Who Are We Trying To Reach?

The “Jesus answer” is everybody, but that is too easy…and too hard.  But it is a question that we need to wrestle with.  Perhaps a way of rephrasing it is “Who are the people in our neighborhood?”  Sesame Street sings about it, “Who are the people in your neighborhood?”

For them, the answer is “they’re the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street, they’re the people that you meet each day!!”

Who are the people in my neighborhood?  Who do I meet when I walk down the street?  I don’t walk down the street too often in all honesty.  I usually hop in the car when I am headed out.  I walk in the morning, for exercise, and at night, for our dog’s exercise.  And I don’t meet too many people out there. 

But Sesame Street is a walker’s neighborhood.  Perhaps our answer is better found in the second part of the song, “they’re the people that you meet each day”.  So, who do we meet each day?  Co-workers?  School mates?  Family-maybe those who help us with our kids?  Friends?  Again, this kind of depends on the walker’s community.  Who are the people that we meet each week?  Who do we hang out with?  Who is in our social circle? 

But our work at this church is “To build a neighborhood in God’s Kingdom”.  So, the question for everyone to pray on, who are the people in our neighborhood?  And how do we build a church to serve them?

You are invited to Lessons and Carols

“One of the most beloved traditions of Advent and Christmas from England is a form of worship known as the “festival of Lessons and Carols”.  The pattern for the service is the proclamation of God’s Word contemplated in a special sequence of readings, prayers, and song.  The service of nine lessons and carols was first conceived by Archbishop Benson for use in the Truro Cathedral in the late nineteenth century.  It was simplified and adapted for use in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, in 1918, by Dean Eric Milner-White.  Our service is an adaptation of the basic pattern from the King’s College Chapel version.  The beauty of the service is its flexibility and its musical dialog based upon the Christmas Lessons.”

This is the description that we have included in the bulletin in years gone by for our “Lessons and Carols” Service.  We have used it in different ways and different places, on a Sunday leading up to Christmas and as our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.  We have also sought to modify it, taking it down to five lessons for a couple of years.

This year, Lessons and Carols falls on our Youth Sunday.  The readings will be done by members of the Youth Group and their families.  Mary Lu Farrell has redone the Carols for this Service, drawing on a couple of new ones from our Hymnal and a couple of old favorites outside our Hymnal.  It is one of my favorite services of the year. 

In years gone by, readers were given a choice of using the Pew Bibles, in the New Revised Standard Version of Scripture or using the King James Version.  The poetry of the KJV, especially with these verses, touches the very soul of the service.  This year, all the readings are going to be drawn from the King James Version for its poetry and to compliment the wonder of this traditional service.

Worship is at 10am, please invite your friends to join us in this wonderful celebration of the Christmas Season.

The Countdown to the Birth

There is a very interesting timeline across the Gospels concerning the birth of Jesus.  It starts in the Gospel of John, John 1.  "In the beginning was the Word (Jesus) and the Word (Jesus) was with God, and the Word (Jesus) was God."  That is a theme in John, the identification of one God in two ‘beings’, the Father and the Son.  But that’s for another time.

Jesus is at the Creation, John 1:1.  Then God promised to send His only Begotten Son into the world, John 3:16, and we are given his Kingly ancestry, Jesus’ official genealogy going back to Abraham set up in Matthew 1: 1-17. 

And the story in Matthew continues in verse 18, “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…”

This was the sermon text this past Sunday and we skimmed the backstory of Mary to go ahead with the call of Joseph.  But you can’t leave a line like “she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” by itself.  This is a unique event in the history of the church, in the history of the WORLD!!!

For that, we need to go over to the Gospel of Luke.  Luke 1, beginning at verse 5, that gives us the backstory.  We are looking at the sequence of events that leads to the Miracle birth of Jesus.  It starts with the Miracle birth of John the baptizer.  Gabriel sets that promise in motion, to Zechariah and Elizabeth, a Miracle birth for people, as verse 7 puts it, “both were getting on in years”.

This is all backstory that doesn’t make it into the Christmas Pageant, I am talking about the birth of John.  That story sets up what is to come in the Christmas Pageant and what is to come after the birth of Jesus.  Two pieces of the Story are for Christmas.  First, a miracle marks the coming of Jesus.  Secondly, when Mary comes to visit Elizabeth while Elizabeth is very pregnant, John leaps in the womb, excited by the power of God in the presence of the mother of Jesus.

Notice the sequence of the story.  Gabriel comes to speak to Mary.  He tells her she is going to be the mother of Jesus.  Her response: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  I am just saying that this is not the most enthusiastic response she might have given.

But when we read this story in church, we usually read to verse 37-38, where she responds with cautious optimism, then we jump to verse 46, where she sings out “My soul magnifies the Lord!”  What we miss are vss. 39-45, where Mary goes to see Elizabeth, and the baby leaps, and the Holy Spirit overcomes Elizabeth and she declares the Hail Mary, “Blessed are you among women...and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” 

But Elizabeth goes on to a second blessing, verse 45:

“Blessed is she (blessed is Mary) who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”  Blessed is Mary who bought into what the Lord told her!  That is when it clicked for Mary.  That is when she sings out “My soul magnifies the Lord!”

It was her visit with Elizabeth that made it real for Mary that she was truly blessed by what the Lord promised.

After Mary’s Magnificat, after her Song of Praise, Luke says she was with Elizabeth for another three months before returning to her home.  Luke does not say that she was there for the birth, but first babies generally start to kick between the fourth and fifth month, the reference books really don’t speculate on when babies start to ‘leap’ in the womb so she might have been there or not.  But that is not critical to the story.

Luke’s gospel does not jump to Jesus’ birth yet.  It finishes the story of John.  John was born, his father prophesied about his future, and we found out he grew up in the wilderness of Israel before his public appearance.

That is important because of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  All four gospels agree on this point, that before Jesus began his ministry, John the Baptist (I prefer Baptizer so we don’t stick John with a denominational affiliation) came to prepare the way of the Lord.  He did it for Jesus’ ministry and he did it for Jesus’ birth.

Now we can return to Mary, after three months, she went home and she got engaged.  We are not sure if she was engaged before going to visit Elizabeth or not but “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…”

Joseph’s reaction was that of a good, yet injured man.  He was going to divorce her quietly, not subject her to public ridicule.  But then the angel of the Lord comes to him and pronounces that Jesus is the Son of God the Holy Spirit.  His birth is not the act of a woman getting knocked up, but the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, “a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel”, literally “GOD WITH US”.  This is the son of David, as Joseph is the Son of David.  The history and prophecy of the Old Testament are aligning by the power of God to bring the Messiah into the world. 

And, in verse 54, “Joseph took her (Mary) as his wife…and she bore a son; and he named him Jesus.”

Luke and the Forgotten Miracle

Matthew tells the story of the birth of a king.  It is framed by the Royal Genealogy of Jesus and followed by the Visit of the Magi, wise men or kings from the East.  Great things are happening. 

Luke’s treatment of the Christmas story is altogether different.

Because Luke is writing this story for somebody else.  He is running down the eyewitness accounts of Jesus and his life in order to write the best biographical narrative that he can.  He wants to put down the whole truth, verified by his own work and discovery. 

And the birth of Jesus is foretold by the birth of John the baptizer.  Just as the ministry of Jesus was preceded by John, so too is Jesus’ birth.  It is a miracle story.  But when it comes to Christmas, we systematically chop out the parts mentioning  Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Doesn’t seem to matter that the angel appeared to Zechariah before he appeared to Mary.  Doesn’t seem to matter that a woman of old age, barren throughout her life, is suddenly found to be pregnant with a child who, while still in the womb, jumps at the presence of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

We know the story of the angels appearing to the shepherds, with the multitude of the heavenly host, but their story is left out.  The drama of a man who doubts God and, as punishment, has his ability to speak taken away, is something quite novel.  In Matthew, there are seventeen verses before we get to the Birth Narrative.  In Luke, there are 80! 

So what?  What’s the big deal?

The big deal is the parallel.  John the baptizer comes before Jesus at birth as well as at the beginning of his ministry.  They were related, contemporaries, aged within a year or so of each other.  Their lives are intertwined. 

When John shows up baptizing at the River Jordan, the leaders of the Israelites ask if he is Elijah.  Gabriel told Zechariah, “He will go before (Jesus) in the spirit and power of Elijah”.  When God starts a rumor…

The take away is this.  Christmas is too often focused on the baby in the manger.  Such an image of innocence and wonder is integral to the experience of the Season, but we must also remember the grand pageantry, the design of God to create around the birth of His Only Begotten Son a tapestry of miracle and power that shall mark the life and work of Jesus.