[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for December 23 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

There Had to Be a Father
 
Pastor William Carter said that on his Christmas vacation on his first year in college, he had become an expert on the birds and the bees. Biology was his major, and after a semester in the freshman class, he was certain that he knew more biology than most adults did in his hometown ... including his minister. A few days before Christmas, he stopped in to see him. He received him warmly and asked how he had fared in his first semester. "Okay," he replied, avoiding the subject of his mediocre grades. But then he told his pastor, "I've come home with some questions."
 
"Really?" the pastor replied. "Like what?"
 
"Like the virgin birth. I've taken a lot of biology, as you know," which meant one semester in which he received a B-, "and I think this whole business of a virgin birth doesn't make much sense to me. It doesn't fit with what I have learned in biology class."
 
"What's the problem?" he asked.
 
"There had to be a father," he announced. "Either it was Joseph or somebody else."
 
His pastor looked at him with a coy smile and said, "How can you be so sure?"
 
"Oh, come on," he said. "That's not the way it works. There had to be a father."
 
His pastor didn't back down. Instead he said something that Carter said he'll never forget: "So - why not God?"
 
Why not, indeed? The more we learn, the harder it is to swallow a lot of things that once seemed so palatable. Advent is a season of wonder and mystery. We tell our children stories at this time of year that we would never dare tell when it is warmer and there is more sunlight. The really wise child is the kid who knows how to shut his mouth even when he has a few doubts. But sometimes it is hard to do, especially when you have a whole four months of college behind you.
 
William G. Carter, Praying for a Whole New World, CSS Publishing Company.
 
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Joy to the World
 
Consider the story of one young man. Sick and puny as a baby, he remained frail and delicate all his days. Later, as a pastor, his maladies were so severe that he could not serve his growing congregation. Instead he wrote them letters filled with hope and good cheer. Even though his body was frail his spirit soared. He complained once about the harsh and uncouth hymn texts of his day. Someone challenged him to write a better one. He did. He wrote over 600 hymns , mostly hymns of praise. When his health finally broke in 1748 he left one of the most remarkable collections of hymns that the world has ever known. His name? Isaac Watts. His contribution to the Christmas season? Probably the most sung of all the Christmas hymns, "Joy to the World; the Lord is come." 

Could Isaac Watts have written so, if his life had been easy? I don't know. It is amazing, though, how often persons who have everything are spiritual zeroes, whereas those who struggle through life have souls with both depth and height. 

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com 
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Walk or Fly
 
A little girl, dressed as an angel, in a Christmas pageant was told to come down the center aisle. The child asked, "Do you want me to walk or fly?" You feel as though she almost could have flown. Don't ever lose the wonder and mystery of Christmas. 
 
Every year I'm reminded of those words of the late Peter Marshall: "When Christmas doesn't make your heart swell up until it nearly bursts and fill your eyes with tears and make you all soft and warm inside then you will know that something inside of you is dead."
 
James T. Garrett, God's Gift, CSS Publishing Company. 
 
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God Is the Happiest Being in the Universe 
 
Perhaps we need Santa at Christmas to help us be merry and joyous because we have a flawed understanding of Jesus. From today's gospel text we learn that the first reaction to Jesus' presence on earth, of God-in-our-midst, was joy. Joy so tremendous, joy so utterly overwhelming that it must somehow escape the bounds of earth itself and jump towards the heavens. 

In John Ortberg's wonderful book The Life You've Always Wanted (Zondervan, 2002), he writes: 

We will not understand God until we understand this about him: "God is the happiest being in the universe" (G. K. Chesterton). God knows sorrow. Jesus is remembered, among other things, as a 'man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.' But the sorrow of God, like the anger of God, is his temporary response to a fallen world. That sorrow will be banished forever from his heart on the day the world is set right. Joy is God's basic character. God is the happiest being in the universe. 

Joy is what makes Christmas. Each of us may look to some annual family tradition to trigger that joy. But the trees, the carols, the cookies, the presents, the parties, are only various expressions of a single experience of the spirit JOY born again into our souls. 

Leonard Sweet, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
 
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Slow Down and Welcome Christmas

"The Christmas spirit comes on me more slowly than it used to," writes Joan Mills, a mother of three children, in her book Christmas Coming. "But it comes, it comes. Middle-aged (most of the time) and jaded (some of the time), I complain of plastic sentiment, days too brief, bones too weary. Scrooge stands at my elbow muttering, "Bah!" and "Humbug!" as I total the bills. But when I acknowledge the child I once was (and still am, somewhere within), the spirit of Christmas irresistibly descends."

"For Christmas is truly for children those we have, and those we have been ourselves. It is the keeping-place for memories of our age in lovely ritual and simplicities. 

"I'm tired," I say fretfully. "There's just too much to do! Must we make so much of Christmas?" "Yes!" they say flatly. 

"But bayberry, pine and cinnamon scent the shadowed room. Snow lies in quiet beauty outside. I hear someone downstairs turning on the tree lights while another admires. I lie very still in the dark. From the church in the village on the far side of the woods, carillon notes fall faint and sweet on winter clear air. 

"Silent night," my heart repeats softly. Holy night. All is calm All is bright. 

"As I take the stairs lightly going down, no bones weary now, my whole self is thankful; once again, I am flooded with the certainty (call it faith) that there's goodness in the world, and love endures." 

Leonard Sweet, adapting Joan Mills, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com 

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Pick Up the Baby
 
Sam Levenson tells a wonderful story about the birth of his first child. The first night home the baby would not stop crying. His wife frantically flipped through the pages of Dr. Spock to find out why babies cry and what to do about it. Since Spock's book is rather long, the baby cried a long time. Grandma was in the house, but since she had not read the books on childrearing, she was not consulted. The baby continued to cry. Finally, Grandma could be silent no longer. "Put down the book," she told her children, "and pick up the baby." 

Good advice. Put down the book and pick up the baby. Spend time with your children. Particularly at Christmastime. We have the mistaken notion that good parents give their children lots of things. Wrong...
 
The rest of this illustration, as well as many additional illustrations and sermons for this week, Christmas, and New Year's can be accessed at www.Sermons.com. 
 
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