A Christmas Present - Advent Day 15

Where is Bethlehem?      

                                        

Micah 5:2-5a    ²"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.  ³Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites.   ⁴He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.  And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.  ⁵And he will be their peace.  When the Assyrian invades our land and marches through our fortresses, we will raise against him seven shepherds, even eight leaders of men.

Matthew 2:1-5     ¹After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ²and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?  We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."  ³When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.  ⁴When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born.  ⁵"In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written…”

Writing before the birth of Christ, Micah prophesized, “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.”  Even then Bethlehem was a place rich in memories.  It was the ancestral home of Rachel, and Ruth and Boaz, and most importantly the birthplace of Israel’s greatest king, David.  But the Bethlehem Micah spoke to was then a place of chaos and confusion.  The armies of Assyria had destroyed much of northern Israel and rumors of the brutality and news about the coming threat had the people already feeling afraid and beaten and broken.

Even so, Micah saw a better day, and that better day came in the birth of Jesus.  The Bethlehem where the prophecy was fulfilled was a place of noise and confusion as people literally fought for a place to stay.  The streets were filled with the curses and complaints of the people, Roman swords, and the hidden daggers of Jewish Zealots.

It was in to this Bethlehem that Jesus was born.  And the good news of Christmas is that Christ is still born into the Bethlehems of our own chaos and confusion, our strife and stress.

One shall come forth who is a ruler.  And we see Jesus ruling over the circumstances of His life.  His life was tainted by scandal but He called it good.  He lived under the shadow of a Cross and called life abundant.  He was surrounded by the confusion of His disciples and called them friends and committed to them the responsibility to carry on his work.  And the hope of Bethlehem is that this ruling work will come to our life and this shall be peace.

Jesus confronts our priorities that have gotten all twisted and out of shape.  He straightens out some of our thinking.  He suddenly places a conviction in our hearts, that despite the way things appear and the way we feel, He is still in charge.  And this shall be peace.  It is His rule in our life that brings peace.  Peace is not some sweet feeling that drops out of heaven on us.  Peace comes from the rule of Christ as He rightens our life.  The rule of Christ brings peace, not only for us, but Micah says He shall be great to the ends of the earth.  The rule of Christ that we experience in our own life is meant to be given and shared.  The world needs it and we need it, because if the rule of Christ does not reach the chaos and confusion around us then the chaos and confusion have a way of shrinking our hope.

Have we allowed the confusion and chaos of our times to shrink our own hope down to nothing more than desire of our own private happiness?  If that is all we seek, we will not find or experience that ruling rightness of Jesus.  As we give away the rule that we have found, we receive back a re-orientation of our life in a way that brings peace.  And literally millions of people, for over two thousand years, whether they be wise or simple, sophisticated or crude, respectable or disreputable, well educated or unable to read, in this baby born in Bethlehem have found One who is a Ruler, who feeds with the strength of God, who displays majesty in the mundane, and they find true security and real peace.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

A Christmas Present - Advent Day 14

Christmas Complaints        

Malachi 2:17 – 3:2     ¹⁷You have wearied the LORD with your words.  "How have we wearied him?" you ask. By saying, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them" or "Where is the God of justice?"  ¹"See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.  Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty.  ² But who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand when he appears?  For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap.

Luke 1:68     "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. "

Whoever said, “Tis the season to be jolly” has obviously never shopped for Christmas, never realized that Santa does have to live on a budget.  It’s a season when we complain about being busy, about the commercialism of Christmas.  And perhaps the most prevalent complaint, though usually uttered silently, is the feeling that the reality of Christmas does not live up to all the glitter and the hype.  If we are slow to admit we are complainers, many of us would at least admit to having been disappointed in God.  If we have ever truly trusted in God and depended on God, we have also probably been disappointed in God.  Maybe we have tried to turn over a new leaf and start back to church and thought our life would get better, but it only seemed to get worse.  Maybe we have asked God to heal someone and they died.  Maybe we have asked God for some small help and it seemed like all we got was the silent treatment.  Or maybe we have tried to lead a good life and feel it has gotten us nowhere.  We know that God is not at our beck and call to do what we demand, but still we wonder, and maybe we do complain.

The negative side of complaining about God is that complaining tends to focus our attention “out there” on what God is or is not doing to others, or the way He is failing to deal with our fallen world.  Focus on the failure of others numbs us to the self-righteousness in us so that we do not recognize the secret delight we take in complaining.  Let’s face it, it feels good to complain, to be innocent when others are guilty, to be right when others are wrong.  It feels so good and makes us so miserable.  A kind of self-righteous rot sets into our soul.  A spirit of dissatisfaction begins to taint even some of the best things that happen to us.  But if we are going to complain, God is probably the best one to take our complaints to.  God may grow weary with our complaining but He does not dismiss the complainer. 

Malachi’s message is this:  You complain that God is not just.  You will discover that God is just in the way he deals with you.  Your complaints will be answered, not in the way God deals with others, but in the way God deals with you.  In Jesus, God came to deal with us.  He came, not as a force to be feared, but as a baby who was revered.  He came to offer us His life.  He came not asking “do you agree with me”, but “will you discover the truth by serving me.”

Jesus did not come simply to comfort us, but to confront us.  And people who find themselves confronted by Jesus say again and again that they were confronted not only by judgment but by mercy as well.  And in my own experience, I remember thinking during the early days of my addiction “God is going to punish me for this.”  But never in my wildest dreams did I think God would punish me by sending me to a treatment center.  Is that justice?  In effect, Malachi says “You will learn about the justice of God in the way God deals with you.  Behold, I am sending a messenger.  I am sending a Lord.”

When we are confronted by Jesus, we become fed up with pettiness.  We are repulsed by our self-centeredness. We are intolerant of phoniness.  Though God’s love will not let us down, neither does it let us off.  In Jesus, the love of God has a caring and a confrontive quality.  We take our complaints to the Source and the Source deals with the real source of complaint in us.  Telling God our complaints enables us to be done with the idolatry of our hurts and our frustrations, our gripes, and our grief.

Behold, I send my messenger.  Maybe that is all we can say to one another and do for one another.  We can be a messenger to help one another know that in the frustrations and annoyances of our life, in the unanswerable injustices that we see, God is there.  And more importantly, God is here.  He is dealing with us.  He is opening the eyes of our soul so we discover the truth we celebrate at Christmas.  He is Emmanuel, God with us.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

A Christmas Present - Advent Day 13

A Life That Lasts

John 12:20-26    ²⁰Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast.  ²¹They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request.  "Sir," they said, "we would like to see Jesus."  ²²Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.  ²³Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  ²⁴I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  ²⁵The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  ²⁶Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.  My Father will honor the one who serves me.

I John 2:15-17    ¹⁵Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  ¹⁶For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.  ¹⁷The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Into this wonderful time of year filled with gifts, hugs and homecomings, decorations and doughnuts, Santa Claus and singing choirs, John seems to sound a sour note, “Do not love the world or the things in the world…for the world passes away.”  If it is a sour note, it is also a true sound.  For we know that the goodness of Christmas will end.  The decorations will come down.  People will return to the regular routine.

The world passes away.  It may be a true note, but somehow it sounds out of sync.  The world is here for us to enjoy.  We need to celebrate life.  We need to savor its goodness.  That is the gospel being proclaimed today.  But, has all of our concentration on the enjoyment of life really given us an enjoyment of life?  Or has it made us more demanding?  More spoiled?  Actually less satisfied by the fleeting pleasures of life?  Could it be that by grasping at the goodness of life we not only rob ourselves of the good gifts of life but of something more as well?

“The world and its desires pass away,” John says, “but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”

John is saying that if we are always grasping after the fleeting goodness of this world, we may miss the more permanent gift God has for us.  It is the life of His Son.  For it is this life that abides forever.  “The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”  We do the truth, John says, and we discover the truth.  We cannot think our way into this life that abides forever.  We can discuss it, and debate it, and make motions about it, and sing about it, and celebrate it.  But John says we do not discover it until we do it, until we do what God in Jesus Christ has commanded us to do.  “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.  We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him” (I John 3:18-19).

There are several ways of entering into this experiment of doing the will of God to discover the truth.   One way is to ask ourselves a simple question about our behaviors and our decisions: “will Christ be glorified.”  We can justify our behavior and decisions by what the Bible says, or by justice, or even love.  But I believe we will come closer to truth by asking “will Christ be glorified.”

“The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”  Christmas is about the eternal life of God invading our world in the life of Jesus.  The Eternal stoops to the temporal, the Holy to the human.  Christmas announces once again that we are upheld by a mystery we cannot see, sustained by a power we cannot control, challenged by a goodness we cannot attain, redeemed by a grace we never imagined. 

By doing the will of God we find the Christ that is in Christmas.  By living as if Christ is Lord we discover the life that abides forever.  The Christmas season will pass, but the life Jesus came to give abides forever.  In the midst of the passing season may God give us the lasting joy as we seek to do the will of God.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

A Christmas Present - Advent Day 12

Have You Been Born Yet?

Galatians 2:15-21   ¹⁵"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. ¹⁷"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Galatians 3:1-6, 13-14, 22-27    ¹You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ²I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? ³Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ⁴Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? ⁵Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard? ⁶Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."  ¹³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." ¹⁴He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.  ²²But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. ²³Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. ²⁴So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.  ²⁶You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This Christmas season I want us to remember that the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem of Judea came into this world to be born into each of us.  The heart and soul of the Christmas season is that it is about our heart and soul.  For Paul the Christian faith was more than a code of conduct or a form of worship.  Christianity was first and foremost a life that had happened to him.  “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me,” he would say repeatedly.

There was among the churches in Galatia a group of people who were teaching that Christianity was merely a higher form of Judaism.  They taught that Jesus correctly understood the laws of Moses and the prophets and should be followed as the best way of obeying the laws of Moses and the prophets.  Jesus was offered simply as a life to be followed rather than as a life that was real, intimate and indwelling in the life of the people.  Have we, in our minds, reduced the Christian faith to a philosophy of life to be learned, to a compendium of wise advice to help us cope with life, to a political plan to solve society’s problems, or to a magic spiritual potion that will heal our bodies and spare us problems?  Jesus can help in these ways, but if we look to Him in only these limited ways, we are simply playing with dolls instead of giving birth to new life.  Christianity is first and foremost a life that is given and received.  So we recognize the importance of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3:3, “You must be born again,” or literally, “You must be born from above – a life beyond”.  Christianity is first and foremost a life that happens, and it happens by faith.  This faith is a confidence in God.  We call it faith and not confidence because faith is a confidence in spite of. 

Sometimes I think that some of us retreat from the risk of faith by holding on to what we call a simple faith.  But what we really mean is a comfortable faith where we feel we have pretty much learned and know all that we need so we hang an invisible but very clear sign on our life that says, “Do not disturb.”  Birth requires the disturbance of our comfort if we are going to discover the gift of new life.  If some of us retreat into a simple faith, others of us retreat in to a sophisticated faith.  We want the certainty of the latest knowledge, the surety of the most recent discovery for the Bible or from science, from the most recent poll, or the latest guru of educated religious thinking.  We find it very difficult to live in learned ignorance, and to wait for the living truth to be given and to develop in our soul as well as our mind.  Birth is not only uncomfortable.  It can be agonizingly slow in coming, and very unpredictable.  A retreat to a simple faith or a sophisticated faith can both shut out a living faith.  If we can answer it honestly, it may help to ask honestly, “Am I resisting the gift of that life?”

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

A Christmas Present - Advent Day 11

I Just Can’t Wait

II Corinthians 11:1-15      ¹I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness; but you are already doing that.  ²I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy.  I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.  ³But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.  ⁴For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.  ⁵But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those "super-apostles."  ⁶I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge.  We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way.  ⁷Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge?  ⁸I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so as to serve you.  ⁹And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed.  I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.  ¹⁰As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, nobody in the regions of Achaia will stop this boasting of mine.  ¹¹Why?  Because I do not love you?  God knows I do!  ¹²And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about.  ¹³For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  ¹⁴And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  ¹⁵It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.  Their end will be what their actions deserve.

Revelation 21:1-8      ¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  ²I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ⁴He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."   ⁵He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"  Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."   ⁶He said to me:  "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.  To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.  ⁷He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.  ⁸But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death."

The future John sees as written in Revelation is not based on wishful thinking.  It is based on the birth of a baby born in a stable.  In that baby, Jesus Christ, we see that the dark experiences of life are not the ultimate truth.  For who would have guessed that this Child lying on coarse hay would be seen as a threat to a tyrant named Herod?  Who would have guessed that this Unknown Infant would face the illustrious Pontius Pilate with the most important decision of his career?  Who would have guessed that the power of this Child would prevail after Rome was in ruins?  And who would have guessed that this obscure Galilean would be worshipped by millions around the world 2,000 years later?

The future promised in Jesus is a source of hope.  “Peace on Earth” is not a futile wish, but a future fact.  The future promised in Jesus gives birth to faithfulness here and now.  The problem is that we are such a present minded people that talk about a promised future often seems like a blurry theological detail to us, and we doubt rather than receiving the hope and faithfulness that promised future can give.  But perhaps at this time of year when the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Him, perhaps we can believe the future He has for each of us.  Perhaps trust can be born in us that no difficulty and no amount of disappointment, not even death itself, can keep us from that time when there will be no more darkness.  In the meantime, the light shines against the darkness and the darkness has not and will not keep us from the future promised us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

We see evidence of the future Jesus brought to light.  We see evidence in the life of someone who all had given up on as a hopeless case, and then one day that person has a peace in their heart and love in their eyes that takes your breath away.  The Evidence continues.  No despot, no amount of human destructiveness, no doubt, no despair, nor death itself can disrupt the future seen in Jesus Christ.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not and will not overcome it. The darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining (I John 2:8b).  God has a future promised to us.  Let that future shape and influence your life here and now.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

A Christmas Present - Advent Day 10

What Are You Getting for Christmas? 

Isaiah 64:1-3    ¹Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!  ²As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!  ³For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 

Exodus 33:18-20     ¹⁸Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."  ¹⁹And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence.  I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  ²⁰But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. "

Luke 1:46-55     ⁴⁶And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord ⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.  From now on all generations will call me blessed, ⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name.  ⁵⁰His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.  ⁵¹He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  ⁵²He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.  ⁵³He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.  ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful ⁵⁵to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."

Like the prophet Isaiah sometimes we want to cry out to God, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down.  Show them.  Show our oppressors that You are for real.  Show them Your power to destroy and to deliver.  Show them for sure, so that there can be no doubt in their mind, and cause the nations to quake before You.”  We might imagine that under the prophet’s cry came the whisper, “And by the way, Lord, would You show me, too?”

We long for certainty that God is real, that He is sovereign, that He cares for us, has a purpose for us, and that He has the power to give us life beyond the grave.  But certainty is something we cannot have, at least not the kind we so often seek.  Even Moses was denied the certainty he sought.  “Now show me Your glory,” Moses asks.  And God answers, “you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”  And among the Psalmist this denial of certainty was a common complaint, as in Psalm 89:46a, “How long, O LORD ?  Will you hide yourself forever?” 

 

We are told this lack of certainty is good for us.  It guards us against pride and complacency.  It moves us to keep on keeping on, following after God to learn more about Him and His will for our life and our world.  Certainty of the complete kind is simply something we cannot have.

What we can have is conviction.  Certainty is something we search for.  Conviction is something we are given.  Certainty demands proof.  Conviction requires “the heavenly vision”.  Certainty wants to eliminate the element of not knowing.  Conviction accepts this not knowing with a sense of wonder and awe.

Few people exhibit conviction more than Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Nowhere is the spirit of conviction more evident than in Mary’s response to the announcement of Jesus’ birth.  Everything that Isaiah had sought to see, Mary now sees with the eyes of conviction.  She sees the proud and haughty brought low in their awareness of God’s power and might.  She sees the oppressed and discouraged raised up by God’s power and will.  She sees all of this, even though none of these things has yet taken place.

In Mary we see the difference between certainty and conviction.  Certainty is something we search for.  Conviction is something we are given.  Certainty looks for visible proof.  Conviction is rooted in the heavenly vision.  Certainty wants to eliminate the element of not knowing.  Conviction accepts our limitations with a sense of wonder and awe.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell

A Christmas Present - Advent Day 9

Building for Christmas   This sermon was delivered December 3, 1989, just 18 days after an F-4 tornado had struck the city of Huntsville, Alabama killing 22 people, destroying and damaging many homes, businesses, and churches, including Faith Presbyterian where Henry was pastor.

Matthew 7:24-27    ²⁴"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  ²⁵The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  ²⁶But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  ²⁷The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

Hebrews 11:1, 8-12    ¹Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  ⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.  ⁹By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  ¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.  ¹¹By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.  ¹²And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

What are we going to get for Christmas?  This is the crisis we face every year at this time, whether we are wondering and worrying over what we will get, or wondering and worrying over what to give.  I wonder if it would help lessen the tension to remember that there are some things we cannot have at Christmas, no matter how much we might want to give them or receive them.  My hope is that this facing up to our limitations will help us receive with a deeper sense of gratitude and a greater feeling of pleasure the things we can give and receive at Christmas.

I will start with the most obvious.  One thing we cannot have this Christmas, as a church, is most of our church building facilities.  When the first flush of gratitude over lives spared has faded and even our sorrow for life lost has diminished, we face the frustration of trying to celebrate this season without the buildings we once had.  A church building helps us have well organized programs and an effective ministry.  If the building did not help us, there would be no need to build them.  Now we must do without. We must adjust to our new limitations.  But, we still have Christian community.  We have a community “whose architect and builder is God.”  We are a community of the spirit where the life of God is known and shared.  We are a community of the spirit, not a perfect community of the spirit, but certainly close enough to know that this community was built by God.  Our having to do without buildings, our efforts at repair and rebuilding will once again put us to the test.  Will we continue to be a community “whose architect and builder is God”, and you and I are His instruments?

The answer hinges on one word, faith.  The writer of Hebrews reminds us that everything the saints of old accomplished, they did by their faith and because of their faith.  This faith is not difficult to understand.  In a word faith is an inner confidence in God.  It is also the decisions we make and the actions we take in response to that confidence.  That confidence may call us to pitch in or stand aside trusting decisions and actions of others.  That confidence may cause us to speak or to be quiet, to stand up for God’s will or to give in.  We can never be completely sure what this confidence in God will require of us.  Perhaps that is why Hebrews gives so many different examples of faith.  But we can be sure and must be sure that it is this confidence that is moving and motivating us as we seek to be a part of this community.  The Master Builder can use all sorts of people, but He relies most heavily on those who are confident in Him and therefore most responsive to His leading and His plan.

Our confidence in God comes from Heaven in His Word.  Jesus says, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”  This is a listening that goes on beneath the surface noise, confusion, and not knowing of our lives.  And if anyone doubts that, talk to some couples who have discovered how much damage they have done to their relationship because they did not listen to one another.  Our faith need not be perfect.  When the aging Sarah was told she was going to have a baby she laughed in disbelief.  She gave God a vote of no confidence in His promise.  The good news is that there can be some slippage in our confidence, but God can use us still.  So let us accept our limitations and let us give thanks for what we can have this Christmas season.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell