Monday, December 3, 2012

A Snippet for the Seniors - December 3 - The Hopes and Fears of All the Years

Advent is the season of sermons for a working pastor. I mentioned that the local Mennonite Care Home welcomed me to bring a short message for their Christmas banquet. You can find the full text of that talk after the jump. Here's a snippet:

This afternoon I want us to think about how Mary’s baby boy is God’s answer to every one of our hopes and all of our fears.
Think about that. When we whisper to God in prayer those things we are secretly most afraid of or when we pray and tell God what we wish for so desperately, God’s answer is Jesus. Jesus, the baby in the manger; Jesus, the man on the cross; Jesus, the risen Lamb.
Jesus’ mother Mary had many reasons to be afraid. She was young and not yet married when an angel came to tell her that she would give birth to God’s Son. . . . 
When God speaks to us, we often feel unsure about what God’s message will mean for our lives. God spoke to Mary through the angel Gabriel. We often hear God’s voice through scripture or through hymns or Christian fellowship. God’s message meets in us all our fears and hopes. We don’t know if God’s message will calm our fears or if it will frustrate our hopes.

The folks at the Care Home were mostly born before 1930, mostly ethnically Mennonite, and mostly from of fairly conservative or even fundamentalist persuasion.

Normally I preach from my own remixed version the TNIV. I like that it errs on the side of gender inclusivity when translating, and I like that it speaks in a direct, understandable way. When it strays too far from the Hebrew or Greek, I take license to emend it.

But in light of my audience, I opted to quote the KJV. This is a contextualization issue, I think. I'm curious about your thoughts. I tweeted this question a week or two ago. But I'm still waiting for feedback.

(Check out the whole sermon after the jump . . .)
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There is an old Christmas hymn that I love to sing. Maybe you know it too. It begins
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
But in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
This afternoon I want us to think about how Mary’s baby boy is God’s answer to every one of our hopes and all of our fears.

Think about that. When we whisper to God in prayer those things we are secretly most afraid of or when we pray and tell God what we wish for so desperately, God’s answer is Jesus. Jesus, the baby in the manger; Jesus, the man on the cross; Jesus, the risen Lamb.

Jesus’ mother Mary had many reasons to be afraid. She was young and not yet married when an angel came to tell her that she would give birth to God’s Son. Listen to the story as the Gospel of Luke tells it. This story is found in Luke chapter 1, verses 26 through 38:
The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.”
And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

And the angel said unto her, “Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”

Then said Mary unto the angel, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”

And again the angel answered and said unto her, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible.”

And Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” And the angel departed from her.
Mary was a young woman--a girl, really, probably not yet sixteen. She was a girl from a small village. Her family probably farmed. They probably hoped for good weather and a good harvest. They had loans for seed money to pay back as well as taxes to the Jewish temple and to the Roman government. Mary was a godly young lady from a godly family, but she and her family were not strangers to the worries and fears about money and harvest that are so familiar to us. She also would have known the sorrow that comes when accident or sickness stole away the life of an uncle or an aunt, a cousin or a brother.

I imagine that Mary’s family was very happy when Joseph came to call. He was interested in making this godly young woman his wife. Joseph was a godly man; plus, Joseph was a carpenter. He had a good trade, a steady income that didn’t worry over whether the rains came at the right time. Mary would be well-cared for as his wife. Maybe she would even send some money home during hard years.

I imagine that when Mary heard the news about Joseph her suitor she was very happy. I bet her heart was filled with hopes for the home they would make together. I bet she began to think of names for the babies she would bear. I bet she even looked forward to when her sons and daughters would have their own children. I also imagine that she was a little afraid. What if Joseph was not as kind in private as he seemed in public? What if his work as a carpenter took her far away from her mother and father and family in Nazareth?

Each of us this afternoon has his or her own collection of hopes and fears. Maybe we can remember our own days on the farm, worrying about the weather or the harvest. Or maybe you found another trade, driving truck or repairing car engines; maybe you remember your hopes of a steady income. Maybe we remember our own hopes for marriage and family or our own fears for the health and safety of parents, sisters and brothers, or sons and daughters.

Today our fears and concerns may center on our health or the health of our spouse or friend. We worry about catching pneumonia or that the pain will be worse tomorrow than it was yesterday. We dread the possibility that a stroke might take every last bit of our independence. We fear that our loved ones will pass on ahead of us, leaving us alone.

But we are also full of hope today. We look forward to visiting with friends, children, grandchildren--perhaps even great-grandchildren for some of you. We enjoy good music and good conversations and good meals, like the one this afternoon. Each of these things bring us joy and the hope that tomorrow will bring us even more joy.

The Gospel says that when the angel Gabriel came to Mary, his news left her troubled and confused. Verses 28 and 29 say, The angel came in unto [Mary], and said, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee.” And when she saw [the angel], she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of greeting this should be.

When God speaks to us, we often feel unsure about what God’s message will mean for our lives. God spoke to Mary through the angel Gabriel. We often hear God’s voice through scripture or through hymns or Christian fellowship. God’s message meets in us all our fears and hopes. We don’t know if God’s message will calm our fears or if it will frustrate our hopes.

Think of Mary: Perhaps on the morning when Gabriel appeared to her she had been daydreaming about how life with Joseph would be while she was milking the goats or maybe she had been embroidering curtains for their new home. But when an angel, flaming with heaven’s glory, appeared in her kitchen, all those plans and dreams were suddenly put into question. Maybe God had sent her a message to bless all her hopes and dreams for her marriage to Joseph. Or, on the other hand, maybe God’s message would upset all of them.

Listen to how the angel Gabriel responds to Mary’s worry and uncertainty in verses 30 and 31: And the angel said unto her, “Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.” First, the angel told Mary that she has found “favor with God,” that God looks on her kindly and lovingly. When we wonder what God thinks of our fears and hopes, we must remember that, like Mary, we have found favor with God. Listen to what Paul the Apostle says in Romans, chapter 8, verses 31 and 32: What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Surely our God looks on us with kindness and compassion.

But pay attention to what the angel tells Mary next: “Behold, thous shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus” (1.31). The proof of God’s favor toward Mary and toward us is this baby that she will conceive and bear. Jesus is God’s answer to every one of our fears. Jesus is our true hope. All of our hopes are only echoes of this true hope. When Mary sat daydreaming about a family with Joseph, all those things she hoped and longed for were only shadows or reflections of the good gift, the great hope that God would give her and us in Jesus.

God’s good gift comes at a price. For God, this price was the Father being parted with his only Son, the Son submitting to the pains and frustrations of human life, and, in the end, dying on a shameful cross. But Mary would also bear a price. When the angel delivered God’s message, she didn’t know how Joseph would respond. Surely she would be seen as an unwed mother. The traditional married life she hoped for was unraveling before her eyes. Her first child would not have Joseph as his father. Not to mention the fears she surely had as a new mother, the nausea and exhaustion of pregnancy, the fear of a risky first-time childbirth. God’s good gift comes at a price.

At some point, every Christian feels this cost. Jesus brings us the promise that God shows us favor, that God loves us. This is all grace. Sinners that we are, there is nothing we can do to win God’s favor. This is a gift. But Jesus is also the one who said, “If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Lk 9.23).

I suspect that sometimes we are tempted to give up hope, to give in to fear. When we wake up in pain or when its weeks or months between visits with family or friends, we are tempted to doubt whether God really loves us. A sinister voice inside us begins to whisper that maybe God really has not shown us his kindness and favor. Life can be hard and discouraging; it’s easy to lose sight of God’s good gift.

When I begin to feel this way, Mary’s words are an encouragement and a comfort to me. She told the angel, “Behold, [I am] the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (1.38). Surely all of Mary’s hopes and fears swam through her mind when the angel met her in Nazareth or, nine months later, when she delivered a baby in horse barn in Bethlehem. Mary knew that in order to accept this great gift from God and become the mother of the Savior of the world, she would have to trust God with every one of her hopes and all of her fear.

When God speaks to me, I want to echo Mary’s response: “Behold, I too am the servant of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word.” I want to lift up all of my fears and hopes to the God who loves me and saves me. I want to give them away to the God I trust. I want to be his servant, bearing whatever cross I must to follow him.

The Christmas carol says that of Bethlehem’s manger that “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in you tonight.” As we come to the Christmas season this year, we can again give up to God all of our hopes and fears. We can trade them in for the great hope God offers us in his newborn Son, Jesus. We can pray, “Lord, you know what I desire and what I fear. I trust that you are good. Your Son Jesus shows me that you are good. I trust you to take care of all those things I fear and all those things I wish for.”

Trust Jesus. Trust that God loves you. Trust as Mary trusted, even when it cost her so much. Trust, because Jesus was born in Bethlehem to bring God’s love to you and me.

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