Don’t Box Up Jesus
Good morning! Please turn in your Bibles to Luke 2.
And let me be the first to wish you a very Happy Boxing Day! That’s right. If we lived in England, Australia, Hong Kong, or Canada, today we would be celebrating Boxing Day. Quick trivia question: What does Boxing Day represent?
A. The day you box up all your Christmas decorations
B. The day you box up all the Christmas gifts you want to return because they were the wrong size
C. The day you box your brother over the Christmas gift mom and dad gave you “to share.”
D. The day you prepare boxes of gifts for the poor
The answer is D. In countries that are or were part of the British empire, the day after Christmas is traditionally a day for remembering the poor. The tradition of giving Christmas boxes to those less fortunate has been around since the Middle Ages in many European countries.
But whether you do it the day after Christmas or not, most of us will, at some point in the next few days, put away all our Christmas decorations. The lights will come down. The Christmas tree will be put out to the curb. The Nativity set will be carefully boxed up until next year. And Christmas will be over.
And for a lot of people, there’s an emotional let-down after Christmas. An uncle in one pastor’s family had a favorite saying. When a relationship ended, he would say, “Yep. We’re over like Christmas.” When the score of a football game got too lopsided for his team to come back, he’d say, “Yep. This game’s over like Christmas.” Because for him, there wasn’t NOTHIN as over as Christmas.” That’s true for a lot of people. But you know what? It doesn’t have to be that way. The days after Christmas shouldn’t be a let-down for us. They can be a launching point, a glorious beginning in our lives. The key is this: Don’t treat the risen Savior as just another Christmas decoration. Give Him room and permission to work in your life all year round.
In other words, don’t box up Jesus.
Let me give you the setting for our Scripture passage for today. It’s forty-one days after the birth of Jesus. This completes the time the Old Testament Law mandated for a woman to complete the days of her purification following the birth of a male child. So Mary and Joseph now take Jesus to the temple to present Him to the Lord. While they are there, they meet an old man— well, the text doesn’t say he’s old, but we assume he is, named Simeon. The Holy Spirit had told Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So when he saw the baby Jesus, God’s Word says Simeon took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: ‘Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.’”
But Simeon isn’t the only senior adult Mary and Joseph meet at church that day. They also meet a woman named Anna, and that’s the story I want to focus on this morning. If you are physically able, please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word as we look at Luke 2:36-40:
36 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, 37 and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.[a] She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Pray with me…
1. I want to challenge us this morning, first, that instead of boxing up Jesus until next year, we make up our minds to stay close to God, no matter what.
Let’s think about Anna’s life story. We read in verse 36 that her husband died only seven years into their marriage. It doesn’t say how. Maybe he got sick and suffered from a long term illness. Maybe it was an accident. We don’t know. But we can imagine it broke Anna’s heart, because she never remarried.
Some translations seem to say that she was 84 years old at the time of this story, while others suggest that she had been a widow for 84 years, which might have made her over a hundred at this point. Either way, she’s old!
And God’s word says she never left the temple.
That’s a different response from what so many people do. For a lot of people, when tragedy strikes, they feel like Jesus has let them down. So they box Him up. They say, “Jesus wasn’t there for me when I really needed him, so you know what? I’m over Jesus.
There’s an old Christmas carol that we actually don’t sing much anymore. It was written near the end of the Civil War by an American poet named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The song starts joyfully enough:
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
But the song takes a dark turn when Longfellow acknowledges the horror of the Civil War:
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Now you begin to see why we don’t sing this one very often. But Longfellow wasn’t just reflecting on the national tragedy of the Civil War, but on personal tragedy as well. In July of 1861, Longfellow’s wife died in a freak accident when her dress caught on fire. Henry tried to smother the flames, burning his face, arms and hands in the process. His wife died the next morning. He was too ill from his burns to attend her funeral.
Two years later, in November of 1863, Longfellow received word that his oldest son Charles had been severely wounded in battle when a confederate sniper shot him through the shoulder blade, nicking his spine. He would eventually walk again, but only after more than six months of painful rehabilitation.
So on Friday, December 25, 1863, Longfellow was a 57-year-old widowed father of six children, the oldest of which had been nearly killed in a war his country was fighting against itself. That morning, Henry heard the church bells ringing, and he couldn’t reconcile their joyful sound with the sorrow that was in his own heart. No wonder the poet wrote such sorrowful words. But that’s not the end of the song!
Longfellow did not give up on God. He stayed close to the Lord, and the Lord gave him comfort through the good news of Christmas. So the song ends:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
We can choose to cling to God, regardless of our circumstances. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow did, and so he could confidently say, “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep.”
Anna, this widow of 84 years, chose to cling to God through 8 decades of loneliness and grief. And in the end, she was rewarded for her steadfast perseverance beyond anything she could have dreamed. She got to hold her Savior in her arms! And for the rest of her life, however long God gave her, she talked about Jesus with everyone who was “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Could that be your story in 2022? There is someone that needs to hear you “give an answer for the hope that is within you,” as 1 Peter 3:15 says. They need to hear from you that God is not dead, nor does He sleep—that the Holy Spirit of Christ is at work in our world right now. And that it is possible to have a relationship with the risen Savior, if we would just open our heart to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord.
So don’t box up Jesus. Cling to Jesus, no matter what.
2. Serve God, no matter what.
Anna served the Lord every way she possibly could. In vs. 37 she “did not depart from the temple, but worshiped God with fasting and prayers night and day.” Your translation might say she served God with fasting and prayers night and day. In this context, worshiping and serving are interchangeable.
There are four aspects to Anna’s service to keep in mind here:
• It was joyful service: Anna worshiped
• It was sacrificial: Anna fasted.
• It was active: Anna prayed
• And it was consistent service. Day and night, she never left the temple.
Now, we hear about these aspects of service, and you might have one of two objections.
Some of you might be saying, “Well, that’s not practical. It’s one thing for an 84 year old widow to spend all her time at church, but I’m still full time at work. Our kids just keep us so busy. I’ll have more time to give to the church after we retire, and things settle down.
Let me be honest with you. If you don’t make serving the Lord a priority now, then it will not be a priority later in life. There will always be other things that take precedence over serving.
And what about this idea of being constantly in prayer? How am I supposed to do that? Am I just supposed to ignore my kids, or stop answering email? What about my responsibilities? And that fasting thing? Isn’t that kind of weird? Or even unhealthy?
We can raise practical objections all day long, but the truth is that if we ignore the disciplines of prayer and fasting, we are being disobedient to God. Paul says in Ephesians 6 that we are to be
18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul says we are to pray without ceasing.
Romans 12:12: Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
The same is true with fasting, which is the spiritual discipline of regularly abstaining from food in order to focus your attention on spiritual things. When Jesus taught about fasting in the Sermon on the Mount, he didn’t present it as optional. He didn’t say, “If you fast,” then this is how you do it. No. He said, “When you fast,
16 do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Beloved church, this is the time of year when we think about commitments and goals for the coming year. Would you commit to a time of regular, focused prayer and fasting? I’m not suggesting you jump to “Anna level” right away— committing to staying at the church 24/7 in prayer and fasting.
But could you do an hour a week? Could you commit to a 24 hour fast at least once a month? Pick a day, and don’t eat from sunset to sunset. When you feel the pangs of hunger, pray a simple prayer: God help me to hunger for you the way I am hungering for food right now. Help me to redirect my thoughts on what your will is for my life. My family. Our church. And just see what happens.
That leads to the second objection. The first are people who don’t think prayer and fasting is practical. But there are other people who don’t think it’s meaningful. They might be excited about serving God, but they’re like, “Man, I wanna do something REAL. Prayer might be great for one of the old ladies’ Sunday school classes, but I wanna do like, real stuff. Let’s build houses, or work a chainsaw for disaster relief. Let’s protest at an abortion clinic. I wanna do something that makes a difference.
If that’s you, let me just remind you that prayer is the foundation of ALL we do as a church. I believe with all my heart in what Oswald Chambers said in My Utmost for His Highest: “Prayer doesn’t equip us for the greater work. It is the greater work.” Listen: if you ever catch yourself saying, “Ok, let’s say a quick little prayer, and then we will get to work,” then repent. If you ever hear me say that as a pastor, then rebuke me in the name of Jesus. I want to be done with “quick little prayers” that we toss up as place fillers in a program, or as transitional elements in a worship service.
Samuel Chadwick was a Wesleyan minister who lived in England and died in 1932. One of his most famous works is a little book called The Path to Prayer. In it, Chadwick wrote,
The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.
And if you are truly convinced that prayer doesn’t make a difference, then maybe its because you’ve never really given yourself to the discipline of prayer. I want us to test the Lord on this in 2022. I’d like us to commit to having teams of intercessory prayer partners in the prayer room during every worship service. I’d like to see 30-40-50 people coming to our midweek prayer service. Not to go through another Right Now Media Bible study—you can do those at home! But to pray. To pray for the lost. To pray for the nations. To pray for the sick. To pray for our church.
In about three weeks, our Experiencing God groups will be starting up. The backbone of this thirteen week study is to pay attention to how God is at work around us. And when we become aware of what God is doing, to join him in that work. I want to ask you to pray about being a part of one of those groups. Again, let’s just see what happens. I think we are about to enter into an incredible season in the life of Glynwood Baptist Church. But it will not happen without a steadfast commitment from God’s people to prayer.
And let’s ask God to give us eyes to see what is happening in the spiritual realm when we pray.
Whether Anna was 84 years old or over 100, the Lord blessed her with a very long life, and she made the most of her life. Anna served the Lord every way she could, as long as she possibly could. And I do not accept that Anna prayed and fasted because that was all she could do. The text doesn’t say when she started praying day and night, and fasting, and never leaving the temple, but somehow I just don’t picture that being a habit she just picked up in her late seventies. I think that was her lifestyle maybe even from the time her husband died seven years into their marriage.
Beloved church, we don’t know how much time the Lord will give us on this earth. Psalm 90 says its seventy years. Maybe 80. But that’s the blink of an eye. So don’t box up Jesus this year. Cling to him, no matter the circumstance. Serve Him, sacrificially, spiritually, and consistently.
3. Finally, if we commit to not box up Jesus this year—if we stay close to Him, no matter what, if we serve Him, no matter what, then we can expect Him to act—no matter what.
Do you think Anna went to the Temple that day expecting to meet the Messiah? Probably not that, specifically. But I do think that over the course of eight decades of prayer and fasting and worship, her spiritual radar was tuned toward God’s activity. Remember, Experiencing God is going to teach us that God is always at work around us. And so, in vs. 38, as Anna was goIng about her normal day, God made sure that she got to the Temple just in time to see Simeon take the baby in his arms and say, “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”
Now, imagine you are Anna’s friend, and she is telling you about this later. You might be tempted to hear her story and say, “How lucky for you to have been in the Temple at that moment!” And I think Anna would look at you and say, “Luck? Luck didn’t have anything to do with it.” You see, Anna wasn’t surprised to see God at work. This was not a case of her being in the right place at the right time. It was about her having the right heart and the right spiritual sensitivity. Let me put it this way: when you have trained and conditioned yourself to pay attention to the activity of God, then every place is the right place, and every time is the right time, why? Because GOD IS ALWAYS AT WORK AROUND YOU!
It was the same with Moses. Moses had been tending sheep in the desert for forty years when one day he saw a bush that was burning but wasn’t consumed. Moses said in verse 3, “I will turn aside and see this great sight.” He turned aside, He heard God speak. God said, “Take off your shoes, because the place you are standing is holy ground.”
Here’s what we need to understand—if God is always at work around us, then we always need to be ready to turn aside to pay attention to what He is doing. We need to always be ready to respond to His voice.
I know I’ve quoted this before, so forgive me for repeating myself. But one of my favorite lines of poetry is from Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who said,
Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
Church, let’s be the kind of church that recognizes God at work all around us. That hears God speaking to us in every situation through His word, through prayer, through circumstances, and through His people.
In 2022, let’s stay close to God, no matter what.
Let’s serve God, no matter what.
And let’s expect to see God at work, no matter what.
Let’s pray together.
