In
the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called
Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of
David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings,
favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and
pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found
favor with God. And now, you will
conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son
of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor
David. He will reign over the house of
Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
Mary Said Wohoo!! That means I’ll get a long weekend (unless
Christmas lands on Saturday or Sunday!)
I’ll receive lots of gifts. I’ll
get to enjoy the black Friday shopping and maybe get some great deals. I wonder if my credit card has a high enough
balance. Maybe I had better ask to have
it increased just in case.
Can you picture Mary
sating; I can’t wait until Halloween is over so I can get a tree and get it
decorated. Maybe one of those pretty
pink flocked trees. Oh, Oh, and a blow
up snowman in the front yard. (I’m not
sure what a snowman is, but I have to have one to go with my reindeer.)
And the food. Let’s see. I’ll make 7 kinds of candy, no 8 I
can’t forget the divinity. And deserts
and more deserts, but no fruit cakes.
Ick! Oh I wonder if Joseph’s
parents will come over for dinner. Maybe
I had better get an extra table from the synagogue just in case. Oh, there is so much to do. I am so happy. The family, the lights, the
bells, the gifts-- oh yea the gifts that’s what Christmas is all about. Thanks Angel.
I have to go get ready now.
Of
course that is NOT the way Mary responded.
But that is exactly my
point. There are so many distractions,
detours and diversions in our Christmas celebration that sometimes we find it
hard to get to Christmas. The young
woman impregnated by the Holy Spirit, is not nearly showy enough for today’s
Christmas. The Son of God born in a
stable interferes with our self-gratifying consumer driven shopping orgy. The animals and shepherds just make too big
of a mess this time of year.
I
hate to intrude on your celebration of Christmas, whether it is consumer
driven, family driven, nostalgia driven, or exhaustion driven; but I have to
point out that most of us completely miss the point. Christmas has to go deeper than gifts and
shopping. We have to get deeper than
family. We have to get deeper than white
Christmas and frosty the snowman. We
have to get beyond the glitter, beyond the glow. Christmas at its root is a spiritual thing. It is a message for your soul and your spirit. Let us get beyond all the extras and get to
the spiritual heart of the incarnation of God coming for our salvation.
I
think Mary’s response to the angel’s visitation is instructive. Immediately she says "Here
am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." There are three things I see just in
this sentence that I want to share with you.
First, Mary
believed. How many of us, if we saw an
angel and received a message that we were to have a child and he would be the
savior of the world, would rub our eyes and shake our heads. We would think we were hallucinating. We would check to see if someone spiked our
diet Pepsi wouldn’t we?
I suspect we would try
almost any explanation before we believed what we had seen and heard. Not Mary. Mary just believed. Do you know what that is called . . . faith. Mary responded with faith.
Christmas is first and
foremost a season of faith. The
fundamental question of Christmas is not what am I going to get, or can I squeeze
one more gift out of my bank account.
The fundamental question of Christmas is do you believe? Do you have faith? Do you believe that Jesus really is the son
of God?
If we don’t believe
that Jesus is the son of God then the whole celebration is a sham.
Without faith in Jesus
as the incarnation of God himself, Christmas is nothing more than the festival
of selfishness that Target or Wal-Mart says it is.
This faith is
foundational to Christianity. Without
faith in Jesus as the only begotten son of God, there is nothing else. There is no Christmas. There is no Easter. There is no church and there is no salvation.
Christmas is first and
foremost a festival of faith.
The second lesson I see
is Mary’s response is her humble worship of God. Mary
knows right off the bat that this is not about her. She could have said, “How lucky am I.” “How wonderful am I.” “Look at me, the mother of God.” But she doesn’t. She names herself as a SERVANT of the Lord. Later with Elizabeth,
she sings "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in
God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”
Mary has no illusion about her
greatness. She makes no mistake thinking that this is about her purity. This is not about her worthiness. Mary knows
that she is in need of a savior just as much as the rest of us. She knows this
is about her salvation. She says, “my spirit rejoices
in God my Savior.” This is
about the fact that God, the only magnificent God beside whom none can stand,
has given her a savior- and placed him in her womb. Because of that she rejoiced- she magnified
God, she gave glory to God, she worshipped God and gave all the praise and
recognition to God.
We too can rejoice at Christmas because God, the only
magnificent God beside whom none can stand, has given us a savior, and placed
him in our hearts. That is what
Christmas is about. It is about humbly
magnifying God, giving glory to God, worshipping God and giving all the praise
and recognition to God.
Christmas is not about us, it is
about God, and we need to approach it with humility and awe.
First we have faith in Jesus Christ
as God’s son.
Second we know that God sent Jesus
for our salvation and we are to respond in humble awe.
Finally, Mary had no illusion that
she could return to the way things were. In that moment, in the blink of an eye
her whole life had changed. . Besides
the fact that babies change everything, she was a 13 or 14 year old mother- had
a fiancé who was not the father, and she having a baby in a strange city in a stable. Life
doesn’t get any more upside-down than that!
You know Christmas really messes up our
December too. Christmas often falls
during the middle of the week, there are extra worship services, extra company,
extra shopping, extra expenses, extra obligations, our regular songs aren’t on
the radio, we have to find room for a tree in the family room, we have to put
away the regular nick-knacks and get out the Christmas decorations. Christmas just turns everything
upside-down.
Not just Mary’s life, and not just
our Decembers. Christmas changes the
whole world. Mary knew that when she sang,
“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the
proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He
has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he
has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
The truth is that the changes in Mary’s
life and our lives are nothing compared to the way Christmas changed the whole
world. Human life would never be the same after that first Christmas. I cannot even imagine what the world would be
like without the presence and influence of the Christian Church. I cannot imagine what life would be like
without the promise that things can be different if we have faith. I cannot imagine anything that has changed
the world more than the birth of Jesus Christ.
Yet, for many people Christmas comes
and Christmas goes and we breathe a sigh of relief that things are back to “normal.”
No!
Christmas shouldn’t just change a month.
It should change our lives. At Christmas,
we are celebrating the greatest event in all of history, the coming of God to
the earth as one of us. The incarnation
of God to save sinful people from their sins.
How could life ever be the same?
How can we ever be the same? No! We should walk away from Christmas changed
people ready to change the world for Jesus Christ.
I
don’t know what I would do if an angel appeared to me, let alone what I would do
with a message like Mary received. I do
know that Mary teaches us about the true spirit of Christmas.
·
A Spirit of faith
·
A spirit of humble awe
·
A spirit ready to be changed and to change the world.
What
about you? What kind of Spirit do you
have this Christmas. I am trying very
hard not to be distracted or discouraged by the nonsense I see in the secular
Christmas Binge. I hope you are too.
Remember
:
A
Spirit of faith
A
spirit of humble awe
A
spirit ready to be changed; and to change the world.
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