Month: December 2019

Jeremiah 23:5-8
Matthew 1:18-23
Romans 4:1-5

Have you noticed that with the passing of the years we are urged to purchase ever more extravagant, and therefore, expensive Christmas gifts? Can anyone remember a time when you would turn on the television and be encouraged to buy a woman an item of clothing or a hairdryer, and a drill or set of sockets for the man of the house? Now we see that commercial where the husband brings his wife out of the house to see two brand new $30,000 his and hers full-size pick-up trucks sitting there with Christmas bows attached.

Which brings up the question: ‘What is the greatest Christmas gift you have ever received?’ And how do you measure it as the greatest gift? By its monetary or sentimental value?

I know a pastor who was leading a Christmas celebration at a nursing home and asked the residents to share their greatest Christmas gift. After all who wanted to share theirs, he told about his greatest Christmas gift that he received when he was seven years old. Early on Christmas Eve, his mother took him and his brother out for a treat. It was her way of getting both of them out of their 5th-floor apartment in the Bronx so their father could prepare for later on. As they climbed the stairs back to the apartment, the shrill sound of a whistle filled the hallway. “What was that and where did it come from?” he asked his brother. Their pace quickened and a second burst of the whistle could be heard. They burst into the apartment and there was their father playing engineer with the biggest Lionel train they had ever laid their eyes on. It was magnificent, so unexpected, so wonderful! 50 years later, that pastor still has that train set and cherishes it more than any other material gift he has ever received.

In three days, people all over the globe will open millions of gifts. Some of them will be greatly prized and appreciated by the recipients. However; many will be the wrong size, or the wrong color, or the wrong item and thus will begin the annual migration of gift receivers returning to stores to exchange or return their undesired gifts.

The good news is there is a gift that is perfect in every way for it will never wear out, never break or need repairing or replacing or repurchasing! It is a gift that is appropriate for anyone from grandmas and grandpas to small children and everyone in between. It makes no difference if it’s a boy or girl, man or woman. I am speaking today about THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS!

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Isaiah 8:20 – 9:26-7
John 1:1-5
I Peter 1:3-9

During World War II, a woman named Anne took her two little children to Texas to be with her parents over Christmas because her husband was stationed in Europe. As they prepared for Christmas by putting up a Christmas tree and lights, they almost put aside the worry of the war. Then one week before Christmas they got that dreaded knock on the door and the terrible news that her husband had been killed. She had to tell her children their daddy wouldn’t be coming for Christmas ever. And then Anne went upstairs threw herself on her bed and began to weep. Her mother and father debated and finally decided it would be best to take down the Christmas tree, lights and the other decorations. But when Anne finally came out of her room a couple of hours later, she asked, “Why did you guys put Christmas away?”

Her mother said, “Anne, we’re all so broken-hearted, your father and I decided this is no time for Christmas.”

And Anne said, “Oh, no mother, please put the tree and lights back up again, Christmas was made for times such as these.”

Indeed, Christmas was made for times such as these, for with the coming of Christ, a new hope was born. A new hope that is rooted in the 5th verse of John’s magnificent prologue “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (John 1:5).

Don’t you love how the Bible is so honest, it doesn’t sugar coat life; it acknowledges darkness.

Even in the midst of that first Christmas; it tells of a man who lost his ability to speak when he didn’t believe the angel who told him his “mature” wife was with child. It tells of a humble carpenter who nearly put his betrothed away because she was with child he did not father. It tells of a pregnant woman almost to full-term making a laborious journey to register for a census in Bethlehem. It tells of a mad king killing infants two years old and under in order to protect his throne.

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Matthew 24

Before I had made a faith decision for Christ, I had a dream of being left behind. In my dream, I dreamed I had awakened, I got up out of bed, noticing that my wife had already gotten up. I walked down the hall peeking in the bedrooms, no kids in sight. They must be in the living room watching television; but no, nobody in the living room, this was strange I wonder where they are. In the dining room, no; kitchen, no. In the garage; both cars were there, so where were they? The house was quiet and felt eerily empty.

And then I heard a faint noise, seemed to be coming from outside in the backyard. Went to the patio doors hoping to get a glimpse of someone in my family. And there they were, but they were in a line with other people; dressed in blue robes, moving slowly forward, holding candles and singing. Instinctively I somehow knew that they were going to be with God, and I was not. And I just wanted to be with them, so I ran down the steps of the deck and began to run across the yard to join them, but was stopped in my tracks by an invisible barrier that prevented me from joining them in their pilgrimage. And I started to yell, “Hey, wait for me, I want to go with you!” But they didn’t seem to hear me, so I started screaming, “Wait for me!” However, the barrier that was preventing me from going to them was also apparently a sound barrier. Something inside told me that was the last time I was going to see them and I watched helplessly as they moved on and disappeared out of my sight. The strangest thing about that dream was I was a professing atheist at the time and yet I knew that they had gone to be with the Lord while I had been left behind.

Matthew 24 is one of several Bible passages that clue us in to the fact that somehow, someway, someday the Lord Jesus is going to make another grand entrance.

It’s one of the four traditional themes of advent; last week Proclamation; next week, Hope, the Sunday before Christmas, Love, and today Preparation. Preparation for the first and second coming of Christ.

When was the last time you thought about, or anyone reminded you about the Second coming of Christ? In the midst of all our Christmas preparations, that aspect of Christmas often is forgotten.

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