Well folks, it has officially begun. The Christmas Rush! Like a row of hulking linemen on a professional football team, the season is down and set, poised to plow over us with all its demands, distractions, details, dilemmas, delights and duties.
For merchants, it’s a "make-or-break" time of year. The more exhausted and overworked they become, the better their business is doing.
For teachers, it’s the challenge of keeping a gaggle of fidgety children focused on their schoolwork while arranging some special programs and projects that will honor the season.
For musicians and musical directors, it’s a time for arranging frantic rehearsals, for easing fragile egos and for fulfilling dreams of fleeting fame.
For clergy, it’s a schedule that is suddenly tighter than ever, sermons that must be better than ever, services that are suddenly fuller than ever.
For children, it’s deciding what to put on a list, where to hang the decorations, and who will take them to the mall.
Are you prepared for all this? Is your master list ready with everything you will need to do over the next month? Wait a minute! ... Before you start scrambling through your schedules, your agendas and your calendars, consider that each and every one of us should begin our list with the same item, the same one Paul urges from the Thessalonians -- "Abound in Love." The Christmas season is a time for “ABOUNDING LOVE.”
By way of a little background information, Paul’s thankfulness is in response to the report Timothy has brought him from Thessalonica. Although he had personally been to Thessalonica, Paul’s comments here are based on information from Timothy, his son in the ministry. Paul had remained in Athens, not accompanying Timothy on his journey to Thessalonica.
Timothy succeeds in not only delivering Paul’s message of praises and cautions, but he functions as a return envoy for the Thessalonians. The news is good. Timothy was treated with all the respect and honor he should have received as Paul’s official envoy. He also reports that the Thessalonians think "kindly" of Paul and wish he could return to them in person. Paul’s bubbling-over gratitude and overflowing enthusiasm is seen in two prayers of thanksgiving.
"How can we thank God enough," Paul asks in 3:9, for the good news of your faithfulness. In verse 10, Paul offers his hope that he may "restore" or "supply" the insights and guidance that these Gentile Christians might still be "lacking." Paul is concerned that the Thessalonians see themselves as part of a continuing apostolic mission -- especially as they face adversity and suffering because of their faith. Thus, Paul’s closing words express his own desire to return to Thessalonica and be with them, while he urges them to "increase and abound in love" and good works and "holiness."
A friend found Socrates eyeing merchandise in the marketplace. The friend asked why he was looking, since he never bought anything. Socrates said: "Because I am always amazed to see how many things there are that I don’t need."
At Christmas, Christians need to develop a new discipline. As our celebration of Christ’s birth is being stolen from us by this consumerist culture, why don’t Christians develop a discipline that asks, "What don’t I need?" rather than "What do I want?" At Christmas, why don’t Christians give off an attitude that celebrates wanting what we have rather than having more?
Whatever the nature of your business or your busy-ness, there is only one thing we must all put on our "to prepare for Christmas list," only one thing we must all "want" and need to "have" -- Love. Abounding Love is the essence of our scripture passage today.
What is a Christian that "abounds in love?" What kind of love are we to abound with?
When Paul urged the Thessalonians to "abound in love," he was speaking to a community that already had its capacity to love significantly challenged. Persecutions and suffering at the hands of the city’s pagan officials, condemnations from the Jewish synagogue and contentions within their own ranks had threatened to strain the loving nature of the Thessalonians. Perhaps the eschatological expectations of some of the Thessalonians had led them to focus too intently on the future and to fix too little on the daily-ness of life lived within a community of faith.
If we take Paul’s own life as an example, we can discern at least three ways that the apostle might have expected the Thessalonians, and all Christians, to abound in Love.
1. First, Abundant Love must REBOUND. Rebounding, as every good basketball team knows, is the cutting edge between defense and offense. Whichever team rebounds most successfully becomes the team in control of the ball. The team that rebounds becomes the offense, goes on the move and heads toward the basket. Failure to rebound puts a team continually in a defensive posture, striving to protect its basket from the offensive team’s onslaught.
Great rebounders take whatever comes their way, hurl themselves at the ball, and take possession of it for the sake of the team. How good a rebounder are you? As Christians who are called to "abound in love," we must take whatever hits us and rebound it with love.
Considering the world we live in and the endangered status that love seems to hold there, there is a good chance that what will hit us won’t be love. The Christian’s challenge is to rebound love when we are clobbered with hate; to rebound love when we are jabbed with jealousy; to rebound love when we are shoved by pettiness; to rebound love when we are floored by dishonesty; to rebound love when we are plowed over by prejudice.
The next time you find yourselves in the midst of an almost riotous holiday shopping mob, try practicing your rebounding skills.
-- Can you rebound love to the surly, sour-faced, part-time store clerk who doesn’t see and doesn’t care that you are trying to be polite and easygoing?
-- Can you rebound love to the teacher who is going to assign you a 10-page paper to do over Christmas break?
-- Can you rebound love to the office-mate who takes credit for your work and takes advantage of your good nature?
-- Can you rebound love to the phone-marketing drone who calls during the dinner hour?
-- Can you rebound love to militia maniacs, Ku Klux Klanners, Conservatives, Liberals, Democrats, Republicans, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Gen-Xers, Boomers, Busters, and Boosters?
Do you abound in that much love . . . to rebound? Abounding love is a REBOUNDING love. Abounding Love must also REDOUND.
2. REDOUND -- It’s not enough just to get the rebound. Now you’ve got to do something with the ball. Rebounding love, especially toward one who has behaved un-lovingly toward you, demands an explanation. It entails a result. To "redound" something is to get a result, to have an effect, to contribute to the outcome.
Paul praised the Thessalonians because he saw their faith as part of the apostolic mission of the church. Even in pagan Thessalonica, a group of Gentiles had come to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and had established an apostolic mission - and the foundation included, besides Jesus and His teachings, the patriarchs and matriarchs of Israel, Israel’s prophets, the 12 chosen disciples of Jesus and Paul himself.
For us to "abound in love" means we, too, must step forward into that line of faith and add our voices and our testimony to that great cloud of witnesses. It is not enough to know we are the recipients of God’s love, that our future has been forever transformed and our past has been forever cleansed by the power of Christ’s love. We must redound the abounding truth of love. To "abound in love," we must make love known to the world by “fleshing out” our love.
There is an old story of a deacon who was collecting the offering during the Sunday school hour. In passing through one children’s Sunday school class, he came to the little wooden church that was used for offerings. As he picked it up to empty it, a newcomer to the class admonished him: "Be careful, mister, you’ve got our church in your hands." What does it mean that God has placed Christ’s church in our hands?
One of the most stirring indictments on the church ever penned was made by Charles Schultz many years ago. Snoopy is shivering out in a snowstorm beside an empty food dish. He was looking longingly, expectantly, toward the house. Lucy came out and said, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled!" And then she turned and went back into the house and slammed the door. In the last frame you saw a confused Snoopy looking toward the house, shivering and hungry and utterly baffled.
To make known the love of Christ takes more than words -- it takes action; it entails results. Sharing the love of Christ with others involves sacrifice on our part. Are you “annoyed” by those people who buttonhole you on the street, or at a party, or in the middle of your workday to "share" with you -- either their failures or their faith? -- It’s probably because they aren’t "sharing" at all. They may be gossiping. They may be foisting. They may be dumping or unloading. They may even be exhorting. But they are not sharing.
Lucy didn’t "share" anything with poor, shivering Snoopy. She did not have to sacrifice any of her time, her money, her space, her heart, her feelings or her needs in order to make that speech. And she did not sacrifice anything to meet Snoopy’s needs. To make the love of Christ known genuinely, to proclaim that love to the world accurately, means we must redound Christ’s sacrificial nature in our own lives.
We redound love when we volunteer our most precious commodity, time, to help clean up a neighborhood park.
We redound love when we donate the funds we would have lavished on ourselves for Christmas to the “Lottie Moon” offering, or a small and struggling mission.
We redound love when we give our favorite foods, diapers and formula, and some special goodies, instead of those cans of food that have been in the closet for years, to the local food pantry.
We redound love when we turn off the computer and pick up our crying child, even though it will mean staying up late that night working in order to finish a job.
Abounding love REBOUNDS; abounding love REDOUNDS; and finally - abounding love RESOUNDS.
3. RESOUND -- When something makes a lasting impact, when it lives in memory beyond the normal length of its days, when it reverberates beyond space and even time, we say that it resounds.
To resound something puts you on a grand scale. This may or may not be good news. We can speak of someone being a resounding success -- but we also note that an event can fail with a resounding thud. An echo resounds by repeating the same thing over and over again, while it grows fainter and less distinguishable with each repetition. The view from a mountaintop resounds with a silence that grows and changes every time we stop and listen, and its strength is ever diminished.
We all have the ability to create resounding effects with the actions and attitudes of our lives. Those resounding effects can be positive or negative, good or bad. Greatness of worldly stature can go along with smallness of soul. How loud and long smallness of spirit and hardness of heart can resound in a child’s life. Allow me to illustrate.
We should all shudder at the "father’s day" story of the literary giant Evelyn Waugh, as told by his son Auberon During the war, some government officials gave this great writer three bananas as a treat for his children. Waugh brought them home, showed them to his kids, and ate them. "It would be absurd to say that I never forgave him," his son writes, "but he was permanently marked down in my estimation."
In the December 24, 1996, issue of Upper Room, Kermit Long of Arizona has a moving story about one Christmas evening in Chicago.
"A gentle snowfall added to the already magical, mystical beauty of the season. I had just finished presiding over the first of our candlelight services. Rather than waiting in the church until the late hour for the second service, I visited in the hospitals and roamed the few stores still open for late shoppers.
"I saw some people in a flower shop and joined them. Soon a young boy of about 7 or 8 came into the shop. His clothes were torn, and his tennis shoes had holes in them. He walked purposefully over to the counter and asked the shopkeeper, ’Do you have any roses for my mother for 10 cents?’
"The man replied, ’Wait just a moment and I’ll see what we can do for you.’ After serving the other waiting customers, the owner turned back to the little boy and said, ’I have good news for you. On Christmas Eve, we have a special on roses for young fellows who want them for their mothers.’ Taking the lad’s dime, he placed a dozen beautiful, long-stemmed red roses in his arms. With a big smile on his face, the boy left the flower shop and headed home. Those of us who looked on were warmed by what we had seen, and I know the shopkeeper felt the blessing of God for his generosity."
We have only to glance at the New Testament to determine how resounding were the effects of Paul’s ministry and message. This apostle, who seemed to spend more time in prison than out, has managed to have his words, his testimonies, resound throughout the church for two millennia. It is because Paul’s words "abound with love" that they continue to resound with the spirit of truth as loudly today as they did when delivered before the Thessalonican Christians.
Throughout Paul’s writings, the object of “abounding love” is us who are believers - sinners saved by Grace. The source of abounding love is God through Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. I think many people are confused about the meaning and purpose of the Advent season. We hear about the promised Messiah, and the coming Christ, and the Christ child - obviously Jesus isn’t born anew each year. He doesn’t become a child again. Advent is an opportunity for Christians to share the Good News with unbelievers. The Good News is that Jesus was born of a virgin, in response to the prophecies of old. He performed many miracles, change countless lives, even raised the dead - and then He took my sins and your sins upon Himself and died on a cruel cross on Golgotha’s hill. But Jesus knew no sin and therefore He was able to conquer sin and death and the grave and Hell and Satan! As the Lamb of God Jesus has provided a means for our salvation. WOW! Have you received Jesus as your Savior? Do you know Him as Lord?
A woman who was just released from Tampa General Hospital probably received the best Christmas present of anyone in the city. It came early, a week ago today to be exact. In August, she was diagnosed with severe cardio myopathy, a rare heart disorder which causes the muscles of the heart to become inflexible. It’s generally terminal. The only medical cure is a heart transplant.
Over the past five months, she has become progressively weaker. More and more of her active life has been taken from her as she waits for the possibility of a new heart. At 2:00 on a dark, cold morning, she was awakened and told that the new heart was on its way. By 4:00 the heart was in place, and by 10:00 the next morning, she was out of surgery and in the ICU.
When her pastor visited with her a couple of days later, they talked about the gift of her new heart. She said, "You know, this was the second time that someone died for me."
Advent is also an opportunity for Christians to renew their personal relationship with Jesus. We can commit ourselves to Him fresh and anew. The point is this: there is more to Christmas than the “rush”. Jesus has come - and friends - I promise you - He is coming again - are you ready?
INVITATION
