God Is With Us

            Messy.  What do you think of when you hear the word messy?  Your messy kitchen.  Your messy purse.  The mess that winter weather makes of the roads.  The mess of mail on the counter.  The mess of mud tracked on your clean carpet.  The mess of post-Christmas.  The messy house.  The mess after a dog rips up a toy.  The mess of spilled coffee on your new pants.  The mess of wax on the church floor after 5 worship services.  The mess of the return lines after Christmas.  The mess of the kid’s toy room.  You get the idea.  There are a lot of messy things in life.

I recently heard a story about a mess.  There were two little old ladies, both in their young 80s.  They were old spinsters living in North Dakota.  They were not only living in North Dakota, they were living on a farm in North Dakota.  It was not only a farm in North Dakota, it was a dumpy farm in North Dakota.  It was the dumpiest farm you have ever seen in North Dakota.  The chicken coop was falling down.  The barn was falling down.  The rusted machinery was falling apart, and the old rusted spinsters were falling apart.  These were two old spinsters and they were as tough as nails.  They had weathered every storm for the past sixty years and they were tough.  Well, it so happened that a nephew came to visit them one fall day from the city, and he took out his camera to take a picture of his weather worn aunts, with the barn and the chicken coop and the rusted machinery in the background.  The aunts just stood there, strait and stiff for the picture.  The nephew took a picture and later sent them a copy.  The old aunts just loved that photograph, and they decided to use it for a Christmas card that year.  At the top of their picture, they put the words, Merry Christmas, in bold, black letters.  And at the bottom of the picture, in big bold letters were the words:  God is with us in our mess.

Indeed, God is with us.  “The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, “God is with us.”  If you think about it the Christmas story is a bit messy.  A young unmarried teenager conceives a child.  Mary, who is with child and Joseph travel several days, about 80 miles (and it wasn’t by plane, train, or automobile).  The innkeeper declares that there is no room in the inn for the pregnant Mary and her husband, Joseph.  Jesus, the son of God, a babe born in a barn in Bethlehem, placed in the animal’s feeding trough, knows messy.  In the midst of messy, God is with us.  In the midst of messy, the holy shows up.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

            God is with us when things are going well.  God is with us when marriage vows are said.  God is with us when children are born.  God is with us when we walk across the stage on graduation day.  God is with us when we land the job we have always dreamed of.  God is with us when laughter and joy are shared.  In these good times I think it is often easier to remember God’s presence.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

            Sometimes it is more difficult to remember, but God is with us all the time.  God is with us when things are not going well.  God is with us when terminal illness comes upon a loved one.  God is with us when fertility problems are encountered.  God is with us when divorce enters the picture.  God is with us when life ends too quickly.  God is with us when holiday are not happy days.  God is with us when tears and sadness are shared.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

            As the Christmas card from the old ladies in North Dakota proclaimed, “God is with us in our mess.”  That is the message I hope you take away this Christmas.  God is with us in our mess.  Emmanuel, God with us, is foretold in Isaiah and then proclaimed in Matthew as Joseph is told of Mary’s pregnancy.  Christ enters into the world as one who is both human and divine.  Christ enters into a world filled with mess.  Christ lives amidst the mess.  Christ knows what it is like for us to live in the messiness.  Through the good and bad God is with us.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

The truth of life is that it is more often messy than neat and tidy.  Do you know of anywhere that is not messed up?  Relationships are messy.  Families are messy.  The world is messy.  Life is messy.  And in the midst of the messy, Christ comes in.  God will not protect us from the messes, but God will walk with us in the messes.  God will show up.  God will not forsake us or leave us.  Just when we think life has gotten too messy, Christ bursts in.  Just when we think that we have strayed too far for God to care about us, Christ comes to us.    In the messiness of our lives, Emmanuel comes to us.  God is with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”

            It may seem like a dark, silent night here in this sanctuary, but there are still messes surrounding us.  Messes in our lives.  Messes in our hearts.  Messes in the lives of those we love.  Messes in the lives of strangers near and far.  Messes in our society.  Messes in our world.  Messes surround us.  In all of those messes Christ is showing up.  God first burst into our world as a human some 2,000 years ago.  And God continues to burst into our world each and every night.  Emmanuel is coming to us this night.  Born again this night for you and for me this Christmas.  Emmanuel – God with us.  God is truly with us.  God proclaims, “This is Emmanuel.”  Amen.

Christmas Shoes Sharing

Luke 3:7-18

John the Baptist proclaims, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming.”  Who is coming?  Who are we preparing for?  Who is this character whom John the Baptist speaks of?

These days it is easy to think we are preparing for Santa Claus.  The good news of Santa Claus proclaims, “Blessed are the rich. Blessed are the powerful.  Blessed are the religiously correct.”  Santa Claus says, “Love your family.  Love your friends.  Enjoy a festive dinner.  Befriend the well dressed, the healthy, the young, the comfortable, and the respectable.”

            What we are really preparing for is Christ.  The gospel of Christ proclaims, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.  Blessed are the meek.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice.”  Jesus says, “Love the stranger.  Love your enemies.  Befriend the hungry, the naked, the sick, all ages, the homeless, and the prisoners.” 

            Santa Claus proclaims that “Christmas comes that we may have things more abundantly.”  God proclaims that “Christ comes so that we may have life more abundantly.”  Regardless of how much we may like the things we receive at Christmas from friends, family, and Santa Claus, I hope that we can recognize who it is that is coming to us this day.  It is Jesus.  He is more powerful than you or I, even more powerful than John the Baptist.  He is bringing to us the good news of the gospel.

            In the meantime, John’s job is to prepare us for the coming of Christ.  To prepare us for the coming of a babe born in Bethlehem.  To prepare us for the second coming of Christ at the end of the world.  Last week, we heard John proclaim, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”  This week we pick up right where we left off.  So the crowd asks, “What then should we do?”  John tells them to share their coat with the coatless.  To share their food with the hungry.  Then to a few specific groups of people he says, “Do not collect more than is yours” and “Be satisfied with your wages.” 

               At the core of John the Baptist’s message is to share.  This is something we learned or should have learned at a young age.  It is something I am reminded of every time that the song “Christmas Shoes” comes on the radio.  Maybe you have heard the song, read the book, or seen the movie that is based on this song.  The chorus goes like this:

“Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time You see she's been sick for quite a while And I know these shoes would make her smile And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight.”

Lately I have witnessed some incredible sharing in our local community – Christmas Shoes sharing.  The first weekend in December people in our congregation shared, out of our abundance, with thirty families in this area who are living in scarcity this holiday season.  As over one hundred people gathered in the front of the sanctuary for a photo before we left to make our deliveries, I was amazed at people’s willingness to share with others.  In addition to those people, all of the confirmation small groups and the high school youth group helped as well.  What a gift of Christmas Shoes sharing.

            Recently, I was in conversation with one of the staff of Lutheran Social Services.  She was telling me that the staff off Lutheran Social Services adopt someone in their stepping stones program.  This is a program that reaches out to 16-20 year olds in our area to provide affordable housing and independent living skills.  When these young people make their wish lists things like toothpaste, toilet paper, socks, and gloves appear.  Of course the staff help provide those basic necessities, but they also make sure to get them a fun gift as well.  They want to share beyond gifts of basic necessities.  What a gift of Christmas Shoes sharing.

            As a member of the Board of Directors of the Lutheran Campus Ministry at the School of Mines and Technology, I was surprised at our recent meeting to hear about another opportunity of sharing happening in our midst.  They put up an angel tree in the campus center.  College students, people who are accruing student loans at a high rate and possibly eat Ramen Noodles and Easy Mac for many meals, share gifts with children in our community who may otherwise not have a gift to open this Christmas.  What a gift of Christmas Shoes sharing.

            We see acts of sharing and kindness happening all around us.  We see gifts given.  We see love shared.  We see joy passed along.  We see prayers lifted up.  All of this sharing points us to God.  That was John the Baptist’s job – to point us to Jesus, to point us to the one who would come after him.  May our giving, our sharing, our loving, our prayers and all that we do we continue to point others to Jesus.  That is our job.  In the midst of pain and suffering.  In the midst of hardship and homelessness.  In the midst of hurt and sorrow.  In the midst of war and school shootings.  In the midst of death.  It is our job to point others to Jesus.  It is our job to share the hope of the resurrection – the risen Christ, the one who overcame death and sin so that we would live forever.  It is our job to share the joy and the hope of the New Jerusalem, when there will be no death, no mourning, no crying, no pain. 

I think beyond the crowd’s question of what they should do is a bigger question of why they should be the ones to prepare the way.  Why is it our job?  That role falls to each of us, too.  It is our job to prepare the way.  It is our job to prepare for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  It is our job because of what Christ has done for us.  Christ has come and made us holy.  Christ has called us his own and loved us just the way we are.  It is not about anything that we have done.  It is all about what Christ has done.  Because of the gift of grace that has been freely given to us we respond by preparing the way, by making the paths straight.  It is our job to share what we have been given.  It is our job to share the Christmas Shoes.  Amen.

God Equips the Called

Luke 3:1-6

The Bible is filled with a variety of characters.  Lots of them have their own downfalls.  They make bad decisions.  They are unlikely characters.  They are not maybe the type of people that you would expect God to use.  Maybe you have heard this list before:        

Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses has a stuttering problem
Samson has long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David has an affair and was a murderer
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Peter denied Christ
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Lazarus was dead!

Today we hear about another such character.  John.  John the Baptist.  Our text says, “the word of God game to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”  Luke does a great job of setting up this story by preceding the entrance of John with seven big deal people of the 1^st century.  In comparison it would seem that John wasn’t as big of a deal.  He was less than those big names before him.  But there is one really important detail in this story that begins the ministry of John the Baptist – the word of God.  This makes him a big deal.  John didn’t go around proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins on his own.  He wasn’t some street preacher with no credibility.  The word of God had come to him.  He had credibility.  He had God.

So, what does John the Baptist have in common with that long list of biblical characters with downfalls of their own.  He wasn’t equipped.  He was just John the son of Zechariah.  He was in the wilderness.  He ate bugs.  He wore clothes of camel’s hair.  God called to John and equipped him with the word of God.  God doesn’t call the equipped.  God equips the called.

God works through the weak and the small.  God works through the barren women and the unwed teenagers.  God works through the educated and the uneducated.  God works through those living in large homes and those living in hotels.  God works through the poor and the rich.  God works through those living in the middle of nowhere and those living in large cities.  God works through you and me.  Just like God came to nobody John in the nowhere wilderness.  God comes to us.  Maybe that seems impossible to you.  Maybe you feel too insignificant for such a large task.  God still comes to you.  And even when we think that might seem impossible, the word of God comes to us and equips us for the work of ministry, to share the good news of God’s love.  God comes to you.

This Advent season we are preparing for Christmas and the coming of Jesus as a small baby in a manger in Bethlehem.  We are trimming our trees, putting lights on our houses, making Christmas goodies, wrapping presents, and sending cards to our friends and families.  I hope and pray that we do not get too caught up in those preparations that we miss the real point.  There is something more important than all of this, the Son of Man is coming in the midst of it all, in little and big ways.  The reality is that God always shows up.  God is always there.

I remember a skit that we used to do when I worked at Bible camp.  It was called “Jesus is coming to dinner.”  A visitor comes and knocks on the host’s door and asks for food.  The host turns the visitor away without any food.  Another visitor comes and knocks on the host’s door and asks to use the bathroom.  The host says no and shuts the door.  The next visitor to knock on the door asks to use the phone.  But the host again closes the door providing no help to the visitor.  The host was too busy preparing for Jesus to come to dinner, to assist the visitors with their needs.  Lo and behold, Jesus never comes, or at least Jesus doesn’t come in the form that the host was expecting.  Actually it had been Jesus that had come asking for food, a bathroom, and to use the phone.  Jesus had come, but the host was too busy preparing for Jesus’ arrival to even take time to extend hospitality to the one at the door.

            I encourage us, this Advent season, to prepare for Christ in the here and now, to recognize the presence of God in our midst.  “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.”  How are we making the hills into plains?  How is the word of God coming to us this day?  How are we preparing the way of the Lord this Advent season?  The crux of the matter is not to get too caught up in our preparations that we do not take time to recognize the word of God coming to us.  I encourage us to care for the poor in our community.  I encourage us to find time for prayer in our busy lives.  I encourage us to spend time in community with other people.  I encourage us to take time to listen, watch, and experience the world around us.  I encourage us to live into the waiting and expectation of this season, rather than rushing toward Christmas.  I encourage us to think about our “presence” and not just about the “presents” under the tree.  In and through these activities, Christ is coming to us.  God is showing up.  God’s word is equipping us, however unequipped we may feel, to share the good news of the babe born in Bethlehem.  Amen.