Sunday
12/22/19 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “He Brings Families Together!”
(“Why we need a
little Christmas” Series – Part 4 of 5)
Old Testament
Scripture: Isaiah 7:10-16
New Testament
Scripture: Romans 1:1-7
Gospel Lesson:
Matthew 1:18-25
Friends,
brothers and sisters, welcome once again on this our Fourth Sunday of the Season
of Advent. Four Sundays into this season of preparation for the birth of Christ,
the return of Christ, and the renewal of Christ in our hearts.
Two days from now is of course Christmas Eve. Once we hit
12:00 am, as Christmas Eve rolls into Christmas Day morning, we will leave the
season of Advent, and enter into the twelve-day season of Christmas. Christmas
will continue until Epiphany Sunday on Sunday January 5, 2020.
With this said, so there I was, I was about 7-8 years old,
and I heard my mom laughing hysterically. My older brother Ken calls this my
mom’s “hyena laugh,” as she was really really laughing hard. She was laughing
so hard that tears were on her cheeks.
She was watching this movie called “National Lampoon’s: Christmas
Vacation.” Has anyone here ever seen this movie “National Lampoon’s: Christmas Vacation?”
So
as I began, as a little boy, to watch some of this movie with her, it did seem
a little funny, the parts that I could understand anyway. Yet for my mom, she
was laughing so hard!
Why was my mom laughing so hard? Well in the movie “National
Lampoon’s: Christmas Vacation,” the “Griswold family” invited there extended family
to their house for Christmas. The father of family, “Clark Griswold” was
determined to make the family Christmas perfect in every way. What makes this
now classic American movie so funny, is that nothing, and I mean nothing goes
as planned for poor “Clark Griswold!”
Not only do bad things happen all throughout this movie, but
the conflicts between family members are humorous as well. I mean all of these
extended family members get together, and it would seem that they are not all
happy to see each other. In fact, some of the characters in this movie view Christmas
as something to survive, or an act of futility.
The reason that my mom laughs so hard at this movie, and
now Melissa and I do, is that we can relate to it. I bet if we are honest, some
of us did not like having the whole extended family over for Christmas. In
fact, maybe, maybe, we didn’t really like all of our family members. Sure we
loved them, but many people had that uncle, that aunt, or that cousin that just
got under their skin. You didn’t want to see them, but your parents said, “But
this is Christmas, and it is what families do!” Does this sound familiar to
anyone here?
Christmas movies where things don’t go right, or where family
members don’t agree or get along are funny, because so many of us can relate to
these movies.
The real question then is this, what causes families to
gather together every year, despite all of these complications? The answer,
whether we realize it or not, is Jesus Christ.
As my sermon title says for this fourth installment of this
“Why we need a little Christmas” sermon series, Jesus or “He brings families
together!” Whether we realize it or not, the birth of Jesus Christ has so transformed
the world and our entire culture that we gather together on Christmas. We even
gather with people that we have no desire to gather with!
Now we might gather on Thanksgiving or Easter, but I have
always found that Christmas is truly the high water mark for family gatherings.
It’s a holiday like no other. Christmas causes us to be more chartable, more
loving, and it even causes us bring our “families together!” If it wasn’t for Christmas,
I wonder how often we would see some of our family members?
The birth of Jesus Christ, and the December 25th
holiday of Christmas has so transformed our world and our culture that it is
now a universal day of peace, hope, joy, and love in many cultures.
I remember reading the story from World War I, and how in
1914 the German and French soldiers stopped fighting on December 25th.
Soldiers literally came out of there trenches, sang Christmas carols, exchanged
gifts, and even played soccer together. So transformative is the birth of Jesus
Christ, that on December 25th, 1914 World War I stopped between France
and Germany, as they celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ.
How powerful, significant, and transformative is the birth
of Jesus Christ? So much so that a World War can be stopped, for “He brings
families together!” The power of Jesus Christ can stop a war, and it can bring
your family together. I don’t anything else that can unite us like Jesus, his
gospel, and his birth.
So far in this “Why we need a little Christmas” sermon
series, I have discussed how Jesus and his birth offers us “Hope in Hopeless World.” We have
great reason to have peace, love, joy, and hope, and that reason is Jesus Christ.
In this sermon series, I also talked about how “God can use even us.” No matter
how young, old, weak, or strong that we are, God can use us. We can pray, and
we can do so many things. Whatever we do for God, “God can use even us.”
Last week I discussed
that if Jesus truly came to make all things new, to forgive us all, and to make
our sins as white as snow, then we should forgive ourselves. The damage of the
sins and the harm that we have caused, may never be repaired, but God has
forgiven us if we ask for forgiveness. If God has forgiven us, we must forgive
ourselves, as “We are never beyond redemption!”
This Jesus
who is coming, to be born in a manger, will not only die for the sins of
humanity, but he will also change the world. The most printed and distributed
book in the history of the world is the Christian Bible. The first book ever
printed when the printing press was invented, was the Christian Bible.
I would argue
that no figure has so transformed history like that of Jesus Christ. Given
this, his birth, which ushers in a new era of hope is so transformative. It’s
important to remember also that the Jews expected the Messiah, the Christ to
come. The great prophets of old predicted it long before Jesus ever crossed the
horizon of this world. Even though we didn’t fully understand Jesus when he was
born, we were hungry for hope. We believe in the hope that we have through Jesus,
and that this hope has transformed us and the world.
This morning
in our scripture reading from the prophet Isaiah once again, we have one of the
many predictions of the birth of the Messiah, or Jesus Christ. Once again the
prophet Isaiah says:
“Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, Ask a
sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as
Sheol or high as heaven. But
Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. Then
Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David!” “Is
it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore
the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and
shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how
to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to
refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in
dread will be deserted”
(Isa.
7:10-16, NRSV).
Hundreds of years before the birth Jesus,
the Messiah, Immanuel, the prophet Isaiah said that this birth would occur. We
would later call this Christmas Eve and then Christmas.
These predictions of Jesus’ birth
are reinforced with our scripture reading from the book of Romans for this
morning, which once again says:
“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an
apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through
his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was
descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God
with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from
the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and
apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for
the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus
Christ, To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:1-7, NRSV).
Paul
is telling us, that Jesus was foretold by the prophets, is a decedent of King David,
and is the Messiah, the savior, Emmanuel. This Jesus, is God in the flesh, whose
birth and life will change the world forever. This Jesus will die for us, rise
from the dead, and one day will return in glory.
On
this the Fourth Sunday in this the Holy Season of Advent, our gospel lesson for
this morning offers us one of the two birth narratives of Jesus Christ. Of the
four gospels, we find the story of Jesus’ birth only in Matthew and Luke. This
morning once again, the gospel of Matthew says this of Jesus’ birth:
“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” (Mt. 1:18-25, NRSV).
In this gospel lesson, we hear of the immaculate conception
of Jesus, by Mary. The Son of God in her womb. We hear of how Joseph at first did
not believe that her pregnancy was of God. In a dream however, God revealed to Joseph
that Mary was indeed with child through God’s grace. The Lord told Joseph to
take Mary as his wife. The Lord told Joseph that the child that Mary was
carrying is a son, and that this son will be called Jesus. The gospel then
references the Old Testament prophet Isaiah in 7:14, predicting the virgin
birth of Christ centuries earlier.
So this Jesus, this “Emmanuel,” or “God
is with us,” is coming to us soon in a manger in Bethlehem, in our hearts
daily, and one day will be returning to earth in glory.
Due to all of this, our crazy and our
wacky families gather on Christmas. Maybe some of your family members are
coming into town soon, and maybe, just maybe, you are the lucky ones to host
them all this year! The birth of Jesus Christ can stop a World War for a day,
and it can unite us. All of this can and does happen, because the birth of Jesus
Christ our Lord, “brings families together!” Amen.
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