Emphasis Preaching Journal

Christmas Eve services take diverse formats. Some will be late afternoon services for families. Others will be traditional candlelight services of carols and readings. They may be held in early evening or at 11 p.m. Music will have a large place in the service. In my experience Christmas Eve was the most ecumenical service of the whole year in terms of worshipers. We discovered that people in the community at large would choose the church they would attend according to the type of service or the way the time fit into their family agenda. In the earlier services children would abound, all of them ready to burst due to anticipation and excitement. Given all that is running over the human circuits at Christmas I have always opted for a short and pointed meditation or sermon. In the nativity stories there are many little sparks that can leap out of the text and come alive with pertinent meaning. This passage from Isaiah is a traditional Advent or Christmas day reading. While we can understand why Christians have found meaning in these words such passages tend to perpetuate the popular view of the prophets primarily as predictors. This reading from Isaiah is a psalm of coronation sung out in the terrible days of the Assyrian invasions and deportations. The prophet envisions a restored Israel beyond her present calamities. Here is faith hanging tough in the worst of times. The epistle lesson could have value as an illustration or be saved for a fuller sermon some other day on the situation facing a third generation Christian community. OUTLINE IA morning song at midnightIsaiah 9:2-7 A. vv. 2-5. Beyond the present tragedy of the nation the prophet dares dream of a restored kingdom. It is obvious the agent of restoration is a warrior king who destroys the oppressor in a decisive battle. This vision of a warrior king was woven into the messianic expectation in Israel. "They sought a king to save them from their foes. Thou cam'st a little baby thing that made a woman cry." I forget where I came across those lines. The prophet does not predict the manger-born Jesus who would rule from a cross. But then, who could predict that? With the prophet we can trust in the continuous action of God in history, but the script is not ours to write. B. v. 6. The king was thought of as God's son by adoption. The titles applied to the king apply to governing. The second and third might well be the type of Hebrew names that carry a God-ward reference. They are not Christological statements about Jesus. C. v. 7d. "The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this." This is a bedrock conviction of a faith that hangs tough and dares to hope against hope in a world where disappointments can accumulate. "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day," written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a favorite Christmas hymn. The year 1860 found Longfellow happy in his home life, enjoying widening recognition, and elated over the election of Lincoln which he believed signaled the triumph of freedom and redemption of the nation. The following year the Civil War began and Longfellow's wife, Fanny, tragically died. She had been trimming the hair of her daughter, Edie. When she had finished she placed a lock of Edie's hair in a small package and lit a candle to meet a bar of sealing wax. Drops of the burning wax fell unnoticed on her dress. Longfellow vainly tried to smother the fire. In his diary for Christmas day 1861 he wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are the holidays." In 1862 the toll of war dead began to mount and in his diary for that year he wrote of Christmas, "A merry Christmas say the children, but that is no more from me." In 1863 his son who had run away to join the Union army was severely wounded and returned home in December. There is no entry in Longfellow's diary for that Christmas. But somehow healing set in and in a burst of passion on December 25, 1864, Longfellow wrote a seven stanza poem, Christmas Bells. In it the tragedy of his personal life blended with that of our national life as he plunged into the valley of despair. The last stanza concludes: Then pealed the bells more loud and deep; "God is not dead; nor doth he sleep! The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

OUTLINE IIExpressly for todayTitus 2:11-14 A. Something about this appeal grabs me. The epistle of Titus is directed to third generation Christians. The church has settled into history for the long pull. The writer's flock is a minority in an anything goes society. Such is ours. The writer addresses no massive social problem as we in the mainline churches are disposed to do. He speaks to each of us about the personal ordering of our lives in the light of our present and caring Lord. He uses words like self-control, upright, and godly, much out of favor today in the addictive, acquisitive and promiscuous culture. In chapter two of the epistle his words to women reveal that the church has toned down the radical and liberating words and acts of Jesus. We can overlook that for we know not what pressures the fragile church was under in that male-dominated society. But his candor nails us. We have tended to pillory the so-called old morality as being too narrow and out of date. We forget that despite its flaws, behind it is the ennobling vision of the human person called by God to morally accountable living. OUTLINE IIISparks, sparks, sparksLuke 2:1-14 (15-20) My intent here is to highlight sparks that leap out of the reading and are adaptable to brief or extended comment. A. v. 7. How many sermons have berated the innkeeper and the listeners for keeping Jesus out of their lives? There is another way to understand this text. The Greek word translated is the word topos. Topos refers to a place charged with significance. Golgotha is the topos where Jesus was executed. Luke's meaning here is capable of the interpretation that the inn was not the appropriate place for Jesus. Who stays in a motel? The tourist stays there. The business person who is in and out of town stays there. The stranger stays in the motel. (See Jeremiah 14:8) Jesus comes to stay. His interest in us is not transitory. B. vv. 4, 15. Bethlehem. Bedlam is our English word meaning a scene of uproar and confusion. The word is a corruption of the word Bethlehem. The sisters of St. Mary of Bethlehem maintained an insane asylum in London. Because of its noise and confusion the word bedlam, the cockney corruption of Bethlehem, entered the English language. Bethlehem and bedlam are related linguistically. Are they related in other ways? Bethlehem exists for bedlam. Our world is a bedlam. We are called to be Bethlehemites in the midst of bedlam. Work it out from here. C. The shepherds. Though the image of the shepherd was revered in Israel as an image of the ideal king or leader, the actual profession was not held in high esteem. Because of the irregular habits of their lives which precluded regular attendance at services, shepherds were under rabbinic ban. They were a rough cut band. New age is dawning where the first shall be last and the litmus tests laid down by class, race and piety will be declared invalid. D. v. 13. The shepherds are brought to the manger. The child in the manger is the sign. "The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand." (Isaiah 1:3) The manger-born child is a sign of the God who wills to stay among us. The bands of cloth are a sign that this is a royal child. The direction to go to Bethlehem is also part of the sign. God wills to be found again by his people.