Coming to Prepare Us

December 1    1st Sunday of Advent   Isaiah 2.1-5, *Matthew 24.36-44 “Coming to Prepare Us” Pastor Jacqueline Hines

How beautiful it is to gather in this sacred place, to enjoy the peace and quiet, to enjoy the joy of the blessings of kindness and love that we pour out on one another’s lives. Nowhere in this world would the Lord find a kinder, gentler people than those of us that the Lord has blessed right here. The Holy Spirit has brought us together for such a time as this. Surely the Holy Spirit has plans to bless us to be a blessing to many, just as Bethel fore parents have been a blessing generation after generation.

We are so blessed that it is good we have gathered here to celebrate the Eucharist. Eucharist is from the Greek word for thanksgiving, for Jesus gave thanks before he broke the bread and shared it with the disciples gathered just as we are this morning. It is a good thing to remember how blessed we are and to offer God our thanks that it is as well with us as it is. Thanksgiving is not only due our Creator, thanksgiving primes the pump for good and great things to spring forth from our hearts and our hands, from our lips and from the light of our lives.

On this first Sunday of Advent, we remember what we, and all royalty, around the globe, all children of the King of Kings refuse to forget. We remember that an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “… do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

We repeat this story year after year to nurture the deep roots of our faith. We prepare again and again for the birth of Jesus in our lives, for we know for sure he is coming! We know all about the three points I want to share this morning - predictions, the preparation, and the provision of Christmas. The Church has been celebrating Christ’s Mass, Christ’s birthday on December 25^th for the last 1500 years.

By the Third Century A.D., church fathers had no birth records for Jesus. So, people came up with spiritual reasons that his birth was probably born in March or April, or May, or November. The Roman Empire was big on celebrating birthdays – though not every Christian thought it was a holy idea back then. The Roman Empire also had big celebrations of their sun God’s around the winter solstice in late December. It did not take long before Christians under the rule of the Roman Empire felt comfortable celebrating the birthday of God’s Son around December 25^th. The deal was sealed when Emperor Constantine decided Christianity would be the national religion and December 25^th would be the day the birth of Christ was to be celebrated.

More important than the actual date are the predictions of Christmas. Seven hundred years before Jesus’ birth. Isaiah 7.14 told us, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

Every one of us is reminded in Mathew’s scriptures this morning of the predictions of Christ coming. He was born in a manger, died on a cross, was buried in a tomb, and he is coming again. No one knows the day or the hour except God the Father in Heaven. We can expect the unexpected at Christmas. Just as the floods that covered the earth were unexpected in Noah’s day, just as the thief comes at an unexpected time to steal, just as it is unexpected for anyone to be left behind, Christmas is a time for the unexpected.

Within the last few weeks Bethel Trustees have been patching up the roof and putting buckets of ice melt at each of the church entrances. They are responding to the signs that winter is on its way, and in order to avoid unnecessary inconvenience and expense, they are preparing for the unexpected. 

There is nothing routine about Christmas. It has been predicted. We know it is on its way. We cannot expect it to be anything but good and holy, but whatever happens will be unexpected. We won’t be able to put it in a box, wrap it up, hide it, hoard it, or ever lose it. Though it is clearly predicted, Christmas will always defy our expectations.

It takes a real family to prepare for Christmas, for Christmas is first about bonding before it is about buying. There will be no Christmas without the freshness of forgiveness and the freedom to receive kindness and to give it. The ultimate celebration of Christmas happens as we delight in the Lord every hour and repent every day. Christmas is more about blessing the least, the last, the lost, and the grieving among us and in us. It is less about burdening our days with manic consumerism and fizzy festivals.

Christmas is all about kings who understand there is one to whom even they must bow. Christmas is about young couples beginning a new life together that is sure to change the world for the better. It is about senior citizens with wise and wonderful words so prophetic they cause the young to sprout wings and fly. It is about courageous fathers in the frontline, who know how to build a home with wife who says “yes” to God, a home where protection and peace are plentiful. It is about those whose negative words are muted and whose faith is growing.

Christmas brings the unexpected, that is why Christmas is always predicted, prepared for, and provides all we will ever need to do God’s will. The Harvard Business School Press published a book by Max H. Bazerman and Michael D. Watkins called Predictable Surprises. They say that even though there are many signs that can help us see the unexpected situations in our lives, most of us focus on only one sign. We are on the alert for a sign of one thing to fix, one gift to have, or some one to blame. It’s him, or her, or them, or this or that.

There is never one sign for the unexpected events in life, much less for Christmas.

God provides many signs that will lead us to Christmas. Bazerman and Watkins advise us that the more we respond to all the signs and strengthen each other to respond, the more we “decrease the potential for an ugly, bad surprise to escalate exponentially.”  

The signs that lead us to Christmas are everywhere. They are incessantly persisting and insisting on the direction that we should go. They are often the subtle and fleeting micro communications: the twinkle in the eye or the tear in the sigh of someone near and dear to us. There are unspoken signs in that call to care or to celebrate with others across America or across the world.

God provides many signs for us to follow. If you do not see them, seek them with all your heart, and you will find them. They light our way and make our burdens light. If we would but follow, they would lead us to a glorious place. They would lead us under the protective shadow of God’s wing. They would lead us beyond the troubles and temptations of this world. They would lead us to Christmas blessings beyond which we could ever imagine. Prediction, preparation, provision – they will lead us all to the best Christmas ever. Amen.