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The Gift of Joy
Isaiah 60:1-4 & Luke 2:8-20
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.
I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
Luke 2:10
Today is the third Sunday of Advent!
During this season, we have been opening “The Gifts of Christmas.”
The First Sunday of Advent, we opened the gift of hope by looking at the lives of Zechariah and Elizabeth.
How they had hoped beyond hope to have a child.
While Old Zechariah is in the temple performing his age-old duties, the angel Gabriel showed up! “Your prayers have been heard.
Elizabeth is going to have a baby boy!”
They had hoped and prayed for years for a baby!
Gabriel brought THE GIFT OF HOPE to us the first week of Advent.
The second week of Advent, we opened the gift of love!
See what love God has for us that God became one of us!
The incarnation of God becoming human is one of the most joyous miracles in the Bible.
Think of the angel Gabriel bringing the news to Mary.
Think of the angel Gabriel showing up again—this time to tell Joseph not to divorce Mary but to marry her and give the child the name of Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.
Immanuel—GOD WITH US!
That is the gift of love.
Today, we come to the third week of Advent and the gift of joy!
Do you have joy in your journey?
Has your journey knocked the joy out of you?
I have chosen two passages today to reflect upon as we open the gift of joy!
Before we come to God’s Wonderful Words of Life and Joy, let us come the throne of joy in prayer.
“God of all hope, love, joy and peace.
Help us to find the joy in our journey.
Help us to allow the joy of the Lord to be our strength.
May your Wonderful Words of life fill us with the joy of the Lord.
Amen”
Isaiah 12:1-6
In that day you will say: “I will praise you, O Lord.
Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.
2Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.”
3With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
4 In that day you will say: “Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.
5Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.
6Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.”[i]
Luke 2:8-20
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.
I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.[ii]
In 2001, the Richards family of Canberra, Australia, set the Guinness World Record for the most holiday lights ever to grace a human house—331,038 bulbs, to be exact.
The family's retina-scorching record stood for more than a decade.
In 2012, Tim Gay and his family from La Grangeville, New York—bested the Richards.
They decorated their house with 346,283 lights.
(Many of their lights were synchronized to music.)
The Richards couldn't stand to be losers so they upped the ante by decorating their house with more than 502,165 lights.
(This equates to more than 29 miles of wire.)
But!
There is, of course, always room for more light.
So, this year, our heroes from New York got their revenge: They covered their own house—and, crucially, its grounds—with a display that involves 601,736 lights.
The whole thing took roughly two months to build.
It spans two acres.
It also involves much more than lights: It includes more than 200 songs, including both top-40 hits and traditional holiday songs.
As Tim Gay told Guinness, on the occasion of his win: "My family and I are thrilled to bring the World Record back to the United States."
He added, "And we're even more excited that we did it with nearly 100,000 more lights than the previous record."[iii]
Have you lost the meaning of Christmas in the rush of activities and lights?
Have you been able to open the real gifts of Christmas?
Gifts of hope, love, joy and peace?
At the beginning of the Advent season, I wondered if God could do it again: brings the real gifts of Christmas.
2017…it’s been a hard year for many of us.
Many of us have lost loved ones, many of us have had real health issues.
As most of you know, it’s been a hard year for Jac and me: Lead poisoning, two rounds of chelation, moving our household and dumping 4 dumpsters of our belongings as we tried to get the proverbial lead out.
The “so what?” comes early today.
I’ve been thinking about this all week.
Do I really believe that God is at work in the silences of my life?
Do I trust the Holy Spirit to show me that nothing is impossible with God? Do I really know Immanuel--GOD WITH ME?
How about you?
Have you ever really, seriously thought about entering the Christmas story?
Have you put yourself into their sandals?
Who would you be --- Zechariah or Elizabeth, Mary or Joseph, a wise man or woman, a doubting King or a busy inn-keeper?
How about being an angel or a shepherd?
OVERLOOKED BUT NOT OVERLOOKING
This morning I would like for you to enter into the Christmas story through the eyes of the shepherds.
Back in the time of the Messiah’s birth, shepherds were not looked upon as upstanding citizens.
They were outcasts in many ways.
They were on the bottom rung of the social ladder.
They were uneducated and unskilled, they were viewed as dishonest, unreliable, and unsavory.
They were not allowed into the synagogue because they were unclean.
They could not be a witness in a court case because of their reputation.
Shepherds were the outcast and were overlooked by many--but not by God!
It was to a group of outsiders, outcasts, and overlooked shepherds that the angel of the Lord first appeared to bring the news above all news to mankind.
Think of it--good news of great joy…given to a small band of homeless shepherds by the host of heavenly angels.
Why?
Why waste this visit on shepherds?
Why not appear to the Kings, Priests, Pharisees, Prophets or Presidents?
If you were going to announce the greatest new in all of history, where would go first?
CNN, ABC, CBS, CNBC, or Fox news?
Many years ago, we took a youth group to Ensenada, Mexico, to build a church and do VBS.
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