Rediscover Joy Series

[I am grateful for the Sermon Series Kit Rediscover Christmas. This manuscript relies heavily on that series.]

Rediscover Joy

Matthew 2, Luke 1

Good morning! Please turn in your Bible to Luke 1. We’re also going to jump over to Matthew 2 for a little bit, but we’re going to mostly camp out in Luke 1.

Introduction: What Comes to the Surface Depends on what’s inside.

Have you ever been to Yellowstone National Park? It’s an amazing, beautiful place! And such a unique place! It’s no wonder it was the first national park established in the world. In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act that set aside Yellowstone as a protected treasure.

Yellowstone is unique in that it has the largest concentration of geysers on the entire planet. Over half of the world’s known active geysers are in Yellowstone National Park. The park basically sits on top of a huge supervolcano brewing beneath the earth’s surface. And all over the park, this brewing heat works its way to the surface and forces its way through the earth.

Probably the most famous geyser in the park and maybe the world, Old Faithful shoots and spurts huge fountains of water and steam up to 180 feet in the air. The geyser erupts about 20 times a day.

And then there are the muddy geysers called the mudpots. These are the cauldrons of goo somewhere between liquid and solid. They’re kind of like a pot of oatmeal simmering on a stove. These geysers burble and burp and boil, releasing bubbles of heat and gas and superheated mud into the air.

And then there’s the Grand Prismatic Spring. It’s the largest hot spring in the U.S. But unlike Old Faithful, which just explodes, the hot spring bubbles up and spreads out. And because the ground around the spring is rich with iron oxide and other colorful minerals, the Grand Prismatic spring has all these breathtaking colors.

OK, so why am I talking so much about geysers this morning? Because geysers remind me of a fundamental truth. Whenever there is pressure, there has to be some way to release that pressure. All of Yellowstone is like the vent cap on a pressure cooker. Without some way to vent the superheated water underground probably the entire state of Wyoming would just explode.

But the second fundamental truth is this: Whatever is beneath the surface will be what rises to the top when the pressure builds. It could be just hot water, like Old Faithful.

It could just be superheated, muddy sludge and toxic gases, like the mud pots.

Or, could be brilliant colors, like at the Grand Prismatic spring, It could be water so dense with minerals that every time it comes to the surface, it helps to build something beautiful. This is the Fly Geyser in Nevada (which I know looks like the fountain at a miniature golf course, but trust me, this is real!). This one actually started forming about a hundred years ago, when a rancher was drilling for irrigation water and opened up a geothermal pocket. And there’s a species of brightly colored algae that apparently thrives with superheated water.

Maybe you can see where this is going now. This year, 2020, we’ve been subjected to more pressure than maybe any time in our lifetimes. And we’ve all felt at various times that we were just about to explode. So let’s get back to that fundamental, basic truth:

What is below the surface is what will rise to the top when the pressure builds. There are probably some times this year when you’ve just wanted to blow off some steam, like Old Faithful. Or maybe there’s been times when the frustration or the anger or the fear has built up and you’ve just spewed something toxic and gross—whether its been on a family member, or a friend, or someone on social media.

We are in a series called “Rediscovering Christmas—good news in troubling times.” This week, we are talking about rediscovering joy. And, you know, joy bubbles up all through the Christmas story. But it’s important to note that this joy isn’t separate from pain and disappointment. In fact, much of this joy is born out of a lot of pressure. A lot of disappointment and grief. And we see that in Luke 1. .

Luke’s Christmas story begins a little earlier than Mary and Joseph and Jesus, with a prophet named Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. Look at verses 5-7:

5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah,[a] of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.