Every year, my brother sends our family
Christmas presents through the mail. And
every year, he has the words, “Don’t open until Christmas” printed on each
package.
He does this because when he first started sending us Christmas
packages, we would open them up on the day we received them, even if it was a
week or two early. And it would really
bother him when we would break the news to him that we had already opened his
gifts before Christmas. Who doesn’t want
Christmas to come a little early?
Well, for those of you who don’t like to wait for Christmas, I have some
really good news for you! We get to open
up a different Christmas gift each Sunday from this large wrapped Christmas
box! These are Christmas gifts that God
wants us to have. Each week, a child or
youth who is involved in our children and youth ministries will open the
Christmas box on our behalf.
For this 1st Sunday, I invite 9:00 am-Paisley Stalder representing our
pre-k & & k classes 10:30 am-Ben Schenck representing our “Learning to Use My Bible Class” to open the Christmas
box. Today’s Christmas gift is the gift
of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary is
the right person to symbolize this gift since she received the unexpected and
very surprising news that she was with child.
Every year on the first Sunday of Advent, the Gospel reading has this
theme of expectation. It’s the scripture
where Jesus is telling his disciples to expect great things to happen. He tells them to be alert at all times and to
know that the kingdom of God is at hand.
The Kingdom of God is just around the corner. It’s breaking in even as we speak. Don’t blink because you just might miss it!
Jesus tells us that the way to receive the gift of expectation is to be alert. Be ready.
Expect the unexpected.
About three weeks ago, John Coen, our Director of Creative Ministries
sent me an e-mail asking me if I would like to be part of our church float for
the holiday parade which was on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. He needed more people so I innocently said, “Sure, I’ll help.”
Little did I know what I was getting myself into! A second e-mail informed me that he would
have a costume for me to wear. No
problem, right?
So here I am in our holiday parade costume. Someone said I looked like a frozen Rod
Stewart. My make-up included a lot of
sparkles around my eyes. Do you know how
hard it is to get rid of those sparkles?
I had a wedding that day, and the bride and groom chose not to include
me in their pictures!
The theme of our float was “Joy to the World” complete with dancers,
singers, and people like me who handed out candy and church invitations. Here’s a picture of Mary and Joseph and the
“Joy to the World” singers behind them.
Can you tell which singer is our own Pastor Cheryl? Thanks to John Coen’s creativity and all of
the people who participated, our church float won the Director’s Award.
The Christmas gift of expectation is the gift that helps us to be more
like Mary and to be ready for the unexpected thing that God wants to do through
us, even if that means wearing a crazy costume.
Last spring, Rick Jones who is the pastor at Sixth Avenue United
Methodist Church and I drove together to Dayton for a clergy meeting. And while we were driving, Rick says to me, “What if our United Methodist Churches in
town would begin to share in ministry together?” By the way, whenever somebody begins a
conversation with the words, “What if…”
that usually means that they have opened up the gift of expectation.
“What if our churches share in
youth ministry, maybe get a men’s ministry started.” And from there he listed some other examples.
Long story short, Rick got our pastors together this past summer to
continue that “What if” conversation that we had in the car going to
Dayton. That “What if” conversation has
led to our several churches working together on several shared ministries.
Roswell United Methodist Church in Atlanta has opened the Christmas gift
of expectation. Twenty years ago, one of their Sunday School classes started a
conversation with, “What If.” From
there, they began a ministry for the developmentally disabled. Let’s watch a video about their ministry.
Opening the Christmas gift of expectation is exciting because when we
live out our faith knowing that the kingdom of God is at hand, incredible
things happen. Miracles happen. We are
able to reach out to more and more people with the good news of Jesus Christ.
Mary was the first person to open the Christmas gift of expectation when
the angel told her that she was with child of the Holy Spirit. She knew that the kingdom of God was at hand,
even within her own womb!
I’m also impressed that Mary, as a young teenage woman, was able to
persevere through the challenges that came to her as a result of her
pregnancy. Think of the rumors, the
gossiping, and the ridicule that she endured as she waited patiently for the
birth of her child. It’s not always easy
to open the gift of expectation, is it?
I want to list four barriers that can keep us from opening the gift of
expectation in this Season of Advent.
And the first barrier is our pride.
While Mary was planning for her wedding and this exciting transition in
her life, God interrupted her plans with this news that she was with child of
the Holy Spirit. Things didn’t go as
originally planned by Mary. Have you
ever noticed how God has no problem in messing with our carefully planned out
lives? Christmas is a time to remember
that it’s not about us. It’s about what
God wants to do in and through us.
One of the greatest lines in all of scripture is when Mary responded to
the angel by saying, “Here am I, the
servant of the Lord: let it be with me according to your word.” Mary didn’t let her pride get in the way of
receiving the holy gift of expectation.
The second barrier is cynicism.
This is when we say negative things like, “It will never work like that for me?” Or, “It
will never work here in our church.”
Or, “God can’t possibly use me to
make a difference like that.” Cynics
always find ways to keep the expectations so low that we can’t possibly
fail. But failure isn’t the worst thing
that can happen to us. Not trying and
responding to God’s voice is.
Mary was willing to take some risks in order to respond to God’s calling
in her life.
A third barrier is apathy. Do you
know the difference between ignorance and apathy? “I
don’t know and I don’t care!”
The opposite of love is not hate.
It’s apathy. Apathy is when we
simply don’t care. And if we don’t care,
then why would we want to open the gift of expectation to include more things
that we probably don’t care about?
The story of Christmas is a story of God’s tremendous compassion for the
world. God risked everything by sending
us Jesus. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”
And a fourth barrier is a more subtle barrier and this is the barrier of
distraction. This is when we put off
responding to God because we are so caught up in our usual pre-holiday
busyness. The problem is that we never
do get around to responding to God’s calling because there’s always another
distraction.
Since the kingdom of God is at hand, we need to set aside any
distraction that would keep us from the urgency of this present reality. This Advent season, think about setting aside
the things that on the surface may seem important to do, but in reality, are
things that are just keeping us from opening the Christmas gift of expectation.
Maybe you can think of some other barriers that keep us from opening
this incredible gift. I believe that one
of the reasons why Mary didn’t let these barriers get in her way of opening the
gift of expectation was something that the angel told her when she found out
that she was with child.
The angel said to her, “For
nothing will be impossible with God.”
This Christmas, open the gift of expectation.
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