[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for December 21 - Part 3

[Joe Parrish]

The New Age
Every year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, there is displayed, beneath the great Christmas tree, a beautiful eighteenth century Neapolitan nativity scene. In many ways it is a very familiar scene. The usual characters are all there: shepherds roused from sleep by the voices of angels; the exotic wise men from the East seeking, as Auden once put it, "how to be human now"; Joseph; Mary; the babe -- all are there, each figure an artistic marvel of wood, clay, and paint. There is, however, something surprising about this scene, something unexpected here, easily missed by the casual observer. What is strange here is that the stable, and the shepherds, and the cradle are set, not in the expected small town of Bethlehem, but among the ruins of mighty Roman columns. The fragile manger is surrounded by broken and decaying columns. The artists knew the meaning of this e vent: The gospel, the birth of God's new age, was also the death of the old world.
Herods know in their souls what we perhaps have passed over too lightly: God's presence in the world means finally the end of their own power. They seek not to preserve the birth of God's new age, but to crush it. For Herod, the gospel is news too bad to be endured, for Mary, Joseph, and all the other characters it is news too good to miss.
Adapted from Thomas G. Long, Something Is About To Happen, CSS Publishing
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The Future of the World in the Hands of Girl
“She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. "You mustn’t be afraid, Mary," he said. And as he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.”
Frederick Buechner
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Christmas Surprises
Under a cultural-exchange program, Alan Abramsky and his family in Roanoke, Texas, were hosts to a rabbi from Russia at Christmas time. They decided to introduce him to a culinary treat that was probably not available in his country: They took him to their favorite Chinese restaurant.

Throughout the meal, the rabbi spoke excitedly about the wonders of North America in comparison to the bleak conditions in his homeland. When they had finished eating, the waiter brought the check and presented each of them with a small brass Christmas-tree ornament as a seasonal gift.

They all laughed when Abramsky's father pointed out that the ornaments were stamped "Made in India." But the laughter subsided when they saw that the rabbi was quietly crying. Concerned, Abramsky's father asked the rabbi if he was offended because he'd been given a gift for a Christian holiday.

He smiled, shook his head and said, "Nyet. I was shedding tears of joy to be in a wonderful country in which a Buddhist gives a Jew a Christmas gift made by a Hindu!" A time of miracles. A time for stories.

>From time to time we hear someone say, "Wouldn't it be great if it could be Christmas all year long." Surprise! That was God's intent. That is why God invaded our planet and gave us the gift of God's Son. There is only one thing that stands in the way of celebrating Christmas all year long.

You and I.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Bring Peace
Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world. 

Etty Hillesum, died in Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 29. From An Interrupted Life, a compilation of her diaries and letters.
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Humor: Mary vs. Eve
One week a Sunday school teacher had just finished telling her class the Christmas story, how Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem and how Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a manger. After telling the story the teacher asked, "Who do you think the most important woman in the Bible is?" Of course, the teacher was expecting one of the kids to say, "Mary." But instead, a little boy raised his hand and said, "Eve." So the teacher asked him why he thought Eve was the most important woman in the Bible.
And the little boy replied, "Well, they named two days of the year after Eve. You know, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve."


Many additional illustrations, sermons, and commentary for this week, the rest of Advent, Christmas, and the whole church year can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.


 

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