First Sunday of Advent--A Christmas Journey

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT: A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY Spring Valley Mennonite; November 28, 2021; Isaiah 40:3 It's the most wonderful time of the year! I love the excitement of children, the beautiful decorations, the traditions of the season, and especially the opportunity to remember the greatest miracle of all: the arrival of God the Son in the manger of Bethlehem, certainly the greatest birth of all time. This morning we begin the Advent Season and begin a Christmas journey of discovery, remembrance, and preparation as we travel the ancient roads to Bethlehem and consider the miracle of the incarnation. One of the most popular secular Christmas songs is "I'll Be Home for Christmas!" Our thoughts turn toward home at Christmas, wherever we define home to be. I think this tendency is because of the warm family memories most of us have of Christmas celebrations in our past. In our present-day culture, where many families are far-flung, gathering as a family at Christmas usually entails traveling. If you have traveled very far at this time of the year, you probably have some "Christmas weather travel stories" (So I'll share one of ours!). One Christmas, while we were in Seminary, we were driving from Dallas to North Carolina. There had been a rare north Texas snow and ice storm, and traffic was moving slowly. We were following a car pulling a trailer when the driver tried to speed up. Suddenly, right in front of us the trailer jackknifed blocking the road. We only had time to cry out "Jesus!", and somehow God moved the trailer out of the way, and we were able to pass without mishap. We count that as one of our "Christmas traveling miracles!" Have you ever considered all the traveling which we find in the Christmas accounts? After Mary learned from the Angel Gabriel that she was to be the mother of God's Son, and that her relative (I wonder if it wasn't an aunt) was also pregnant, we find Mary traveling to see Elizabeth. Later, Mary and Joseph joined many others traveling to their ancestorial home to register for the census, traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The wise men traveled from Persia to Jerusalem, then to Bethlehem; the shepherds traveled from the fields to the manger; Mary and Joseph traveled to Egypt and later, back to Nazareth. But of course, all this traveling was nothing compared to the greatest journey ever made: when God the Son traveled from heaven to earth to become the infant in the manger. Seemingly, everyone was traveling that first Christmas, including God Himself! So perhaps traveling at Christmas is part of a pattern established long ago. Even if we don't personally plan on going anywhere for the holidays, there is an opportunity and, yes, even a need for us to take a spiritual journey. During these next four weeks of the Advent season, I want us to go on such a journey. We won't need to leave our homes , or pack suitcases, or make reservations for lodging. This is a journey we take in our minds; it is a journey to draw near to the heart to God. For this season presents an opportunity to focus on the miracle of God's grace and mercy; to draw closer to God as we examine His great love gift to us and to all mankind. This is a journey of mental preparation, and just as we decorate our homes and spend time shopping for Christmas gifts, we need to prepare our hearts. For if we do not make such a spiritual preparation, Christmas will only be a busy, stressful secular holiday. When we turn the calendar over to 2022, we will heave a sigh of relief that it is all over. I think the innkeeper provides the best example of one who missed what Christmas was all about due to busy-ness. I pray none of us will miss making this spiritual Christmas journey. When we come to Christmas Day, it is my prayer that we will be prepared to meet the newborn Christ Child with great appreciation and reverence. Shall we anchor our thoughts in Scripture this morning? Isaiah 40:3 speaks of a spiritual journey: "A voice is calling, 'Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.'" As we begin to prepare our hearts for celebrating the incarnation, I would highlight this Christmas prophesy, which gives the example of: I. A HIGHWAY THROUGH THE WILDERNESS Matthew 3 identifies this voice which cried out in the wilderness as that of John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets. John belonged to the long line of Old Testament prophets who spoke to Israel, even though we read of him in the New Testament. His ministry forms a bridge between the Old and New Testaments. John came preaching a message of repentance. His goal was to break down the stony hearts of the people and prepare the way for Jesus' ministry. This verse speaks of a desert wilderness. I once visited Death Valley in California; I cannot imagine a more inhospitable place on earth! It was a hot and barren place, a place of great thirst. The Judean wilderness which Isaiah knew, and in which John preached is described as "An exceedingly hostile environment of rock and stone." This truly is the picture of the heart of mankind, is it not? The heart without God is like a desert wilderness, bleak, unproductive, dry, hard and crusty. It is desperately in need of water, living water that only Christ can give. Pastor and author Stuart Briscoe spoke on this issue of man's hardness of heart: "Our problem with God stems from the fact that we are moral failures. Every last one of us is in trouble because of this." Briscoe points out that the Bible uses several words to describe our moral failure: The first word is: * Sin: This describes a failure to do what I am told to do: The Bible clearly defines what is right and what is wrong. Our sins describe failing to achieve God's standard; it's like missing the target, falling short, like an arrow shot toward a target, but falling short. Paul put it like this: "For all have sinned and fall short of God's glory." * Trespass: This is insisting on doing what I am forbidden to do (like wanting to climb over the fence which has a "No trespassing sign"). * Iniquity: This means polluting or perverting what is good; perhaps the best example is what modern culture has done with human sexuality-God's delightful gift to humanity which has been twisted and perverted. Such polluting of the good is the meaning of "iniquity" and we all do it. We take what is good and twist it to our advantage and satisfaction. A fourth word which rounds out our sin problem is: * Guile: This is projecting what is false, presenting yourself as something you are not. The hypocrite is an example of one practicing guile; he pretends to be on the outside what he is not on the inside. We all qualify as moral failures, "sinners" because of the sum total of all these things; we are all guilty. And God keeps track-within the fellowship of the Trinity, God said, first about Adam then for every person: "We've got a moral failure on our hands." This is the first of four facts of reality: We are moral failures. The second fact is that God is truly righteous and just. This is God's divine nature. He is the complete opposite of us, in a moral sense. He is totally holy. The third fact is that we cannot do anything about fact one or two! We can't go back and undo what we have done-our sins, trespasses, iniquities and guile are on the record and it cannot be erased. And we cannot do anything about God's character of holiness-we cannot change God's holiness. This brings us to the fourth fact: God is totally free to do with us what He wants to do. This brings us to the question: Has God given us any indication of what He wants to do? This is the basis of understanding the whole reason for Christmas! What is God going to do with all mankind, created in His own image, the highest of His creation, but each of which is a moral failure, alienated from a Holy and Righteous God? His answer is given at Christmas: "I'm going to send My Son as the Savior of the World." Back to Isaiah 40:3, Isaiah paints a word picture of building a road through rugged terrain, over mountains and rough ground. It is a wilderness highway. Notice that the highway is not for man to walk upon: look at the verse-Who is the road for? "Clear the way FOR THE LORD-for our God." Isaiah is painting a picture with words: he is speaking of the Messiah coming to earth, and of the way that was needed to be prepared. The hearts of the people were like the rugged and inhospitable Judean wilderness. So in fulfillment of this prophesy, John the Baptist came preaching a message of repentance-of turning away from self and sin and turning toward God-the message of repentance clears the way for God to come to man. Because we are moral failures, each of our hearts is a roadless wilderness. But through the message of the Gospel-that Jesus took our sins, trespasses, iniquities and guile upon Himself at the Cross and paid in full the penalty of death due us; through understanding and believing this message, and desiring to have our heart changed, we can have a relationship with God. THIS is what God has decided to do! You see, we must understand that the Christmas story, the story of God giving mankind His greatest Gift, this story continues past Bethlehem to an empty tomb just a stone's throw from a rocky hill called Calvary. But the story, which was begun before the foundation of the world, the earthly phase of which began that first Christmas, continues on and on and on as it is internalized by each individual who hears and believes and then places his faith in the Promised One, Jesus Christ. And the wilderness in each heart continues to be tamed as we walk daily with our Savior. God's plan for each one of us is to make the wilderness into a beautiful and fruitful garden, divided by pathways of righteousness. If I may ask a question right here, what is the state of your own heart? If one has not trusted Christ as their Forgiver and Sin Bearer, then they may feel incomplete and guilty. This actually is very good, for it means that God is speaking to them. Even if they feel nothing when we speak of them and of God, if they are still at the point of considering whether what I am explaining has any personal application, I would applaud such a person for being here today. I would challenge such a one to consider Jesus and His offer to forgive their sins and give them eternal life. Christmas provides a wonderful opportunity to consider the claims of Jesus Christ. If you are a believer, as I would suppose most of you are, I would ask you this question: are there areas of resistance still untamed in your heart? As we consider the truth contained in Isaiah 40:3, "Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God." Picture your life as a road on which you are walking. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, He is on that road with you. How smooth is your road? Are you walking closely with Him? Are you walking hand in hand? Or have you become sidetracked? Have you wandered away from a closeness to the Savior? I invite you this morning to think about anything which stands between you and God. As you gaze down this life road, do you see stony barriers? Would you say there are mountains or rough places affecting your close walk with the Lord? God says, "Clear it out; make it smooth." Road improvement begins with a desire to walk closely with God. There is no use of speaking of improving a highway if one doesn't plan to use it! This brings us to a sort of a crossroad in our thinking this morning: II. A CHRISTMAS CROSSROAD We have a choice right now as we enter the Advent Season: there are four more weeks before Christmas Day when we commemorate the birth of Jesus. While we call a decision point in our lives a "crossroad", it is really more like a fork in the road. Right now, we have a choice before us: how are we going to prepare ourselves for Christmas? We all have traditions of one sort or another in celebrating Christmas-we have some of them here at church also. Most of these traditions are really neutral, depending whether they are kept in proper perspective. Traditions are not the issue: the issue is this: Are we going to move closer toward God this season, or are we going to get caught up in the busyness and celebrations and ignore our Savior and the honor He deserves every day? Am I going to sing: "Let every heart prepare Him room" and mean it? We can follow the world and largely ignore the spiritual side of Christmas. That is one direction your road can take this Christmas. There is worldly grinch who steals Christmas every year from believers-the grinch of whirlwind shopping and activities which leaves us so exhausted that we have no mental energy left for spiritual thoughts; the grinch of preparing for guests coming, or for programs for which to prepare. Those things CAN steal the joy and worship and closeness of God which make Christmas truly a wonderful time of the year. Which fork of the road are you going to take this year? Let me give you some ideas for how to take the correct road in our Christmas journey: How do we... III. BEGIN(NING) OUR JOURNEY (?) We begin with purposing in our heart that this year we will take a spiritual journey during these next weeks, not just on Sunday but each day. Sunday is a great day to begin, and I would encourage each of you to be regular in attendance these next weeks as we together explore the Biblical events and meaning of Christmas. I would encourage you to read and meditate upon the Biblical texts regarding the coming of the Messiah. The first two chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke contain the Christmas story, as do the prophets who predicted the coming of Messiah. Read and meditate on several of these verses every day during this period leading to Christmas. There are many published things which will assist you in spiritual preparation, many Advent devotions will help focus your attention each day in the next month. I would also recommend listening to Christmas music, filling your home and cars with the beautiful sounds of Christmas as you listen. I recommend Christian radio during this season. It may take a bit of discipline to keep your mind filled with good things, but Christmas songs which tell of Christ are a wonderful way to take the best fork in the road. Christmas is well worth celebrating in song. Christmas is also the season of giving to others. There are many opportunities to donate to the less fortunate, Angel trees are easy to find, as we can provide gifts for children; we can donate to the Salvation Army Christmas kettles, or even volunteer to ring a bell. Many mission organizations publish "gift catalogs" listing opportunities like giving a pair of chickens, or a goat, or a sewing machine to a needy person in another country. I would strongly suggest making plans to use the season to get to know a neighbor a bit better. For instance, distributing a plate of Christmas cookies is a great way to meet or bless neighbors. One of our Church traditions is to go Christmas caroling and to distribute plates of cookies. I know of one instance where our caroling and plate of cookies encouraged someone to move past personal bitterness and back to the Lord. Christmas gives us a perfect opportunity to reach out in kindness and love to someone who desperately needs it. We speak of the "Christmas Spirit" and whether we have it or not: Today is a wake- up call that the Advent Season has begun. It is time to begin preparing our hearts in a special way for remembering our dear Savior's birth. Lay plans right now for your spiritual journey toward Christmas. 2