exists. Why not acknowledge that higher power as the creator of everything? David understood that. He acknowledges God in his words, which are great poetry. How majestic is your name he says.

Paul encounters the living on the road to Damascus. What must that have been like? Here he is thinking he is carrying out the work of God by persecuting these followers of Jesus. Here he is standing to the side as they stone Stephen to death. Then, on the road to persecute even more Christians, he encounters God one on one. We can only imagine the tremendous shame, guilt and even fear that would overwhelmed him. During the time when he cannot see, he has time to reflect on all that has happened in his life and what the encounter on the road means. We don’t get any additional information that God interacted with him one on one from that moment, but it changed everything about him. From that point on, we see God encountering with Paul through others.

This last week I spent time with two events that spoke to what being a Pastor is supposed to do. We are supposed to speak truth and bring the truth of the Bible to the people we serve. We are not God. We are simply human beings that have given a wonderful opportunity to share God’s unconditional love with the world around us. God’s greatness is not the earth we walk on or the air that we breathe, though the critical balance of those two things is greatness in itself. God’s greatness is that grace, mercy and love that God extends to you and me unconditionally. What that means is that no matter what we do, no matter where we go and even if we turn our backs on God, God never stops loving us and seeking a relationship with us. That is incredible to me. That God would love me even when I least deserve it.  

David understood that God’s greatness was that love and he struggled the most when he could not feel that love. When Saul was searching for him to put him to death, he questioned why God had deserted him. Yet, David realized that things happen in this world that we cannot understand. David understood that even when the darkness, that is often human persecution of one another, is not the work of God but rather that when those dark moments are upon us; God’s love is shining down through us. Have you ever experienced that? I have. I love the 46^th Psalm. God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. I carried this passage with me during a dark period of my life, a trial that cost me more than just money, but my current life at the time. What prevailed was not what I hoped for but it was what I needed most. A reminder that even in the darkest moments God is with us, loving and caring for us.

Today I hope that you can encounter the majesty of God in your life. That you can see that God is real and constantly loves you and that everything you have in your life is God at work. I invite you to read the Psalms and hear the words of David. They are much alive today as when he wrote them. They have given me comfort in the darkest times of my life as I hear the message that God is with me. They can work for you as well if you let them. Let it begin by taking a moment from your busy schedule and open your eyes to the majesty of God all around you. Enjoy the night sky, enjoy the flowers and the trees, enjoy the harmony of breath and air as you encounter God.

We are called by God to be the instruments of God’s grace and mercy here on earth. We do that when we encounter the least of creation, the homeless, the oppressed, those who are ill and struggling and those who do not feel loved. When we spend our time, our hands and feet, doing the work of God, we begin to see the grace, mercy and love of God move through us and into the hearts of those we are helping. When we begin to surrender to the power of that love, our lives are forever changed and God begins to use us to transform the world around us.

I believe with all my heart that God is working through this church to change the world around us. There are forces that desire to stop that work, subvert it and even destroy it. But no matter how much they try, like Saul trying to destroy David, in the end God’s grace and love will prevail. God’s greatness is available to everyone every moment of every day. We need to praise God for all that God is doing in our world and all that God has promised us, whether we deserve it or not. God is great, God is God, and God loves you and me.