Advent Service

Pastor Phillips' Sermon

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you that each week we can gather in your name. We can set aside a time to worship you with our brothers and sisters in Christ, that you come into our lives and you speak words of encouragement, that you walk with us every step of the way, and give us strength for the day. Bless us now as we meditate on your word. In Jesus' name, Amen.

This is a busy time. We've been talking about that the last couple of weeks in our sermons and our services. It's just amazing how busy it is, and I know many of you are just pushed to your limits with your work and family schedules and all the things going on. I was talking about this with my wife. In fact, we talk about it almost every day, how busy we are, how stretched we are, how pushed to our limit we are with all the different activities we're involved with. My wife is working on her Master's. She's a full-time learning disabilities therapist. She manages our household. She's doing Christmas shopping. She teaches Junior High Sunday School on Sunday mornings and then on Wednesday nights she also teaches. All this and throw on all our 8 th Grader's basketball games. And my schedule's just like that. It's just that busy. And sometimes we just look at each other and say, “Don't ask me to do one more thing.” I know you can relate because I've been talking to you and you've been telling me about your busyness and your hard work and the things that are pushing you and stressing you.

But how does God fit into all this busyness? How do we make time for Him? How do we make room for a Savior? This kind of thought comes to mind as we look at our scripture lesson that was read a little bit earlier from the gospel of Luke 2:1-5. It tells the story of Jesus being born. It tells the story of His parents', Joseph and Mary, as they are making that difficult journey. It's just amazing to think of that time and how busy it was for that young couple. What was it like for them? Let's try to imagine that.

Joseph and Mary were ordered by the emperor, as were all subjects of the empire, to register in their hometown. They were taking a census. Now what's the point of a census? Well, in our country, it's for accurate record keeping and population estimates and all kinds of plans and things like that. But for them, what was the point of the emperor ordering a census for all the people in his empire? He had a plan. If he could count all the people, he could tax all the people and that was the plan. It was as simple as that. The emperor wanted to be able to get every penny he could from all the people in his empire, so he ordered by decree a census to be taken and everyone had to return to their own hometown. Well, Joseph's hometown was Bethlehem . It turns out that is 90 miles from Nazareth . Ninety miles they had to journey. Now just think about this. I know some of you out there can relate because of your circumstances currently. Mary is nine months' pregnant, and she has to travel 90 miles because the emperor said so. Well, I sure wouldn't have wanted to be the one to tell her that story. “You're going to have to ride a donkey 90 miles just so the emperor knows how many people are here.” Ninety miles over rough and rocky trails. I was talking to a couple of people this afternoon who love to ride horses and I said, “What's the farthest you've ever ridden?” Twenty miles. Can you imagine 90 miles in that condition? Just try to imagine some of the conversation that took place. “Why couldn't you be from a town that's a little closer to Nazareth ?” “You mean you have to stop again?” Oh. This is no fun. It was a difficult trip.

After such a long and uncomfortable trip, they finally arrived at the hometown of Joseph. I wonder if he'd been describing it to her all the way. “Oh, you're going to love it. Oh, it's this wonderful place. And the people are so kind and friendly. I know just the spot we can stay.” That's not how it worked out. Because there are so many other people from Bethlehem coming back home to register, as the emperor said, the town was overwhelmed. As the tired Joseph and Mary went from place to place, hoping they could find a bed for the night, the answer was always no. No. No. No rooms. No rooms.

Can you imagine returning to your own hometown and finding that kind of a welcome? Usually we go back to our hometowns and it's nice because we can show our kids all the places we grew up and we run into people we know and it's a place where we can step out of our demanding schedules and just relax. It's a place where we can go and people know us and love us. And it's just a great relief to go there. But not for Joseph and Mary. And it seems ironic, doesn't it, that this world that so desperately needs a Savior, so desperately was clinging to the hope God would send the Messiah and deliver them all, this world when the Messiah appears, turns them away, can't even find the meagerest of places for Him to be born. How ironic the King of kings is born among livestock?

Later, in Jesus' ministry, He returns to the place where He was raised, Nazareth . It says in Matthew 13, “When Jesus had finished these parables, He moved on from there, coming to His hometown. He began teaching the people in their synagogue and they were amazed. ‘Where did this man get His wisdom and these miraculous powers?' they asked. ‘Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't His mother's name Mary and aren't His brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Aren't all His sisters with us? Where then did this man get these things?' And they took offense at Him.”

Can you imagine? Jesus. My gosh, we worship Him. We love Him. He died for us. We know all this. Can you imagine one moment in His presence just talking with us, just touching Him, or whatever you would do in that moment? And here these people, they look at Him, “I knew Him when He was a little kid. He's nothing.” Their foolishness caused them to be blind to His majesty. But what a great opportunity they lost in the blindness. They could have walked with Him. They could have watched Him do miracles. They could have heard those beautiful words of forgiveness and eternal life flow from His lips. Yet they were blinded and the opportunity was lost.

Much later in His ministry, He was on trial. And the voice of the people He came to save cried out against Him. It says in Luke 23:13-18, “Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people and said to them, ‘You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined Him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against Him. Neither has Herod, for he sent Him back to us, as you can see. He has done nothing to deserve death. Therefore, I will punish Him and then release Him.' With one voice, they cried out, ‘Away with this man.'” The people He came to save rejected Him.

Are we different than that? Do we welcome Him into our lives, into the parts of our lives that we struggle in, or the parts of our lives we celebrate in? Do we welcome Him any better than they did? Our nation doesn't. Our nation seems to echo those words of “Away with this man” when they say things like “separation of church and state.” It's not in the Constitution. Those words are not in the Constitution. In fact, they were in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a church telling the church the government has no business in the church. But our society has twisted that around to say the church has no business in government. So we as Christians are muted in our speaking and our convictions. We often feel uncomfortable mentioning Jesus at work or in school or in the public sector. In a way, we've rejected our Savior.

Sometimes it appears in our personal lives, we just don't make time for Jesus. At this time of year, when we're stretched beyond the limit, overloaded and we can't possibly add one more thing, sometimes we need to take a census. Not one ordered by the emperor to prepare us to be taxed but one called on by the love of Jesus. His love compelled Him to die on the cross for our sins and, in response, our love compels us to serve Him, to take a census of our own lives and find out what we're doing and how we're spending our time. Think about the typical week, 168 hours in a week. A few simple questions will help us to see what we're doing. How many hours do we spend working? Most of us have a pretty clear idea of that. How many hours do we spend with our family awake? I'm not talking about sleeping. How many hours do we spend with our family, the people God has given us, the blessings He surrounded us with? How many hours do we spend sleeping? How many hours do we spend eating? Those are the necessities, aren't they? Those are the ones we can't do without. We have to sleep. We have to eat. We have to spend time with our loved ones. We have to work to earn a living.

The next three sometimes we consider optional. How many hours do we spend worshiping God? How many hours do we spend reading our bibles? And how many hours do we spend in prayer? The last question is the most convicting? How many hours do we spend on entertainment? Hum. Well, I did my own census and these are some of the conclusions I came up with. I work more than I sleep. That's not too unusual. I work more than I spend time with my family. That's not unusual either. I spend twice as much time on entertainment as I spend in worship, bible study, and prayer combined. And finally, I spend more time eating than I do praying. Think about it. Now I'm just kind of estimating these things and trying to be honest and sincere. But when you hear those conclusions, does that sound like I've done enough to make room for the Lord in my life? I don't feel I have but I know those three things we often consider optional, worship, bible, and prayer, are the things that prepare us to serve Him, the things that prepare us to deal with adversity in our lives, the things that prepare us to have Him in our hearts and to spend eternity with Him in paradise.

When I first met Kim and we got engaged, many of you have heard this story, I wanted to prepare my house for my new family. Because I got the instant family. I got a wife and two daughters right away. And even now the girls look back to that as the time when they married Dad, which I like the sound of that. But I spent a lot of time thinking about that and preparing for them. I was a bachelor up in northern Minnesota . They were down in Mount Pleasant , Iowa , so we weren't together very much but I kept thinking of them and how I would prepare the house so it would welcome them. And so I went to the hardware store and I thought about the girls' room. I said, “I don't know anything about little girls. What colors do little girls like?” And so they gave me some different colors. Lavender was one color and then cream was the border of the room and so I painted the room lavender and cream. Then I talked to a local artist who taught art in our schools and I asked her for ideas on how I could paint murals on the walls and she taught me how to do it and I painted Noah's ark and all the animals and I had a rainbow running from one wall up over the ceiling down the other wall and I put glow-in-the-dark stars all over the ceiling. And then I converted like an attic space with a little door, I made that into a play area for the girls. Because I was motivated out of love for them, I worked hard. I spent hours and hours. I can't even count how many hours I spent doing all that work. And people were saying, “Can I hire you to do my room?” And I said, “Well, I suppose I could do it again but I have no idea how much time it would take so I don't think so.” But that's how I prepared to be a dad and to be a husband.

What are we doing to prepare a space for God in our lives? You know, the census the emperor gave was to prepare the people to be victims basically. But this census I'm talking about is to prepare us to live for eternity. And it's just to experience all the blessings of God in every aspect of our lives, not just on Sunday or in bible class or in a quiet time alone but in our work, in our play, every aspect of our lives. As we prepare for that Savior to celebrate His birth, God equips us for eternity. As we spend time worshiping, reading our bibles, and praying, we take that census and we're honest and we say, “You know, I could convert a lot of that play time to time where I grow in my faith.” And what a blessing that would be to you, to your family, and to all of us as a family of Christ here at this church.

God has called us to worship our Savior. What a great opportunity. You know, those people in His hometown, they missed out. They missed out, but we don't have to. Amen? Amen.

Copyright 2006 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church