Sermons
SERMON FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT 2006
JOY
TEXT: READ (Luke 2:8-14 . . . the angels’ song)
INTRODUCTION
Despite what you may have heard, the God of the Bible is not the cosmic killjoy. God, according to his Word, is not a hard nosed old tyrant with a long white beard who is not quite “with-it”, who gets his kicks from saying “Thou shalt not!” . . . “Thou dasn’t do this!”. . . “I will get thee if thou doest not do good all the days of thy miserable life!” That angry, tyrannical bogus King laughs derisively as he points his long bony finger at poor lost sinners and mutters the final epithet: “Go to hell!”
God, my dear friends, is not a dismal, dour deity doing his dead level best to deter people from having fun.
Bitterness and sadness were delivered a knock-out punch when the Son of God poked a hole in the floor boards of heaven and came down to live among us as one of us in this awesome, miserable world.
On the contrary, in The living, breathing, bleeding Jesus of Nazareth via Bethlehem, the Bible’s God—“the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”—gets irrepressible joy from blessing his people. It “tickles him all shades of heavenly pink” when we respond to his joyful deluge of abundance by being deliriously thankful to be the favored children of such a Father.
Is it in the Bible, or did we get it somewhere else, when we speak of God smiling on people. The ancient priestly benediction. Numbers 6:23 says,
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine upon you
(sure sounds like a smile to me!),
and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you
(no scowl, a smile brightens his whole face—it goes from ear to ear and from chinny chin chin to uplifted eyebrows!)
And give you peace.”
To sense that God is smiling when he looks at you is a priceless sensitivity.
In Deuteronomy 28:63 God tells his chosen people that he rejoices to bless his people. . . .gets a bang out of benefiting his believing, obedient bride.
We won’t linger long in Deuteronomy 28 too long. The same verse says God delights in punishing people who wander away from his Way. In other words, when people forget to trust his goodness and fail to follow his commandments, God is happy to oblige with a loving whack to bring beloved wanderers back from their wandering. Problem children, path-skipping, problematic progeny require painful punishment in order to become perfectly pure as persons! The good Father does not withhold the application of the flat hand of justice and ethnicity to the unprotected gluteus maximus, when needed.
Sometimes . . . to get his message across and bring godly change to his Spirit-child’s attitude, behavior and character so the child reflects the goodness and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
. . . Sometimes . . . the elementary education of believers feels like a trip to the not-so-heavenly woodshed. (How many here know what that is?)
When Christmas (Feliz Navidad, Silent Night, Holy Night, the day of Christus natus est) finally arrived, the response of nearly everyone who saw the wee Jesus or heard about his wee birth, was to bust out with torrents of near-inexpressible Joy!
Jesus’ unmarried, teenage mother, Mary, was engaged to a hometown blue-collar “Joe,” named . . . Joe, whose DNA did not precisely match that of the baby. This very young Mary accepted an assignment from the Almighty, knowing the gossip and censure that could be just ahead. “I am the Lord’s slave-girl,” she told God’s special messenger. “May it be to me as you have said.”
Surrender.
The angel Gabriel had entered Mary’s room. Jews thought the sight of an angel probably meant the sighter was about to die! Mary had been raised on this old wives' tale. Gabriel quickly moved to calm her fears, telling her that the Lord was pleased with her (and therefore unlikely to zap her). When she seemed surprised, the Lord’s messenger gave her the good news every Hebrew woman dreamed of hearing—good news of her place in Heaven’s Master Plan to rescue this lost and dying world from the disaster rebellion against God inevitably produces.
(A later angel, Bill Bright, would have entered the room with the words:.“Mary, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”)
“I’ll do anything you want me to do,” she said, her momentary fears overcome by faith.
How could she have agreed so quickly? Let me tell you if you don’t already know . . . .
Mary believed.
Not really surprisingly, since her life before and after this heads-up moment reveals a clear pattern of acting on what she believed. Once she had accepted her role in the mission impossible, the presence of the Holy Spirit brought about the miracle of the incarnation in Mary’s body, the same way Genesis 1:1-2 tells that the Spirit of God overshadowed the formless void and worked the miracles of creation in response to the Spoken Word of God.
Mary decided to “get outta Dodge,” before she began to “show” that she was “with child,” she set off on a 40-50 mile hike into the Judean outback to spend the first trimester of her pregnancy away from the prying eyes of Nazarene neighbors, at the home of her cousin, Elizabeth, wife of a godly priest of the order of Abijah and Aaron (Luke 1:5).
Through the family grape vine, no doubt Mary had heard that Elizabeth was also pregnant—even in her “golden years” (60, 70 . . .)?
Arriving at her cousin’s home, Mary called out, “Elizabeth!”
Her older cousin, radiant and relishing the sixth month of her pregnancy, appeared in the courtyard. At 60-plus years, Elizabeth was carrying her first child. Luke 1:4 reports that when she heard Mary’s call, the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth, and she fairly exploded in a tirade of joy, while unborn Johnny the Baptist-to-be did summersaults in her tum-tum.
“Blessed are you among women. And blessed is the child you will bear! Why am I so favored and blessed—that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Then she added, “Blessed is she who has believed what the Lord said to her would be accomplished!”
Elizabeth believed.
She acknowledged that what was happening in Mary’s body was a result of the younger adult’s acted-on faith. Real faith in the One True God is fundamental to real joy. Believing God and the things he says will happen, opens the way to Joy, Real Joy, Wonderful Joy!
If you’re in the market for joy, dear Struggler, buy into what
these two “blessed” women, Elizabeth and Mary, believed and acted upon. Principle: Joy follows faith.
PRECISELY WHAT DID MARY BELIEVE THAT MADE MARY SO MERRY?
Mary was high on God. Thinking of her impossible mission and the tiny fetus growing in her womb, she said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord!”)
It’s a song. Called the Magnificat. It starts in Luke 1:46. Why was she experiencing such high joy?
You can bet it was not because she’d just been told she was pregnant out of wedlock! Or that ”Santa Claus was comin’ to town.”
Eugene Peterson, in the Message, interprets Mary’s song of celebration here as “dancing the song of her Savior God.”
(Hava Nagilla! Hava Nagilla! , , , ,)
(V, 47—Mary celebrates her faith in God as her Savior—
Rescuer—Knight in Shining Armor, galloping in on his mighty white charger, to take her away from all this.
V, 48-49—Mary believes God notices her, not as a statistic among humanity’s billions, but as an individual woman in the nowhere town of Nazareth, Galilee. She sees herself as special to God.
“Oy vey! God took one looked at me, and look what happened!—me, in my poverty and powerlessness—I’ll be the most famous woman in the world! ‘Mother of God,’ (gasp!) Elizabeth called me. I have never been and never will be forgotten!”
People who believe in God and do what he asks, though they might be thought of as nobodies, become somebody special, because of what God does for them.
(v. 50) God’s mercy, forgiveness and acceptance “extends”—reaches out—to touch people of every generation who are in awe of God, worship him, obey and acknowledge his authority over everything.
(v. 51) God’s “Arm” does “mighty deeds” (Jewish teachers taught that Old Testament references to “God’s Arm” refer to the Messiah-King from King David’s family line, who will lift Israel to its brightest day and bring justice to the world.
(Take joy, Pilgrim, there will be justice!)
God cuts people who think they are somebody down to size.
(V. 52, The Message) “God knocks arrogant tyrants off their
high horses.” Read your history books, Pilgrim. And, at the same time, he lifts victims out of the mud.
I got a lot of comfort and joy the day I ran across Psalm
__ , and discovered that God has lifted me out of the manure pile (NIV probably says “rubbish heap” or something less disgusting. The KJV in its bare-faced simplicity blurts out the Hebrew meaning: “dung hill.” Or, as I said, “manure pile”) . . . . and makes me a prince!”
(V. 53) God feeds the hungry poor; the arrogant rich he sends away empty—(This is a source of joy to Mary. For us too. How often do we complain because rich people “have it so good” while “po’ folk” live on chicken necks and rumble seat rides? (Boy, does that date me!) This is not faith over which to become cynical or rejoice in bad things that can happen to rich people.)
(V. 54 & 55) With the miracle-conception and birth of Jesus, God shows that he has not, nor ever will, forget the commitments he has made to the Jews, to Abraham and to his extended spiritual family, which includes repentant sinners in the 21st who face up to our desperate need for the grace and power of “God Jesus” to bring our lives under control.
This is what Mary believes. This is the content of true faith. Faith is not a pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye fantasy based on whoever or whatever doorknob a person chooses as her “Higher Power.” Real faith, like Mary’s, brings Real Joy. Real Joy does not come from an unrealistic expectation of a vague, hard-to-find-and-harder-to-keep “Christmas spirit,” based on overspending and celebrating a non-existent, truthless imp who gets more press than Jesus!
Do you want Joy, Real Joy, wonderful Joy?
Only one way, Merry Gentlemen.
Believe in Mary’s Savior God and his Son. And you will find it possible to experience Real Joy.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . Joe, the good carpenter, was missing his darling bride-to-be on her three-month hiatus to Zach’s and Lizzie’s digs in the southland. But when she returned to Nazareth, Joe was in for the shock of his life!
Repeatedly, the ancient prophecies concerning Christ’s Advent promise joy to the world. Real Joy often comes at a price. Where’s that OT passage where King David or Isaiah asserts:
Believers “who go forth weeping,will come again Rejoicing.”
It had to be a dark, dark moment in Joe’s life the day Mary arrived back from Judea and told him she was pregnant and the father was not him . . . . (Of course, she knew that, because she was a virgin.) Of course, she told him what had happened. The angel. The promises. The overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. The Son of God growing inside her.
There was no joy in the country town of Nazareth, Galilee the day Joe got that whack between the baby blues!
Joe did not panic. He began to try to figure out what he could do to get Mary through this unfortunate situation without getting stoned.
“Joy? I’ll get back to you on that!” . . . .
That night as he tried to sleep Joe dreamt. (“Dreamt.” Is that a word?)
“Joe dreamt.” Maybe with a little tossing and turning. Not from panic.
His personal God would get him through this train wreck.
Somehow!
Joe dreamt an angel came. Actually it was more than a dream. In his dream-state, the angel of the Lord came to him.
“Mary the girl!” the angel said. “The child in her womb is by the Holy Spirit—not one of those camel trail drivers down at the junction. The child in her is Immanuel—God with us. Call
him Jesus, because Mary’s baby will save his people from the
sins.”
Joe believed.
Because he recognized the prophecies quoted by the Angel. He had been born and bred on those ancient Messianic catch phrases. What Joe believed about God had gotten him through many a scrape and would do so in the future. He recognized God’s voice when he heard it. He wasted no time in acting on what the Lord said through his Messenger, to do. He took Mary home as his wife—even though he waited six months, until after the baby was born, to physically consummate the marriage.
But his mood immediately changed from depression to Joy, when he put his faith in God’s Word. He went to bed that night, struggling about what to do with his precious promised pregnant paramour. He awoke, with clear head, heart pounding with Joy, knowing his part in the Master Plan. (Incidentally, he got the girl!)
With more certainty than sitting on Ol’ Nick’s knee, the up-beat prophecies of David and Isaiah and others, were kept.
God always keeps his promises. Even when everything seems to be in chaos, for the people of living, personal faith, there is cause for Joy. God always keeps his promises and he will work out his wonderful plan in you. I dare you to trust him and rejoice! There’s more. Joy pokes its happy head out all over Christ’s first advent.
Zechariah the priest, father of John the Baptist, got in on it. After 9 months of muteness because of his lack of faith, Zech’s mouth was opened. Couldn’t contain the expression of joyful thanksgiving and praise to God for the Master Plan of Salvation that he could see being worked out as he watched.
So, what do you do when your heart is flooding over with Real Joy? . . . You can see the Master Plan of salvation. And you are part of it. What can you do but write a joy song.
Zechariah’s Song is recorded in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel. This Chapter could aptly be called, “The Most Pregnant Chapter in the Bible.” Everyone is having a baby or celebrating somebody who is having a baby. One is the Savior God in flesh and blood, The other is his voice, preparing the way. Wow! Two little boys whose powerful destiny is already mapped out. Mothers, fathers, neighbors and others believe it’s all God’s doing and they are excited to part of it.
A father can’t help be pleased, stand up a little straighter,
and maybe pop a couple of vest buttons!
People who believe in God for their salvation—now and
forever—who are committed to being part of the outworking of the
Master Plan . . . have reasons to rejoice.
If You Want Joy, Real Joy, Wonderful Joy . . . it’s here . . .
around the birth moment of the Lord Jesus.
Everybody is overcome with joy.
Mary’s baby was born in Bethlehem, as the OT prophets had predicted. Immediately everyone who knew about it or saw the baby started shouting and running and singing and dancing with joy . . . Because they believed in God as their Savior.
And they saw this wee Jesus as the Saving Messiah for whom they longed. They believed in God, in the Messiah, and in being rescued from sin and the terrible junk sin makes of life in this world. The happy people saw the possibility of an end to oppression, injustice and abuse.
Even angels emerging from the heavenly dimension to announce that Messiah had arrived, could not keep back the surging river of joy in heaven and earth because of wee Jesus’ birth. The poverty and injustice into which he came, the dog-eat-dog attitudes of people in his world, the threat of death already hatching in the minds of the “powerful,” the rich and famous, the selfishness and anger and hatred and war and oppression of the weak by the strong . . . . All seemed to fade behind the joyful, heavenly shouting and singing.
Jesus Christ was born in a cow shed dug into the side of a hill. His mother wrapped the baby from head to toe according to the custom of the times, in torn strips of linen cloth. Smoothing aside the hay or grain in one of the mangers, scratching the last bit of manure and animal hair that clung to its sides, Mary laid the King of Glory in the manger. We feel sorry for the poor family. Later by the time the Magi arrived they found a house. Whether Joe and Mary felt sorry for themselves is never told.
Maybe no one else knows. Maybe . . . .
But before the night was over, the sky over the Bethlehem hills was filled with visitors from outer space (?) Or the next dimension, Or . . . Wherever God has his headquarters. The heavenly creatures who dazzled the night were straight from the heavenly dimension.
(Ask someone to read, loud and expressively, Luke 1:5-14)
The message of the angels was “Fear is out! This is for everybody. “Joy, Real Joy Wonderful Joy . . .”OK, Gabe. You angelic cheerleader. I’m ready to get in on this. Where can I get the Joy you have brought to these hills? Boler’s Bar? A X-mas Party where everybody can BYOB?
I’ve heard you can get joy by looking into the happy faces of kids who got what they wanted for Christmas, whose parents have spent themselves poor (like mine did), or who thought Game Boy, or a new ATV could make up for broken promises and broken hearts . . .
Where can I get Joy, Real Joy, Wonderful Joy?
Listen.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here to bring glad tidings of great joy to everyone. All the people. Joy.
I’m tellin’ you sheepherders first, because you miss out on a lot of what others tout as Joy. You ain’t got nothin’. And you ain’t getting’ nothin’.
You’re in trouble. Over your heads. Debt Collectors are callin’ you on the phone every day. I’m tellin’ you guys first, because you already know you’re deprived. You’re achin’ inside for a Savior—Yes, a Savior right now. Your sins are a heavy chain of shame around your heart. They stand like a wall between you and your God. And you know it. But you can’t seem to be able to do anything about it.
You need freedom. You need life. L‘chaim! The synagogue-goin’ people call you “sinners” ‘cause you never go to church. You’re draggin’ through life like dead men. You look and smell like your sheep. You already feel the need for something or someone to come and rescue you from this dead end life. But nobody comes.
I’m here with you tonight to bring you good news.
Joy. A Savior. The Christ you have been yearning for. Just over the hill in the wee town of Bethlehem. Go to the inn, but don’t bother to ring the bell for service. Go out back, where the horses and cattle are kept. There you will find . . . there you will find . . . there you will find . . . a baby lying in a manger.
Wait till I tell you who this baby is, fellas. This baby is God your Savior! The Messiah Christ! Christ the Lord himself in diapers. Joy, fellas. Joy. Hope. Let your tired hearts be open to receive the good news.
Suddenly, the Judean sky exploded with more angels than a shepherd can count, even if he takes off his shoes. And they’re all goin’ crazy with joy.
“Glory to God in the highest.
And on earth, peace among people with whom God is
pleased.”
Gabriel shouts: “Let’s hear that Hallelujah Chorus one more time. This time with gusto. (Incidentally, the angels get almost this excited every time one of us turns around and begins to know and walk with Jesus.)
The long and the short of it is that the raggedy sheep guys left their sheep to herd themselves while they hurried over the hill to Bethlehem, and followed their noses. The smell of the stable out back of the inn guided them to the wee Savior.
If I’m one of those sheep guys, I’m cryin.’ I’m sorry. I can’t help it. The hope this little pink or black or brown boy brings! I’ve longed for it for so long (so did my daddy and my daddy’s daddy and my granddaddy’s daddy. . . ) and now he’s here. God will do what he promises to do. He will save his people from their sins (if you want to be. It’s a choice and a leap.) I’m cryin’ not because it’s the best manger scene I’ve ever been to . . . not because I’m always touched by sweet little newborns wrapped in rags, lying in an animal feed trough. I’m cryin’, some guys are laughin’, some don’t know exactly how to react.
I’ve found the Joy. All us raggedy sheepmen have found the source of joy in God our Savior who keeps his promises to rescue us from our sins.
When they left the cowshed after a while of oohing and aahing and sniffling and laughing and praying, these simple men fairly danced back to the sheep. Everyone who heard these guys shouting and telling about the baby Savior, caught the hope they too had stifled for so long.
I cannot tie this all into a neat bundle, so you can go away saying, “Wasn’t that a nice sermon?”
All I can do now is to ask: Do you Want Joy, Real Joy, Wonderful Joy?
There’s no time to think about the people in this story who missed it. The gossips of Nazareth had no joy.
The stingy inn keeper had no joy because his heart wasn’t big enough to give decent shelter to a young girl in labor. Someone let Mary and Joe use the cowshed so they could at least get out of the wind. I don’t know if that brought joy or guilt to that person.
Herod “the Great”—Insanely clinging to the puppet throne when he was all but dead himself, brought no joy. To nobody. His lying and cruelty were legendary.
He was so rotten, he arranged for his soldiers to kill important men in Judea, just so someone would weep when he died.
The scholars of Jerusalem certainly knew enough to have the joy at the news of Messiah’s arrival—but their knowledge got them a nice living.
The king’s paycheck took all their time and attention. Those blind guides knew where Christ would be born, but did not care enough to check it out for themselves. They seem to be as disturbed by the news of the wee King’s birth as crazy old Herod. (Matthew 2)
Everybody who experienced joy in these stories had one thing in common. They were or became believers. They believed it when God said he would do something.
And they all found joy by openly welcoming the Savior Jesus, as their Savior. They were not all holy people. But all were willing for what God wanted to do. They found joy in being part of his Master Plan. In the final, ultimate sense—that is what it means to believe. That is what it means to have the Joy.
If you want Joy, real Joy, wonderful joy . . .
let Jesus come into your heart.
Your sins he’ll wash away;
Your night he’ll turn to day.
Your life, he’ll make it over anew.
If you want Joy, real Joy, wonderful joy . . .
let Jesus come into your heart
I will end with this. Have you received Jesus as your personal Savior and asked him to come into all your life and help you to bring your life under control? You can. And though it is incredibly profound and important, it involves the simplicity of opening your life to him, inviting him into your innermost heart and soul, and giving yourself to follow him into his way of life.
This Joy, Real Joy, Wonderful Joy that comes from close
friendship with Jesus, will not be yours until you care enough to open your heart to Jesus Christ. You can do it right here and right now.
(PRAYER FOR THE CONGREGATION TO REPEAT)
Joy - Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
