God is With You

When Elizabeth was six months pregnant God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth the city in Galilee to a virgin who is engaged to a man named Joseph a descendant of David's house The Virgins name was Mary. When the angel came to her he said Rejoice favored one. The Lord is with you. She was confused by these words and wondered what kind of reading this might be. The angel said don't be afraid Mary God is honoring you look you will conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the son of the most high the Lord. God will give him the Throne of David his father. He will rule over Jacob's house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom. Then Mary said to the angel, how old is happen since I haven't had sexual relations with a man. The angel replied the holy spirit will come over you and the power of the most high will overshadow you there for the one who is to be born will be holy. He will be called God's son. Look even in her old age and relative Elizabeth has conceived to son this woman who is labeled unable to conceive is now six months pregnant. Nothing is impossible for God. Then Mary said I am the Lord's servant let it be with me. Just as you have said then the angel Lester. Mary got up and hurry to city in the Judean Highlands. She answered zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth when Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting the child left in her room and Elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit with a loud voice. She blurted out. God has blessed you above all women and he is Bless the Child you carry. Why do I have this honor that the mother of my Lord should come to me as soon as I heard your greeting the baby in my womb jumps for joy happy. Is she who believes that the Lord would fulfill the promises made to her.

Christmas has always been a very important time of the year for me. All I didn't really know it when I was growing up. My family was actually rather poor and we couldn't afford very much throughout the year, but it Christmas it was always different. There was always something special under the tree something that I really wanted. I know now that my mother probably saved up all year to be able to afford those gifts. And I know that friends and family and end people close to us also pitched in to help and I'm very appreciative of all of that. I remember every Christmas Eve we would go to my grandfather's house and all of my aunts and uncles and cousins would get together. I'm an only child. So my cousins were there and are the closest thing. I have two siblings brothers and sisters and we could all get together. And everybody would be there in even though my parents were divorced when I was very young. My father would still come to the to the the celebration with my family and everybody was together and it was a fun time. It was happy. And I remember this being so full of love and joy. I look forward to it every year and every year I was sad when it ended.

And I remember waking up on Christmas morning and going out and getting the presents. And unwrapping things and sitting with my mom and my dad was off in there, too. And just enjoying the morning and having breakfast and and being together as a family and it was a wonderful time until Christmas has always been very special to me. It's my favorite holiday, and I look forward to it every year. I look forward to it so much that I think it annoys my life, but I just love it and I've always loved it. but As time goes on as I've gotten older Christmas has become. A little less and less magical every year. It's become a little more and more sad. the past three Christmases especially have have been especially satterlee for the first was the first Christmas that I was here in Japan and I was by myself and I had a Skype video call with my family back in Austin and we open the gift together and everything but it was still very lonely Christmas. I didn't know anybody in Japan really I didn't do anything with anybody. I was living in a tiny one-room apartment. I'm about 10 ft by 10 ft Square that's that was a whole apartment.

And I had a little activity seen that I brought with me a little folding the tivity theme and I had a stalking my family had mailed me a stocking to hang up a stocking and had gifts to open that they had sent me was really wonderful, but it was still very lonely. the next year Maya my family had come to Japan and and we were enjoying getting ready for for Christmas in Japan. Christmas is actually a very fun season in Japan because there's all these lights and decorations and festivals and things the new year is how much bigger Festival in Christmas Christmas is really feeling kind of like a date night that you go out with with the one that you love which is kind of interesting but then the last it's there's all kinds of things going on and it's it's fun and it gets cold and everything and then we got the news that our dog was fifteen. So we had her since she was three or something like that coat. So we had it for a long long time and she was 15 and we found out that she had cancer and we had known this before about about 5 or 6 years earlier. She had been treated for cancer and they had they had removed everything that they found and we thought we she was fine, but we found out that had come back and then it was there was no way to cure at there was something to do and that she had about two or four weeks left and I was and so we had to go through the experience of being with her as she died and she died just the day before Christmas Eve. I'm which was very sad for all of us cuz she was a member of our family. And here in Japan, they don't do euthanasia the most part so it's very unusual to for example, put down an animal who is who is do you know, it's going to die unless they're suffering very badly. And she wasn't really suffering and so they wouldn't really put her down and so we were with her through to the end and it was very difficult time. And then the next year. 2019 Again, we were coming up on Christmas and things seemed okay. My my birthday is right before Christmas. It's in at the end of November and my birthday went really well. My wife's family was here for my birthday and they flew back to the US and just a day or two after they left. I found out that my mother had died. And so it was very unexpected. Very unexpected. And so my dad died about ten years ago. Sorry much longer than 15 years ago now and so this was my last parent really and it was it was a shocking thing. It was a really Really shocking and so then I had to fly back to the US just on you know, the two days notice and take care of all of the family child. So I was executor of the will do everything that I had to take care of all of the estate and out of the burial interment in the service and I'm actually did the service myself. I perform the service myself which people really surprised about but for me with a very important thing to do and that was so she she passed away on December 3rd. And I finished up in Austin. I'm around third week of December. I guess I came back just in time to have Christmas with my family here and it was probably the saddest Christmas I've ever had to be completely honest. I was I was really out of it by the whole time. And so that was really bad. And so this this year as Christmas has approached I have been Kind of out of it as well because Christmas was my mother's holiday me. She was really into it really really into it. And that's out of the family, you know, and and my mother and my father and my grandparents are all gone now. and so it was it's been kind of sad, but I've been trying to To let that go into 10 brace things are our Christmas tree here in Japan finally looks good for the first time in a while and I can we had that you'll get all new ornaments and lights and everything. And something seemed to be going well, and then then we found out just today actually that our cat has cancer and so he's he's 10 and we've raised him since before he was weaned. We actually had to bottle feed him first. And so now we're dealing with that or starting chemotherapy for him and I'm hoping for the best but it has just made the Christmas holidays. So sad for us me just three years in a row of sadness and it's hard when you look out and see everyone being happy and enjoy us about the Christmas season when you don't feel that way when you feel sad or when you feel grief for those you've lost or when you feel somehow disconnected from what's going on. They can be very sad, and I think we don't acknowledge that often enough.

So in a very poor segue, let's look at this text that we had today. So I'm very excited this week that we are once again are finally really moving into the New Testament in The Narrative Lectionary reading this week is actually the exact same reading that they're using in kind of the standard that lectionary then revised common lectionary uses the same reading. about

the Lord coming over the angel the Lord coming to Marion saying that you're going where you're going to be pregnant with with a very important baby and you're going to call him Jesus and all of this look on from Luke Gospel of Luke's gospel is actually my favorite of the of the four gospels each of the four gospels with written with a different audience in mind and in a different time.

We think that the Gospel of Luke in the gospel of Matthew were written more or less at the same time, you know, not exactly but pretty close and we think that Mark was probably written much earlier and that John was written much later. And so they the different gospels have different information in the story that they share depending on their lineage into and when they were written My mouth have different audiences. So Luke's Gospel of Luke to whom the gospels attributed was a companion of Paul Paul the Apostle. Or the empathy and Paul was really focused on the Gentiles. He was focused on the people who are outside of the Jewish community and bringing them in to the Christian Community and throw a lot of the preaching that he did was directly related to that and he considered himself the Apostle to the Gentiles and he worked to start churches in places where there were not large Jewish communities already in and all kinds of things like that. And so Unsurprisingly Luke's gospel is really focused on telling God's story and telling the story of Jesus to those outside the Jewish tradition. So we were this this text about the angel of God coming to Marion and telling Mary that she will bear a child is in the first chapter of of Luke's gospel. And right before this in this is kind of alluded to in the text me her today. Right right before this week near the story of Elizabeth who were told is a relative of Mary all the Run told exactly how they relate and Elizabeth and and her husband are very old and they haven't had any children and her husband is a is a priest in the temple. And he goes in one day to to laugh the incense on the Altar and an angel of the Lord comes to him and says that the wife old will give birth to a baby and that baby will help bring people to the Lord and that that that child will make Will Make Way for for the for the Hyatt who is coming. And that that child into being John the Baptist to the very important character in the New Testament who Prestige Jesus and kind of creates a we prepares the way for her people to come to Jesus software has to do something really strange. and so

Sorry, I waited. So anyway, but the point is that looks awful begins with the story on the other hand. If you take a look at Matthew's gospel, which was written about the same time, but is targeted more towards towards the Jewish community in Matthew's gospel begins with the long genealogy of Jesus because for Matthew it's important to link Jesus into the genealogy of David and then into the genealogy there for an atom to show that it did it's one long bloodline all the way leading to Jesus because for the Jewish community that was really an important aspect of story. But today kitchen talking to you that that didn't really mean a whole lot. It wasn't with it really important are as important but was more important was this kind of miraculous event first God allowing a very old couple to give birth and then of God producing a child with A virgin woman who had not had not had sexual intercourse at all with with a man. It's a thief these pieces of the story were more important to Luke's audience then forgive of genealogy. So those are the kinds of things that differ between the Gospels and people ask about why are there four gospels were there four gospels because they focus on different things not because they tell drastically different stories anyway, so Luke is focusing on the people outside the Jewish community. And in this text about about Mary we learned that that Mary is from a town called Nazareth in Galilee and Nazareth in Galilee was kind of the outskirts of of Judea and Nazareth was a tiny little town in the country. I mean this this is, you know, I grew up in Texas, but I think it would be like someone saying that you know, Jesus was born in Odessa, you know, I or or or, you know, Fredericksburg or something some little little little town where everybody knows everybody, you know where everybody is kind of freaking out an existence of time. These people were not very well-off they were you no assistance. Farmers they were just trying to get by and so I'd later in the in the gospel. There's a line that I really like or someone says, you know, what good could come from Nazareth and that that's kind of the point right? Like who would have thought that that the Messiah that the God's anointed one that the God we come from this poor unwed mother living in shame really because she's having a child out of wedlock. In the The Boondocks Countryside in a in a small town in the middle of nowhere way way way far away on the very edge. You not anywhere near Jerusalem. But you know how how could this happen? And that's really the point when that's not an accident. That's that's the point of the story the point of the story is that God chooses people who are completely unexpected to do the tasks that God needs done. God asks all to be co-creators in God's Kingdom in this world. And Jesus and Mary and Joseph are no exception here there. They're just regular people living their lives there. No one important or no one spectacular there there, you know one that anybody would know about if it weren't for Jesus, right? And so just regular people end up making a huge difference in the world.

What makes Mary so interesting in the in the the Bible is that she has so much faith in God. She know she she wonders. How can this be? How can the because I've never I've never had sexual relations. How can I have a child and the angel tells her out, you know that God will be with her and if so on and and she's like okay if you say so then then I am, you know, I believe I'm I'll do whatever you know, I'm I'm God servant I'll do whatever I need to do. And she's often looked to buy by contemporary Christians and end by Christian to the path as a symbol of this this idea of of having deep faith in God and of humbling oneself before God and and putting Gods needs above one's own needs.

They're really what I want to focus on today is the fact that she is the most unlikely person to give birth to the savior of the world that that is the kind of core message of the part of the story.

So what did that to do with my life story earlier in difficult times? I think it's really easy to think that God is not with you. I'm certainly I can imagine Mary. Or maybe even even better Joseph you here is Joseph. He's been he's been kind of betrothed to marry but they haven't been that haven't haven't actually been married yet and it won't happen until later and he finds out she's pregnant and it doesn't come up in this in this quote. But but what he does he says, well he thinks well, you know, I don't want to cause any trouble so I'll just quietly divorce her before the marriage is finalized so that so that there's no Scandal right to the there's no huge Scandal about I'm her because it cuz she got pregnant if she was betrothed and she got pregnant then that could be considered adultery. Right and she could be stoned to death and all this kind of thing. And so and so he was trying to kind of Got make it much easier on her and then Angel comes to him and says Joseph don't do that. This is what's happening. You know, this this this child is of God and all this and then he he didn't accept her and and and support her and and and love her and loves the baby and everything. But what could it be like to be in the situation? I mean surely the community around them didn't look on them very positively, you know, here was a young and young betrothed couple not even married on the woman was pregnant and you know, we don't we don't know who the father is. Although I assume I would guess that Joseph told people that he was the Father which is, you know better than than something else from a social perspective and certainly they talked about Jesus as being the son of Mary and Joseph.

But it's certainly must have been difficult. for them and then they have the fences and they have to travel and they they can't find anywhere to stay until they they end up staying and you know, I guess room and I have the baby and in what is alternate Lee translated as a stable or the major but was really like the part of the house where you kept the animals and You know they did they just had a really difficult time and I think it's easy enough time to feel like God is not with you even back what I said earlier, you know, this season is supposed to be a joyous when it's supposed to be a happy time is all of these upbeat songs and happy stories and and advertising and everything. But for a lot of people it's not a happy time for a lot of people they have pain they have grief. They have things that they're dealing with that make it very sad and you know, a lot of death comes in the winter when it's cold, where as the seasons change and it always has and so that's why you know civilizations have always celebrated the the depth of the winter as a time of death and rebirth because Yo people died in the winter a lot. Until a lot of people have to deal with the death of loved ones this time of year and even more so with this pandemic right now. And we can look at church buildings or Christmas pageants or the festive carolers and we can feel that that God. Is there the god different if we wanted to find God we need to go there go to the building's go to the pageants go listen to the carols. And if for some reason we're not there and we're not happy we might feel like God has abandoned us.

But with that story of Mary shows, is it even in our most difficult times? Even when we can't feel God's presence in our lives even in a dark night of the Soul as Mr. Called God is with us God is with you.

It wasn't through some beautiful Perfection some miraculous, you know light and and Glory. And music that God performed the greatest miracle and brought Christ into the world. It was through the lowliest in the most downtrodden of people in the most human and utterly relatable way possible with birth from a woman just like the vast majority of us experience yourself.

God comes to us wherever we are. And asks us to be co-creators in God's Kingdom. And sometimes the most authentic Christmas experience for us is one where God comes to us in the depth of our Brokenness in our grief. And reminds us that this to this broken Us in this grief. This is part of what it means to be human. Grief is part and parcel with loving. Someone grief is part of loving one another and it's difficult, but we can Take solace in the fact that God is there with us and that we are there for each other in those difficult times. So if your Christmas is not as merry as you would like it to be give yourself some Grace. Sit without emotion and listen for God in those moments of grief and sadness. And no matter how you feel be grateful with one another during this complicated season many people are hurting and even a small amount of love and forgiveness for the smallest of things can lift their spirits. Being human is a messy and complicated thing, but God is always with us. I'm in.