So. You survived the apocalypse. Well done. I, for one, am glad to be here still, in the land of the living.
And, I’m very happy to be back with you, to be back in the community where I belong, to be back with my people, the church and the mission that I love.
You know, there's nothing like belonging. There’s nothing quite like being a part of something you believe in. There’s nothing like being known to another.
As some of you know I recently returned from a sabbatical, an extended leave where I was away from the church and from the mission for 24 weeks, nearly 6 months.
I had been looking forward to a break. I’ve been serving at Yonge Street Mission for over 27 years, and it was simply time for me to take a break.
The first 7 or 8 weeks away was camping with Barbara and family friends, and then getting ready to go with Barbara to the UK to celebrate our 25th anniversary.
We had an awesome time. 11 cities in Ireland, Scotland, England and South Wales in 20 days. It was intense, but it was great.
Then we got back from the UK and Barbara went back to work in her kindergarten class. And I was on my own.
Some of you know that one of my objectives was to get a good grounding in playing the cello, an instrument I’ve always wanted to play but never had the time to really invest in.
I started to learn the cello, taking lessons and practicing a lot. I did lots of stuff around the house too, and I spent time with my elderly mom. All things I wanted to do.
But somewhere around the middle of September I started to ache. I started to realize that the rhythm of my life was off. I felt a bit lost.
I really started to miss you all. And I realized maybe for the first time how much my inner life is tied to my work here.
So September and October were like that. Starting around the beginning of November things got better. I got back into a fresh discipline of reading lots of Scripture and, of course, prayer - fairly lengthy devotions that really had a big impact.
I prayed for you. I prayed for Pastor Lee who I knew was even more busy than usual because of my absence. Lee did a superb job in my absence keeping the boat afloat.
He deserves a break! I prayed for the worship leaders and the worship team. To each of you, please accept my heartfelt thanks for all your great service planning and organizing and leading worship.
It’s possible that some here don’t know all that goes into preparing and setting up and practicing and leading just one service. You guys led 24 services in my absence.
I couldn't be more pleased with the reports I received while I was away. A special shout out to Carny and James and Maryellen and Jan who were the worship leaders in my absence. And to William who’s continue to do a ton of work in the background for the church, and to Crystal, Corinna and Rio and again James for taking care, along with William, of all the set up.
And I prayed for the ministry and ops teams; but mostly I prayed for each of you by name as God led me.
Anyway, I spent a lot of time just thanking God for bringing me to the mission, and I started to long to return.
It’s funny. Maryellen told me before I left that 75% of people who take sabbaticals decide when they are away to move on.
As soon as I heard that I knew that wasn’t me. But it was good to be away, because I am refreshed.
I am extremely pumped about being back where I belong. I am probably a more disciplined disciple of Jesus.
So...belonging; and leaving where you belong. And returning. This got me thinking about what this season is about...it is about the miracle of God drawing near, bridging the enormous gulf that existed between the Creator and His creation.
It is about God choosing Incarnation over abstraction.
God choosing to be known by His creatures, not to remain distant and unknowable.
It is about God breaching all seeming kingly propriety, all normal kingly behaviour. It is about God using His divine prerogative, His authority and power, not just to rule from the heavens as is good and right and just, but to come down from his throne.
That is also good and right and just, but it also reveals something about God that the world needed to know. He is kind. He is kind.
Do you know that about God? That He is patient and kind and loving, as a good father is to his children. As a mother dotes upon and favours her children, God does with us.
Jesus, who dwelled forever in intimate communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit, He left that perfect place, His place-of-belonging, to be with us.
He left his place of belonging in order to bring us into that place of belonging, to make it possible for you and for me to belong to God here and now as His redeemed children, and to live our lives with the knowledge that our communion with God will never end, our belonging to God will never end.
THAT was a radical act of love, and that is what we celebrate today, on this fourth advent.
Let’s look for a moment at one of our key Scripture passages for today:
Right before this passage John the Beloved Disciple has been talking about love and he’s been saying that God is love, and that we need to love one another.
And then he explains a key reason that Jesus came to planet earth, the WHY of the incarnation, the REAL reason for Christmas:
1 John 4:9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
God cares that we would live life through Him. Because of Him. Knowing Him. Worshipping Him. Serving Him, and, as we serve others, doing it clearly in His name.
This is precisely how to live the best kind of life, and that God wants us to live the best kind of life.
Do you ever wonder what the meaning of your life is? See, to understand the incarnation is to stop struggling with a sense of insignificance ,to stop wondering if our life has a purpose.
My biggest struggle before becoming a Christian at age 17 was this terrible sense I had that the world is a hopeless dark place where nothing has objective value
.
I struggled terribly with believing that anything really mattered. I struggled with a deep sense that my life had no real lasting purpose or meaning. That led to some of the darkest times in my life.
My biggest shock when I accepted Jesus Christ into my life was realizing how wrong I had been, and how in fact the opposite of what I believe is true. Life is full of meaning and purpose BECAUSE God loves me, BECAUSE He left His throne and came to our planet and died for my our sins, for my sins. Life is full of purpose BECAUSE the God of the universe has a calling on my life, on your life.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
If you’ve ever wondered where God’s love is, if you’ve ever felt that you just don’t really experience God’s love, I encourage you to ponder passages like this. God’s greatest act of love, and the deepest proof that God’s love is not a sentimental, distant kind of love is evident here. It’s not Hallmark affection. What does God’s love do? How does God show His love?
God’s love leaves its place of comfort and community, where there is nothing but holiness and perfection, His love exits heaven and lands smack dab in the middle of a barn. Dependent on Jesus’ parents finding a good innkeeper with room in the inn.
God’s love steps out of itself, and He lands in the mess of our lives. He lands in the mess of our lives.
And from the middle of that mess where he joins us, He steps in and takes upon Himself the penalty for our rebellion against Him, our sin against Him.
The proof of God’s love is that He forgives us, He pardons us, through the death of Jesus Christ.
1 John 4:11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
Here we find a cause and effect, a this-lead-to-that. Here is where rubber hits road. You and I are the recipients of God’s love manifest in Jesus, expressed ultimately in His atonement, His sacrifice for our sins. God loved us so much that He did this.
By doing this God bridged the gap in our broken relationship with Him. He mended that fence. Her did all He could to restore that relationship.
John says that something of that love, that agape, self-giving love should flow out of us, out of our lives. That’s how Jesus’ mission is finished in a sense. His love is made complete in us when we love each other.
And remember...it’s love on God’s terms. It’s not distant. It’s not abstract. It’s not theoretical. Love on God’s terms goes with a mission into the lives of others to for the purpose of bringing about redemption, healing, grace.
There’s a story of a little girl who was pushing the limits of her mother’s very last nerve. Mom was nearing the end of a hectic season of cooking, cleaning, shopping, wrapping and church stuff.
She was also nearing the breaking point with her little pre-schooler. Finally the little girl was bathed and ready for bed. As she knelt to say her prayers, Mom listened as her sweet three year old theologian "customized" her evening prayer, ...And forgive us our Christmases, as we forgive those who Christmas against us! Cute.
So here’s the challenge.
God’s love was expressed in Jesus, who came to bridge the gap in broken relationships. A fitting response is worship. A fitting response is to freshly commit our lives to Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of our lives. Absolutely.
But there’s another fitting response. Perhaps something we can do in honour of the Christ child, who came to bring reconciliation, is to consider what fences are broken and need to be mended in our lives.
What broken friendships can we seek by God’s grace and with His strength to heal?
There are some relationships where trust has been so violated that the best we can do and the most God asks of us to to forgive the other person in order that we be free of that person and no longer controlled by them in any way.
But there are other relationships where we know we have been in the wrong. Or we have the sway, the influence, the power to bring greater peace to them.
There are some people that we need to ask forgiveness of. There are some people that we need to grant forgiveness to.
May God give us that grace to love one another here in this church, and to love as He loves in all our relationships. May we be ones who seek to be at peace with others as much as it depends on us.
And may each of us consider that innkeeper in the story of Christmas. We don’t know really how many innkeepers Mary and Joseph went to before they found one who made room for them, for the baby Jesus. Those who said no are not mentioned. But there was one who said yes.
Each person in this room is an innkeeper in a sense, the keeper of their lives, the keeper of their inner life. Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there will be room for Christ.
Will there be room in the whole of my life for Jesus? Will there be room in my daily life, the way I spend it? The time I make for Jesus to speak to me?
Will there be room in my family life, in my moral life. In my struggles, and my worries, and my fears, and my doubts.
Will there be room?
