![]() A young man – Joseph by name – took his even younger wife, Mary, and they travelled from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem, the City of David, because their government told them to do so. First, what happened that Christmas night, a little over two millennia ago was quite ordinary. Luke’s telling of the Nativity Story is aimed at bringing us two very different but important messages. Resources to inspire you - and your congregation! We’re called to contemplate this meaning all the time, but in this season in particular it is vitally important to our faith.Ī SUBSCRIBER SAYS: “HEY DICK, KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! I have learned more from your sermons and the exegesis than all the schooling the Methodists can toss at me. We have twelve days – from now until the Epiphany – during which we are called upon to contemplate what the birth of Jesus – the Christ – means to us. And we cannot do that in the next few minutes. Instead, we need to CELEBRATE the arrival and consider what this season means to us as Christians. We’ve been preparing, we’ve been watchful … and now He’s here! And we CANNOT just toss out the season after this service and begin getting ready for the new year. The Season of Advent has been in full swing for the last four Sundays and has brought with it the repeated calls to be ready and to wait for the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of the world. And it does NOT begin in October, it BEGINS after sundown on Christmas Eve. No, Christmas is NOT a day, it is a SEASON. The message from the Church is this: Christmas is NOT a day – most assuredly not a day that ends as soon as the wrapping paper is gathered from under the tree and bagged. Now is the time that the counter-cultural message of the Church MUST be the strongest. By mid-December, this country has been so completely inundated by the “details,” of Christmas for such a long time, and has had to deal with so much pressure from commercial America, with its demand for bigger and better present buying, that the whole country is burned out on Christmas long before today. No one will have a hole in their calendar that late. And if you don’t have your Christmas party on the calendar by December 10th, forget about it. By the time Thanksgiving arrives, there is a full-scale shopping frenzy in American malls. No later than October, we begin hearing the familiar carols over store PA systems and seeing commercials on television with references to Santa, reindeer and, of course, gift giving. After all, the “Christmas Season,” starts as soon as the stores begin taking down their Halloween displays. In modern America it’s really a wonder we don’t see this sort of thing more often. New Year’s Eve is only a week away and I’ve got a party to plan.” I guess the thought was, “Whew, I’m glad that’s over. Now how sad is that? 9:30 on Christmas morning and the celebration is over. 9:30 on Christmas morning and someone had already removed all the lights, taken down the ornaments, removed the stand and had taken the tree outside to be disposed of. ![]() At about 9:30, as he neared the church, he walked past an apartment building and noticed that someone had thrown a Christmas tree away. It was Christmas morning and he had a service at 11:00 am. ![]() He talked about walking from his apartment in Greenwich Village to his church, near Midtown Manhattan. ![]() I read a story by an Episcopal priest from New York City, recently. In the name of the God who became human to be the Savior of humankind, Amen. Sermon Luke 2:1-20 Christmas: Not a Day but a Season
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