The Gospel According to Luke reports a local Jerusalem couple, Zacharias and Elizabeth, are expecting a baby boy. Witnesses testify this good news may be connected to a Temple incident including Zacharias. Temple police continue to identify witnesses as an angelic proclamation is currently being investigated. Zacharias remains mute on the matter. Elizabeth is unable for comment at this time. (Luke 1:26-38)
Lighting of the Advent Candle:
We live in a time of uncertainty and civil unrest continues to be an issue in current American culture. Peace on earth sometimes feels elusive. Nostalgic remembrances can be a catalyst for self-reflection and for attempts at simplifying contemporary daily life. Advent is commonly called a season of preparation. We can examine our own hearts and identify what may need to be moved out so that hope can move in. This season is about preparing to hear some Good News. God has come near.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the LORD;
Make straight in the desert[a]
A highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
5 The glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Isaiah 40:3-5 NKJV
Today we begin our 4 week trek to Christmas. A season in the Christian year we’ve traditionally called Advent. This year we have decided to step back in time to period when America was a in a transition from being a nation at war with one another, to a country looking for its soul.
After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including the celebration of Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America’s new constitution. It wasn’t until President Ulysses S. Grant declared Christmas a legal holiday in 1870 that American’s began to celebrate Christmas as we know it today.
By placing the vision of peace within the hearts of American families, President Grant was trying to sooth a period of class conflict and turmoil that many today can now imagine in the wake of what has happened in Ferguson, Missouri. The North and South were divided on the issue of Christmas, as well as on the question of slavery. Many Northerners saw sin in the celebration of Christmas; to these people the celebration of Thanksgiving was more appropriate.
However President Grant’s declaration held and actually did bring opposing forces together and help the nation rebuild by placing the vision of peace that passes all understanding within the hearts of Americans.
Do you think of peace when you think of Christmas or something else? What’s memories do you have around Christmas? Personally, Christmas has always been a let down. I can remember one year in which my younger sister and I sat on the steps at 5am waiting for my parents to wake up. Finally, around 7 they came down grabbed a cup of coffee and gave us the okay to open our presents. It was a scene of paper flying like the Tasmanian devil had been let loose in the living room. We opened our presents quickly and within minutes we all sat quietly looking at our stuff – like a family out to dinner with iphones. We all entered our own little worlds. It was quiet but there was no real peace. Not really. Dad was picking up the wrapping paper to burn in the fireplace. Mom was cooking breakfast. The sisters and I played with our gifts. And then Christmas remorse set in. We had built up this morning to be something unrealistic and like a sugar cookie high, it was over in an instant. It made me wonder, is this all there is to Christmas?
It’s often said, “Christmas is for the children.” However, is it really? Because if it is, then my family must have been doing it wrong. It never felt like it was for the children. It felt more like a forced family gathering, a trip to an overcrowded church in uncomfortable clothes, a reason for my relatives to come into town, and for everyone of age, to be over-served. Maybe your Christmas memories are different but the entire season had always left me baffled.
That is until recently. The season came alive for me when a friend recommended that I read the scriptures to understand the deeper meaning of Christmas. What great advice. I found the traditional Christmas scriptures and read them. It was the first of many ah-ha moments in my journey to my own new birth.
The headlines from the front of the bulletin really do tell the first of many stories that offer inspiration and contemplation. On this first week, we look at this time as a time of waiting by taking a moment to review the first part of Luke 1:5-25. It’s the story of Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. I don’t want to spoil the story for you so I won’t read it but there are some key facts and moments. Zechariah was a priest. He and his wife had no children which was a real stigma in that time. I’m sure many a person asked the questions, “How such a good couple could not have any children? Is there some hidden sin?” It wasn’t just a stigma it also was a practical concern because children were the social security system of that time. And then one day, Zechariah was chosen for temple duty by the throwing of some dice called lots to proceed into the temple while everyone else stayed outside. It was in the temple, at the incense altar, that Zechariah met the angel Gabriel who informed him that his wife, who was very old, would have a child - a special child who would never drink wine, be anointed with the Holy Spirit and he would be a great evangelist. To which, Zechariah questions the angel. Not a great idea. He then is made silent until his son, John (the Baptist) was born.
There are lots of fun questions in the study of the text like:
• Why cast lots for going inside the temple?
• Why abstain from wine?
• How could a baby be filled with the Holy Spirit?
• Who is the angel Gabriel?
• Does it always take a special power to turn the hearts of the hard hearted?
• Could shutting up around your wife really turn her on?
However, what is truly interesting is why make Zechariah mute for 9 months just because he asked a question?
It looks like he was punished for asking a question.
It reminds me of a number of proverbs that we’ve read in my Sunday night mid size group and in the Saturday morning men’s bible study. Our tongues and mouths get many of us into trouble. The careless use of words tends to betray us. I can remember many a holiday as a child up at my grandfather’s home in Northern Michigan when either my father or his siblings or my Grandfather would say something that would end up in all out war of words. The debate could last for days only calming down in the morning until the bloody Mary mix took on its medicinal purposes. It was never very helpful or encouraging in wanting us to come together more regularly.
And yet under further investigation, it was more than that. Zechariah is often mentioned as a righteous man. He followed the Lord. He did what he knew was right and yet, there’s moment in his life, and all our lives, when we realize that following God sometimes requires we learn to trust in God even for what we think is impossible. Zechariah’s inability to speak offered three important benefits:
1) He had time to reflect and mediate on what happened in the temple
2) It created a constant reminder for 9 months of God’s will and presence in and for the world
3) It provided a supernatural sign to help him and others see God goes before us, God is faithful and God hears our prayers so we need not be afraid.
While our celebration of Christmas is about a child’s birth, Advent, and its culmination thereof, is really not about the children. It’s about a patient and deliberate time of developing a much deeper understanding of what the coming of a Messiah means, reminding ourselves of God’s power and finally, of developing a peace that is centered in a trust of the Lord that goes beyond all contemporary understanding. Luke 1:37 says: “For no word from God will ever fail.”
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