Romans 16:25-27
“Changing Thermometers”
A British medical doctor shared a story about his interaction with Doris, an 82-year-old hospital patient.
Two days before Christmas, Doris appeared to be healthy and ready to be discharged.
But for some reason she kept complaining about unexplainable health issues.
The doctor wrote, “Yesterday it was her arm that was hurting, before that her hip.
Truth is, Doris is an incredibly healthy 82-year-old, and we can’t find anything wrong.
I have no doubt that it will be the same today.”
When the tests came back normal, the doctor told Doris that he would have to stick to the plan of sending her home.
Doris looked down at the floor and quietly said, “I don’t want to go home…
…It’s just that I’m all alone and there are so many hours in the day.”
Then, after a long pause, she sighed and asked, “Doctor, can you give me a cure for loneliness?”
The doctor reflected on this:
“I wish I could say yes.
I wish I could prescribe something for her.
It’s just that she has been left behind by a world that no longer revolves around her, not even the littlest bit.
There are thousands like her, men and women, for whom time stands empty as they wait in homes full of silence.
They are no longer coveted by a society addicted to youth.”
He finished up, “Doris is alone, and it brings home the truth of this epidemic that we have on our hands—and epidemic of loneliness…
…sheepishly I insist that Doris spends her Christmas this year on the ward, and I can see her mood lift.
But I steel myself for the inevitable influx of unwanted grandparents whom I know will arrive, I cannot help but wonder how it is that things could have gone so badly wrong.”
How is it that things have gone so badly wrong?
And you know, it is not just the elderly who feel the sense of loneliness, isolation and meaninglessness.
Teenagers are particularly prone to these kinds of feelings, even as they are surrounded by a classroom full of other kids.
And adults, living with relationship problems and a life fixated on the acquisition of material wealth find themselves awkwardly, surprisingly and sadly alone.
Is there a cure for this sadness, this melancholy, this alone-ness?
The Christmas Season is a time of hopeful anticipation, but it begins with the acknowledgement of human despair.
We are all sinners in need of a Savior.
Left to our own devices, we find life unbearable.
Yet the message of Christmas is “God is with us.”
And because of this…
…because of all that God has done and all that God continues to do in and through Jesus Christ, life can be much more than a lonely existence filled with unfilled hours of nothing-ness.
Our Scripture lesson is a joy-filled “word of glory” praising God for the greatest of all gifts!!!
And isn’t this what we all need most on this Sunday before Christmas…
…as so many of us yearn to move beyond worldly worries and constraints into the joyful praise that God’s goodness and generosity bring?
Procrastinators in our culture of consumerism are beginning to panic…I know I am.
Fatigue and financial concerns weigh heavily on many.
Grief overwhelms those facing their first Christmas without a loved one.
And we prepare to celebrate Christmas amid a world filled with war, terrorism, poverty, disease, and natural disasters.
This situation where our hope and our reality collide make this passage from Romans especially timely.
In our Scripture Lesson for this evening, Paul describes the only One Who “is able” to strengthen us and bridge the chasm that human sin created, so that we can live in relationship together.
And this incredible gift is not offered to a select few, but to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord!!!
And what does God want from us in return?
Paul simply says to “believe and obey him.”
Rather than adding legalistic requirements for people who so often feel overwhelmed by the challenges of daily living, believing and obeying God means trust in God’s promises, anchoring our hope in God’s goodness, and glorifying God with hearts filled with joy!
And these kinds of attitudes and actions come not from some insatiable desire to “earn God’s favor,” but from our gratitude for God’s grace, redemption, and love that we have already been given, and which we are now experiencing!!!
As Christians, we are able to find real meaning and goodness in our lives only to the degree that we trust in God’s promises!!!
And as we celebrate the birth of God in human flesh, are we not reminded as to how completely trustworthy God is?
Reaching out to us, in spite of “the fall,” God loves us enough to become like us so that we can become more like God!!!
Sin, which leads to our alienation, is overcome through Jesus Christ!!!
As a great theologian wisely said, “Faith can be described only as a movement of flight, flight away from myself and toward the great possibilities of God.”
How awesome is that?
There are great possibilities for all of us—through God!!!
This past week, a colleague was telling me about the testimony that a woman gave recently at church.
She is a homeless woman, living in one of the “tent cities” around Chattanooga, but influenced greatly by the ministry of one of our United Methodist Churches.
“I am so thankful to God this Christmas season,” she said.
“Last year I was living under a bridge, all alone.
But this church came and ministered to me, and now I have friends and I am no longer living alone.”
Paul writes about “the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known,” and about the wisdom of God.
As believers we become infused with the wisdom of God as we become learners of Jesus Christ.
And our praising and worship of God is about living in a new situation!
God’s wisdom gives us perspective, a new way of being!
Through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we are recreated; reunited with God, ourselves, and others; and resurrected to a new life in Christ!!!
In Karl Barth’s words, “We have found…a new world, God, God’s sovereignty, God’s glory, God’s incomprehensible love…
…not the virtues of men but the virtues of Him Who hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light!”
And when we experience this salvation by grace through faith…
… we experience is what has been termed, “the applause of praise.”
And this comes naturally and instinctually and is an inexhaustible source of joy!!!
And Christian joy is not dependent on our immediate circumstances.
Paul wrote often about the joy he felt even when he was in a prison cell.
Four walls couldn’t affect his love for God and his commitment to Christ—which brought him Joy!!!
Does your love for God and commitment to Christ bring you joy?
You know, so often we confuse joy and happiness.
The New Testament talks a lot about joy, and not much about happiness.
The root of the word “happiness” is
“hap” which means “chance”—as in “happenstance.”
Therefore, happiness is a mood, an emotion that changes as the circumstances around us change.
It’s like a thermometer that goes up and down depending on what is going on around us.
And this makes us vulnerable to happiness one minute and to despair the next.
Joy, on the other hand, sets the temperature of our environment—rather than reacting to it.
It is so awesome that, as Romans begins, so it ends.
It starts with God and ends with God.
And isn’t this what our lives are to be about?
Isn’t that where we are able to find companionship when we are alone, meaning where there once was none, and joy amid life’s crises?
Christmas calls us to focus on what is most important.
In a world that too often seems random and filled with pain, it’s not the presents under the tree that matter.
Christ’s birth reminds us of God’s eternal gifts: radical hope, faith-filled trust, inner joy, and redemptive love.
And so, “to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ!
Amen.”
