Nobody Ever Volunteers To Take Down The Christmas Tree
Luke 1: 68-79 - Dec. 29/30, 2001
Intro:
So the presents are all unwrapped, some even returned and exchanged already. The leftover turkey is starting to turn a funny color and let off an unpleasant odor, and since nobody has eaten any in the last couple of days anyway, it is quickly headed for the garbage. The toys have long since been torn from the boxes and had their initial use, and some already seem to have outlived the child’s interest in them, and so they’ll go into a box labeled “toys-we-seldom-play-with”. The needles from the Christmas tree are falling freely now, making a big mess all over the floor, and no matter what we try, un-decorating the tree is never going to be anything other than a chore that nobody really wants to do. Nothing to look forward to now except the credit card bills…
The Month After Christmas
Twas the month after Christmas, and all through the house
Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse.
The cookies I’d nibbled, the eggnog I’d tasted
At the holiday parties had gone to my waist.
When I got on the scales there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber).
I’d remember the marvelous meals I’d prepared;
The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rare,
The wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese
And the way I’d never said, "No thank you, please."
As I dressed myself in my husband’s old shirt
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt---
I said to myself, as I only can "You can’t spend a winter disguised as a man!"
So--away with the last of the sour cream dip,
Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip
Every last bit of food that I like must be banished
’Til all the additional ounces have vanished.
I won’t have a cookie--not even a lick.
I’ll want only to chew on a long celery stick.
I won’t have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie,
I’ll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.
I’m hungry, I’m lonesome, and life is a bore---
But isn’t that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot.
Happy New Year to all and to all a good diet!
But good news: only 361/360 days until we can do it all over again…
Do you get depressed this time of year? The after-holiday let down? It is a normal feeling, that many of us get. I’ve felt it a bit this week – tough to get motivated to get back to work, wanting to stay in bed longer, just feeling a bit down. It is hard when a big event, which we have looked forward to and planned for and prepared for and anticipated, is over. (joanne degree story?). There is a “let down” feeling, for some of us it is relatively minor and we get on with life quickly, for others it easily leads to deeper depression.
I sometimes wonder if Mary and Joseph didn’t experience that same feeling. What do you think it was like for Mary and Joseph most of the time? I mean, after the shepherds left, the visits from the angel stopped, the Magi had long gone. They likely stayed in Bethlehem for the first year and a half or two, and then we know they took off in the middle of the night for Egypt. But what was it like the rest of the time – day in, day out: raising a child, earning a living, keeping a home (with all that entailed two thousand years ago), spending time with friends, going to worship. I wonder how Mary and Joseph coped in the day to day routine, knowing their son was unique, yet still in all appearances just like every other child around them. Still having to change a diaper, mush up food, teach him to walk and talk and how to act.
Even for Mary and Joseph, life would have gotten back to normal. Joseph would have found work to bring in some money to live on, Mary would have tended the house and cooked the meals and cared for the children. I’m sure there were moments of frustration, confusion, and uncertainty. Just like there is for all of us.
I see in Mary one of the keys to coping with the let down: she “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). I don’t believe that she marginalized or downplayed or discounted any of the things she experienced through the “high” time, she carried them with her through the normal time, through the routine. She held the memories close, pulled them out from time to time and thought through them again, claimed again the promises and thus found the resources to get through another day.
I understand that as a stay-at-home parent. I understand the need to sometimes step out of the moment and try to grab a bigger picture – to remember that we won’t be in diapers forever, that Thomas will someday be able to ask for what he wants instead of pointing and grunting, that he will be able to explain what hurts.
I think we need to do the same thing in our spiritual lives from time to time – step back and remember again what God has done for us, what He has promised to us, and where it is He is taking us. As we climb down from the holiday mountain, we need to take a few things with us to pull out in the midst of the times we are feeling down as life starts to return to normal. And so I want to simply rehearse a few of those this morning. And I want to use Zechariah’s psalm in Luke 1 to do that.
Sketch background to the story briefly…
Things to hold on to from Zechariah’s Psalm (Luke 1;68-79):
1. What God has done for us:
It is a Psalm of praise, focused on a whole list of things that God has done for us. The first is in verse 68 – “He has come and has redeemed his people.” The idea of redemption is that of buying back, of rescuing us at great cost. It is term of great significance to Jews of that day, who were once again under the oppression of a distant government and not free in their own state. We see throughout Zechariah’s prophecy various hints at this political situation, but the overall essence is spiritual, even though Zechariah himself might not have completely understood it all. The redemption Zechariah might have been looking for was political in nature, but now we can look back and see that the redemption God had in mind for us was spiritual.
The second thing is similar in concept: “He has raised up a horn of salvation” (vs. 69). Horn here is a symbol of strength, so we could paraphrase this “He has provided us with a mighty saviour.” This is significant – Zechariah was prophesying over his son, John, but begins and focuses first on Jesus the Messiah. He is telling us that God has provided us with this mighty saviour.
In recounting the things that God has done for us, we really could stop there. There is certainly enough to praise God for, certainly enough to sustain us through mundane and even through difficult times. As we step back and look for things to hold on to, to “treasure in our hearts,” we really need look no further than what God has done for us in sending Christ to be our mighty saviour and to redeem us.
But Zechariah doesn’t stop there. He continues in verse 70 to remind us that this salvation is something God promised long ago. Verse 71 expresses the theme of salvation again, and verse 72 introduces one of the motivating characteristics of God that led Him to provide us with this incredible gift – the characteristic of mercy. I want to pause there for a moment just so that we don’t rush past this and lose it in Zechariah’s long list of things that God has done. God has saved us because of His desire to show mercy to us. What is “mercy”? Simply, it is “to show kindness or concern to someone in considerable need”. It is a recognition of our great need, and God’s greater act of kindness and concern to us it our helpless state. In remembering what God has done for us, we remember also that He did these things because of His desire to show kindness to us at our point of need – I find that powerful in looking back, but also in looking ahead: since God desired to show mercy to me in the past, I am confident that He will continue to show mercy to me in the present.
In addition to the quality of mercy, Verse 72 repeats the idea of God keeping His promises, but in stronger language. Zechariah recalls the covenant God entered into with Abraham, to make Abraham’s descendants into a great nation and to bless all people on earth through those descendants. It is a reminder of the faithfulness of God, that no matter how it appears at the moment, God will not forget the promises He has made. He will be true to them.
Verses 74/75 reveal one last thing that God has done for us: He has “enabled us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” Serving God is something we more often see as an obligation than as a gift – isn’t that right? We more often think that our service is something required, something we have to do now because of what God has done for us. It is duty in the negative sense of the word. And with that kind of attitude, it is no wonder that many are reluctant to serve. Especially when simply managing our own lives is often more than we can handle. But Zechariah’s prophecy turns this attitude on its head – enabling us to serve is something God has done for us. It is a gift! It is something to be enjoyed, to be done without fear, to be done before him all our days!! And in fact, considering whom it is we are serving, it is indeed an incredible privilege. It is an honor.
I think we have lost a bit of that perspective. In Jesus’ day, as we see in Zechariah’s own experience serving in the temple, there was a great sense of privilege to being able to serve God by bringing an offering of worship. To be allowed to go to the temple, to participate in the service, to go into the inner rooms and bring an offering, these were great privileges. The fact is that since the resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit is freely available and the boundaries that once defined places and times of worship have been lifted. We can now worship anywhere and anytime. And sadly, I think one of the consequences of that is we have lost the sense of privilege, of undeserved opportunity, to come before the Almighty God of the Universe and to serve Him. And it is tragic that where we once were amazed at the privilege of serving the Mighty Saviour, we now respond reluctantly if at all.
I like Zechariah’s perspective. God has done this great thing for us by enabling us to serve Him, we should gladly grab the opportunities available to serve God and His church. We should recognize that in bringing an offering of worship we have an amazing privilege. That being in the nursery or on a committee or in a small group or sending an email prayer request or shoveling the snow off the sidewalk is an honor because it is service to God, which He has enabled us to do. How’s that for perspective in the midst of life returning to normal after a big holiday – that the things we do which sometimes feel like drudgery are in fact royal privileges enabled by God Himself. They are acts of service to our Lord.
So Zechariah rehearses some of the incredible things God has done for us. Let’s not forgot those, even in the midst of returning to life as normal over the next couple of days. At those moments when you are feeling the normal let down, keep in mind all that God has done for you.
2. What God has promised to us:
In verse 76, Zechariah turns his focus to his son, John, and prophecies over him. And though the specifics are directed at this infant, the prophecy includes a number of promises that God makes to all of us through John. And so beside remembering all that God has done for us in the past, I want to encourage you to keep in mind all that God has promised to us in the present. Zechariah lists two specific promises in verse 77: the knowledge of salvation and the forgiveness of sins.
Obviously John did not bring salvation or forgiveness; those were the exclusive activities of Jesus. But the prophecy makes it clear that John will point to those things, that he will prepare the way, that he will proclaim the promises of God to save and to forgive. And we know that is exactly what John did.
Those same promises need to be pointed out today. The message of salvation and of forgiveness still needs to be proclaimed today. Many of us gathered here today have already heard the message and responded, and yet we still need to be reminded of the forgiveness that is available in Christ. We need to be told again and again that God’s greatest desire is to forgive us and enable us to serve Him. I don‘t know what sins you are struggling with this morning, what guilt you have brought with you, but I do know this: There is forgiveness in Christ. There is a fresh start. There is power to change. John would bring that message to his culture, the message is the same for our culture.
But as much as we need to be reminded of the forgiveness that is available for us who already know Christ, I believe the greater need is for us to understand our responsibility to be in our culture what John was in his culture – we need to point people to Jesus. We need to boldly proclaim the message of salvation and forgiveness to people around us.
What has God promised us? What are the things we can cling to as we wind down from the holiday season and prepare to return to “business as usual”? We can cling to the promise of salvation and of forgiveness. We can cling to the promise that God has sent His Son for us, and that He has not left us as orphans but has given us the power of the Holy Spirit to guide us and sustain us. And that thought leads directly into the last thing that I think we need to remember as life gets back to normal following the holiday:
3. Where God is taking us:
The last part of verse 79, right at the very end of the prophecy, reminds us that God isn’t finished with us at the point of saving us and forgiving us – he still has more. His desire is “to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
I in particular find consolation in this as life gets back to normal – there is still more. All that is good is not behind us, we haven’t “peaked” and anticipate nothing but a downhill ride from here. God still desires to guide us, to lead us into a path of peace and of effective service to Him. That is an important thought as we prepare to welcome in a new year – that God has all kinds of things in store for us. All kinds of opportunities to serve Him, to witness for Him to our friends and neighbors and co-workers, to experience Him close during times of joy and times of frustration. Through all of the things that lay ahead, God’s desire is to guide us into paths of peace.
God has done great things for us, which we can remember and rehearse. God has made wonderful promises to us. And God continues to guide us.
Conclusion:
In the holiday let-down, we sometimes find ourselves wondering what it was all for – what was the purpose of all the fuss. Let me ask you this: What are you going to remember from this Christmas? Chances are that it won’t be one of several presents, or of how good the turkey was, or how nicely decorated the tree was. If I go back 2 yrs, what Joanne and I remember was going for a bike ride Christmas day; last year it was a funny snowman Joanne’s dad built for 3month old Thomas; this year it might be the little toboggan ride down the steep pile of snow from where they cleared the parking lot at our community center. It is time spent with family and friends that we’ll remember – the things we did, not the things we got or gave or digested. The things we got or gave will likely wear out or be replaced, and we won’t mention what became of the majority of the food we consumed; but the memories we create will last.
We must not forget in the annual ritual of celebration is that Christ is now here – He has now come – the light is now shining. Now things can be different. Now things can be better. Now we can experience freedom and forgiveness and change. Now we can live daily in the light of Christ’s coming. We tend to journey through the holiday season and “get through it” – like it is something that starts and then ends – when what we are celebrating is really only the beginning. Only stage one. Only the launching pad of the journey. Like getting on a plane – yes, you have to get tickets and pack and get to the airport and check the bags and go through security and sit on the tarmac. But when the plane finally leaves the ground, and you can put your head back into the seat, that isn’t the end of the trip! It is only the beginning.
The let-down feeling is normal, but let’s remember that the journey has just begun. God is now come among us, He has changed things, now we can walk with Him. We can be encouraged by all the things that He has done for us in the past, by the promises He has made to us, and by the fact that God is taking us forward, guiding us into the future that He has for us.
