Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Scripture
PRAY
Introduction
I dont know about you but Christmas time (or really any family gathering) are full of experiences leaving me going....hmmm I really saw that going differently in my head.
Maybe the one year upon one of the brothers recommendation we go see the movie “Step Brothers” together.
Including my 80 year old grandmother.
Not a family move.
We didnt make it 30 minutes.
Or even just a couple of years ago trying to play the game Balderdash.
Have you ever played that game?
I thought families play games with each other.
Some crazy made up word and everyone makes up a definition and writes it down.
One person reads all of the definition with the correct one mixed in and people vote on what they think is the real answer.
Well one family member could not write legibly.
You know like that cursive that.
Or another person never put the real definition in when it was their turn so we could not vote on it.
Pretty sure my grandfather dozed off a couple of times.
And then there was this arguing about what words really meant.
oh it was terrible.
I really saw that going differently.
Funny example, but there are many times in our life that this is the case too.
I really saw that going differently.
The way it ought to be series over view
The Way it Ought to be: The first Christmas
What about the first Christmas?
What were some of the weird expectations that Joseph and Mary might have had?
Hope:
They probably had some vision of what family would be like...Maybe it would be like their parents experience.
Joseph planning to continue in the family business of carpentry or masonry.
They might have had this vision of their family growing to the point of starting their own home with future generations.
And yet here they are with some mystery.
Yes a child, but it wasnt in the way they pictured.
Love:
What about love?
It is hard to know exactly where they were at in their relationship with each other.
No doubt Mary is thrown into this vulnerable place of carrying a mystery that no one would understand.
The love of carrying a child.
And Joseph not quite understanding what is happening.
I mean this is a scandalous story...Joseph would have to battle with love in a way that I am sure he did not anticipate.
Joy:
Much time is removed from us to them but I am sure people have tried to manufacture joy even in the way we do today.
Did they struggle with being positive when things spiralled out of control?
Example: Brady family reunion and staying in the roach motel.
How did they respond in the middle of it all?
What was their expectation of the birth?
I mean the angel of the Lord is the one who set this thing in motion...couldnt the Lord on high arrange for a suite at the Hilton or something?!
Peace:
And peace: Well this is surely not what they imagined.
Nothing so far in their control.
Example: Rylie Grace birth story.
We had a plan for everything.
We forget that Mary and Joseph are not just characters in a story, they would have been similar to you and me in this situation.
Example: Rylie Grace birth story
And yet in all of the chaos, of all of the people, in all of the situations, this is where God decides to come.
He enters right into the mess.
And I believe this is important for us to understand tonight so that we might once more grasp the weight of all of this.
I think the temptation is to make this story into a Hallmark card.
Like our Christmas worship is usually wrapped up in seeing kidos play some live nativity or something like that.
And that is great because we are involving them in the story, but what if we have reduced this to a sentimental nursery rhyme?
This story that Luke and Matthew tell us of the birth narrative is anything but a hallmark story…it is full of tension, fear, shattered expectations, and beautiful faith.
If we return there again this evening....I believe you will find, once again, the hope, Love, joy, and peace that God has already brought into the world.
Because truth be told we all have a lot of “The way it ought to be’s...” and most the time they are not met with anything satisfying.
Disappointment is often near by when we lean into our manufactured dreams of hope, love, joy, and peace.
And yet…in the middle of it all that is where God makes a stand by becoming one of us.
In the middle of Mary and Joseph and Israel’s “The Way it Ought to be” comes the good news....
Hear the Good News!
My favorite part of the story in Luke’s telling is the Angel of the Lord appearing to the shepherds.
No doubt a rowdy bunch.
Growing up my dad working in the oil field and really worked out in the field with some of the guys that really worked out in the field.
There is just a different culture there.
Really long days with each other, away from civilization, hard work.
I mean they just had a different vocabulary and a different life outlook, you know what I mean.
The shepherds are notorious and their image carries a lot of baggage.
This is who the angel goes to and what he says is so important.
DO NOT BE AFRAID
Cause, yea if an angel of the Lord shows up these are important words…remember not a hallmark card.
Luke 2:1
Hear the good news!
What is the good news?
A savior is born to you.
He is the messiah.
Check this out, I think we kind of miss the weight of this right here.
We have sort of lost this in translation of culture.
In ancient culture, there was this practice of royal announcements or proclamations.
Ceasar Augustus has a birthday…someone goes to the center of town and says here ye here ye on this great day, 22 of December, our lord and god celebrates this great day of peace and power.
hear the good news Ceasar is still lord and god.
A proclamation of dominion.
They have found real decrees like this from as early as 10 BC.
The bible has these royal proclamations:
David wins a war.
They go and announce it.
Solomon is crowned king and there is a royal proclamation.
And here is the deal.
Its not news to us like we think about.
Like you turn on the news there is some reporting of facts but you will also get something else mixed in there.
The president sneezes and you get two interpretations through biases of that news…right?
This is not that.
This is not something that is up for debate.
It is a proclamation that something has happened in which everything is different.
Can I be honest for a second, every year I feel this pressure to be original or to feel like I need to convince people of this good news on Christmas.
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