Dakota Community Church
November 25, 2012
Hiding in Plain Sight
The Unexpected Source of the Christmas
We’ve All Been Longing For
Isaiah 9:6-7
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
And with these familiar words it begins again for another year.
Direct your attention to the screen for a minute and reflect on these images and ideas.
Norman Rockwell, Thomas Kinkade, Ideals Magazine, Kip Forester, Wonderful Life.
What is that all about?
C.S. Lewis on nostalgia.
“In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” - C.S. Lewis
We are searching for something that will satisfy, something that until now has alluded us - or did we know it once?
The Christmas season seems to hold out for many that promise again every year - not for the jaded, the ones who have abandoned hope in the face of crushing doses of annual reality.
1. We look for it in family
The plan: Big gathering, perfect meal, stimulating conversation, intimate understanding - all is forgiven, everyone understands and embraces in the soft glow of the christmas tree lights.
The reality: Dad and girlfriend show up late and fighting, Uncle Bob drinks everyone’s wine and gropes mom, turkey is cooked dry as the Sahara (thanks dad), kids run screaming and unsupervised through the house knocking over the tree and leaving a wake of destruction, everyone leaves as quickly as possible, angry and swearing never to get sucked into this sham family crap ever again.
2. We look for it in gifts/giving
The plan: Perfect gift for everyone on the list, shopping done by December 1, hints dropped and received clearly re: my gifts. Joyous openings, loving embraces, “How did you knows?” all around with the odd “It’s perfect” and “Just what I always wanted.”
The reality: Weeks in the mall trying to find the perfect gift for greedy relatives who already have everything money can buy, last minute desperation gifts of shame and over spending. OR Perfect gift for each one bought, no reciprocating, OR no appreciation, “Didn’t they have it in black? You know I prefer black.” “Can’t have too many of these things.”
We look for it in food
The plan: Christmas baking and treats galore including home made short breads, snowballs, special K marshmallow balls, Toffifays, Toblerones, Pot of Golds, and Ganongs, all enjoyed in moderation with anti-oxidant loaded green tea and warm fellowship before the open fire.
The reality: Secret shameful lonely face stuffing... +10 pounds!
4. We look for it in the weather, in the music, in the activities, in the children, and even in the church meetings and spiritual tools.
Weather:
The plan: Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh
The reality: -40, no snow, Why do we live here?
Music:
The plan: Silent night Holy night
The reality: Really? Twelve Days of Christmas again? Really?
Activities:
The plan:Snowball fights, winter walks, Wonderful Life, and Rudolph Special
The reality: It’s not Christmas time in Azeroth
Church Meetings:
The plan: A Christmas story, candle-lighting, and wonderful glow sticks for the kids to enjoy in safety.
The reality: Chemicals in the eye and terrifying possibilities of permanent blindness.
Spiritual tools (devotional):
The plan: This year we keep Christ in Christmas and grow in faith as a family
The reality:” I don’t care if you all hate it we are going to do this because Pastor Dan is gonna ask and I am not going to have to lie to the Pastor again this year.”
This is not a sermon against families or gift giving.
It is certainly not an anti Christmas cookie sermon - Jen Lutz I am counting on you!
This is not a sermon against white Christmas dreams, or carols and caroling.
It isn’t against sleigh rides or tobogganing, or roasting chestnuts on open fires or the joyful laughter of excited children.
As your Pastor I hope you have guessed already that this sermon is not going to come down anti-Christmas devotional or Church gatherings!
This sermon is against trying to satisfy that longing in any of these things!
When we look to these good things for ultimate joy - we turn them into idols. They take the place that belongs to God alone in our hearts minds and lives.
Substitute God’s make promises they cannot keep!
You will not find satisfaction, true satisfaction, apart from Christ.
Deuteronomy 28:64-65 (The Curses)
Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.
By contrast:
1 Peter 2:1-3
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
What I am saying is that the solution to this annual disappointment has been sitting right here in front of us all along.
We may enjoy all of the wonders of this season - ONLY - if we first take the everything we need for life and godliness from our knowledge of Christ.
How does that look?
Before the guests arrive, set time apart to enjoy Jesus. Meditate on His word and worship Him.
Take what you need from this family gathering from HIM instead.
Are you longing for approval? - it is yours in Christ - receive it
Hoping for fellowship, peace, and healing? They are yours in Christ, enjoy the sweet fellowship we have with God, be filled with His peace that is beyond reason, and be healed by the power of His Spirit. Come to the family gathering already satisfied - because everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him
Now you can serve those ingrates with a smile on your face and a prayer for them in your heart.
Let those critical words wash off you like water off a ducks back - you already have all the approval anyone could ever want - In Christ!
That offensive and sinful behavior exhibited by offensive, sinful men and woman is not a reason to shout in anger, it is a reason to reach out in love and to pray for God’s mercy; which is what you will be tuned to do - if you have already found everything you need for life and godliness in Christ!
The more we look to Christ - the more reasonable the demands of the gospel become, and the more readily we recover when we fall - being lead by God’s mercy to repent, finding grace, focusing our attention on Christ once again!
Family: Ephesians 5:25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
Giving: Luke 6:30
Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
Food: 1 Corinthians 6:12-13
“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but God will destroy them both.
Weather: Acts 17:24-28
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Music: Colossians 3:15:16
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
Activities: Colossians 3:23
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men...
Church Meetings: Hebrews 10:23-25
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another —and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Devotional Tools: God is in the Manger
Come and get it!
None of this is possible - I am not giving you a Christmas To-Do-List.
In Christ and through complete reliance on Him, through repentance and forgiveness, through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit - you can enjoy this season, you can find what you are looking for - only if you look to Christ.
He does not enable you to find it in these things He enables you to enjoy these things as you find “IT” - in Him.
HE is what you are looking for!
PowerPoint available (Free of charge) on request dcormie@mts.net
Follow Dan on twitter: @DanCormie
