It Just Doesn't Feel Like Christmas This Year
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Dear Fellow Preachers,
The Christmas season can be an especially difficult time for those struggling with depression. Something about the contrast between the cheeriness of the season and the reality of people's lives seems to exacerbate existing depression and may even bring it on in others.
So for this week's installment of The Immediate Word, we've asked team member Charles Aaron to write about how the church can speak to those who are depressed, using the lectionary reading from Isaiah 40:1-11 as a basis. We've also included another approach by team member Carlos Wilton, titled "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and it is based on other texts. Between the two, you'll find a lot of preachable material on depression.
As usual, you will find team comments, related illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon as well.
It Just Doesn't Feel Like Christmas This Year
By Charles Aaron
Isaiah 40:1-11
The Christmas season is usually a complex time for our feelings. With all of the uplifting music and the expectation of Christmas "cheer," it feels as though we are expected to be happy. Advent and Christmas do not always find us feeling happy, however. Even in average times, the weeks before Christmas can leave us frazzled, stressed, and simply longing for it to be over.
If Christmastime just by itself is difficult, it is especially trying for people who struggle with depression. Even though depression is much more prevalent than many people think, it is a misunderstood condition. Depression has different causes and levels of severity. Depression affects people in different ways. Some depression is a medical condition, such as bipolar disorder, caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Other forms of depression arise from a specific event, such as unresolved grief. Sometimes depression goes away on its own; sometimes drugs or verbal therapy is needed, and sometimes depression is chronic, resisting even the best medical interventions.
People who work in mental health have long known that depression can grow worse during the holiday season. If we are lonely the rest of the year, Christmastime can intensify the loneliness. If we are grieving over the death of a loved one, that person's absence becomes downright palpable during the holidays. If we are unemployed and unable to buy gifts, the disappointment on our children's faces burns even more deeply into our hearts. Sometimes, just the contrast between the Christmas trappings with the bright decorations and peppy songs, and our own blue mood can make us feel more isolated.
A recent article in Newsweek highlights the seriousness of depression.1 The article is specifically about teen depression, a widely misunderstood situation, and the article points out several aspects of the problem. Depressed adolescents are often misdiagnosed. Parents think their children are just going through a "phase." Mental illness, including depression, still carries a stigma. The article even mentions a psychiatrist who advised the parents of a 14-year-old girl to keep her suicide attempt a secret to avoid stigma. Untreated adolescent depression can lead to risky behavior, such as sexual promiscuity, excessive drinking and drug use. Depression at a young age can leave a child isolated in the present and prone to more serious mental illness later in life. The article declares that as many as eight percent of adolescents (about three million) struggle with depression.
Although the scriptures have much to say about sadness (see Jeremiah 8:14-9:1), the biblical writers did not have a sophisticated understanding of depression. The preaching of the church is not a substitute for medical intervention when it is needed. Nevertheless, we can speak to depression and bring the light of the gospel into this darkness.
The Old Testament lectionary text for December 8 is Isaiah 40:1-11. This oracle was written for a dispirited community. The Judean exiles had tasted defeat, deportation, deprivation, and despair. The poet we know as Second Isaiah wrote to encourage and empower them. The passage arises not out of scientific research, but from mythology. The divine council speaks, and the prophet somehow hears the words from on high. The word that comes from the divine council is a word of comfort.
Despite this unscientific approach, Second Isaiah's oracle makes several connections with the modern-day experience of depression. These pre-modern insights are not the only help we would want to give people who are depressed, but they can touch anyone at a deep place in the soul and help in healing.
The oracle recognizes that the Judean exiles are in a "wilderness" experience. The wilderness is both a metaphor and an allusion. As a metaphor, wilderness connotes isolation, barrenness, displacement. As an allusion, the term harks back to the wilderness wanderings of the Hebrew slaves who escaped from Egyptian oppression. This allusion serves as a reminder that the people had been in difficult times before, but the Lord had seen them through.
The unidentified "voice" which the prophet hears tells him to "prepare the way of the Lord" in the wilderness. Into the despair of the wilderness the Lord brings hope. Things will change, not only existentially, but also concretely. The circumstances that have led to the despondency of the exiles will change. The Lord will act. The Lord will work through Cyrus of Persia to bring the exiles back home. One of the characteristics of depression is a sense of hopelessness. Depressed people can't see how things will change. A part of the preaching message concerning depression is that bad situations can be transformed and/or can be left behind. The message of the text to "prepare" the way of the Lord is instructive. Sometimes, taking concrete action to change can be a positive step for depressed people.
The oracle declares God's turn toward the exiles as an offer of forgiveness. The time of punishment for sins has ended; guilt has been removed. Excessive guilt feelings are part of the baggage of depression. Preachers can speak a word of forgiveness and reconciliation during Advent to ease the burden of guilt. Depression can make forgiveness hard to hear. Depressed people can think that their sins are so dark they can never be forgiven. The preacher may need to stress the assurance of God's mercy.
The last verse of the oracle describes a sense of community among the soon-to-be-reconstituted people of Judah. They will experience God's presence and nurture ("He will feed his flock like a shepherd"). Depression often arises out of dysfunctional families and broken relationships. The preaching ministry of the church can work to heal such brokenness. By attending to verse 11, a sermon can speak to the isolation that depressed people experience. The church can be a support group that nurtures others and helps to strengthen families.
The preaching ministry of the church is only one of its responses to depression. The church addresses this problem through pastoral care and referral and education. A word from the pulpit about how seeking help can actually be a sign of strength can help with the stigma of therapy. The church also advocates for more and better mental health facilities and for improved insurance coverage. The church works to strengthen families. Poverty is a frequent cause and/or contributor to depression, so the church's work to alleviate poverty is part of its ministry in depression. These aspects of the church's response can be named from the pulpit.
In a sermon that speaks to depression, a preacher can offer hope, comfort, and release from guilt. The coming of the Christ-child into the world's many wildernesses is an act of God's grace. God reaches out to us in our loneliness and sadness. The coming of Christ is cause for joy, a deeper experience than Christmas cheer. God's grace, seen definitively in the Christ-event, can bring healing of body, mind, and soul. Without being simplistic, the preacher can hold out the possibility of God's healing in circumstances of depression. We should avoid telling depressed people to "snap out of it," but we can affirm the possibility that God can heal. Where healing is not to come by God's direct intervention, the hope created by God's love can sustain us if we cannot yet escape the wilderness.
Notes
1 Pat Wingert and Barbara Kantrowitz, "Young and Depressed," Newsweek (October 7, 2002), 52-60.
Team Comments
Carter Shelley responds: Your material on "the Christmas blues" causes me to regret that I am not scheduled to preach this Sunday. I love the way you have focused upon the lectionary text's historical and emotional situation of the people the prophet addresses. While their political situation does not parallel that of 21st century Americans, the need for comfort, hope, and assurance that God is with us remains crucial, especially in the season of Advent.
In your references to Deutero-Isaiah 40:1-11, I would make some language distinctions to help the congregation not get sidetracked or confused by the juxtaposition of "scientific research" and "mythology.". When people get into debates about the historicity of the Creation stories in Genesis versus the theory of evolution, they often assume that both sides are claiming their interpretation as factual when neither can legitimately make that claim. The Genesis creation stories present "truth" about God's role in creation, and truths can be discovered in myths and in the kinds of insights that prophets such as Isaiah offer in this text.
Irrespective of one's place on the mental health spectrum (if there is such a thing), everyone has experienced depression or the blues during the Christmas season at some time or another. When I was in seminary, many of my married classmates had to deal with guilt feelings about which of their families they'd spend Christmas with each year, because neither set of parents seemed willing to be gracious and take turns. I was fascinated and appalled by how often parents of these young adult children would make them feel really awful:
"Christmas won't be the same without you."
"You can't come here for Christmas? But you have to."
"Your mother has been crying for a week over this decision. Now, I know, ________'s parents will understand you have to spend Christmas with us."
My parents have always been wonderful about Christmas expectations. The year I was 19 I was studying in Manchester, England, and could not afford to return to South Carolina for Christmas. My father wrote me a really nice letter telling me what a unique and wonderful opportunity I had to celebrate Christmas in England; therefore, I shouldn't feel bad about not being with my family. Of course, they would miss me, but they knew I had an opportunity there, I might never have again, and should make the most of it. He was right. I stayed with an English housemate whose father was an Anglican vicar, and I got to participate in all the worship and celebrative aspects of Christmas with Felicity and her family, and it was a wonderful experience.
The way we emphasize family, being together, and good cheer during the Christmas season makes the more than 50 percent of our population who do not live in traditional family settings feel like there's something wrong with them, or that it isn't possible to enjoy Christmas if one doesn't fit the Norman Rockwell image. You've alluded to many such situations in your piece. The emotionally rawest include:
* Someone whose spouse has died in previous year.
* Someone who has been through a divorce in the previous year.
* Children who have lost parents during the previous year.
* Anyone with loved ones in the military stationed either in war zones or too far away to come home for the holiday.
* Single people of all shapes and stripes: widows and widowers, unmarrieds and never marrieds, gay couples who have to celebrate Christmas apart due to secrecy of relationship and lack of acceptance by their birth families, merchants, ministers, highway patrol personnel, police, anyone who has to work extra hours due to the needs of the public during the holiday.
What can Christians do to support one another in the face of the Christmas blues? You make some good suggestions. I would reiterate the role the church community plays for church members, especially those who are single and those who've got good reasons to be sad at Christmas. How much richer are most of our celebrations when we include others in addition to our immediate families. Christians need each other and need to take care of each other. Moreover, the depressed or really sad person needs others to take the initiative to get him or her out to activities and events that bring that person into contact with other people. It's not that hard to do, but it does take intentionality on the part of the church staff and congregation.
One of the best holidays I ever had was one where I invited six single or widowed women over the age of 65 and five single young adult women (I was the sixth) over for a post-Christmas service luncheon. Of course, everyone offered to bring something to contribute to the meal, and it was an afternoon that extended into the early evening, because the lives of the older women were a revelation to the younger ones and vice versa. As a result, we started having a group that informally gathered for lunch each Sunday after church and a splendid bond was established between groups.
In the biblical texts for the day, God's prophets call God's people to account and to a more hopeful and communal future. If they repent and return to God, God can be in relationship with them and they will be able to have a full relationship with God, their neighbors, and themselves. Depression alienates the individual from himself or herself almost as much as it alienates us from others. Being restored to a right relationship with God makes possible community with one's fellow human beings.
Larry Hard responds: The sequence of the sermon is excellent: recognizing different reasons for depression, relating that to the Christmas season, reference to the recent article in Newsweek and the limitations of pre-modern insights of scripture, before moving to the Isaiah text. The development of the text is also very helpful.
What I would need as a preacher are real life stories about how persons feeling depressed in this season have found help. The abstractions about how the preacher can offer "home, comfort, and release from guilt" and that God does heal are true, but what does this mean? Are there avenues of help for those feeling depressed during the holidays? Examples of persons feeling free to experience the tears when alone or with others, or reaching out to others such as making visits or doing some other ministry, accepting the depression as a means of deepening the spiritual life, etc., would give direction to both those feeling depressed and those who wish to help them.
George Murphy responds: It's important for the preacher to keep in mind who he or she pictures as the primary addressees of the sermon -- those who are depressed or those who aren't. For the latter, an important part of the message should be to try to understand, support, and help -- as is appropriate -- those who are depressed for one reason or another. This may include preachers and counselors -- though of course they may be depressed too!
Those who are depressed may be so for various reasons -- genuine clinical depression, seasonal affective disorder, the stress of the "holiday season," post-Christmas letdown, sadness about the absence of loved ones for various reasons, etc. -- or some combination thereof.
The basic gospel message is the same for all, but it must be addressed to people in ways that make contact with their situations. The Isaiah 40 text can certainly be helpful, but it is necessary to realize that someone suffering from clinical depression isn't in just the same situation as that of the exiles 2500 years ago, so the message requires some translation.
And more broadly, both law and gospel need to be spoken. While the gospel should receive the primary emphasis, some people, e.g., those with unrealistic expectations about the holidays, gifts, etc., may need to hear a realistic word of reproof first.
An Alternative Approach
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
By Carlos E. Wilton
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Philippians 3:17-4:1
"As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him." (Genesis 15:12)
I can still remember -- maybe some of you can, too -- how it felt to be a child, going to bed in the dark.
"The Dark" was that shadowy curtain that fell over Jim's and my bedroom, the second Mom clicked off the light switch. The Dark, in our mind's eye, was the realm of "ghosties and ghoulies and odd little beasties" (in Robbie Burns' words). The Dark was the last place any self-respecting kid wanted to be.
There were only two things to do, in defense against The Dark: burrow down deep under bedspreads and blankets (which did not make breathing very easy) -- or use a nightlight.
Of those two choices, Jim and I generally went for the nightlight option. We had a variety of them over the years: mostly the plug-in electric type. The best nightlight, though, didn't plug into the electric socket at all. It was the glow-in-the-dark white-plastic cross I'd won, one summer, in vacation Bible school, for memorizing 21 scripture verses, in the King James Version.
For vanquishing The Dark, that little cross couldn't be beat. You'd hold it up to a lamp for five minutes or so, before turning in. Then you'd set it up on the dresser: and there it would glow, with a dim, blue light -- a beacon of reassurance in a gloomy world. It didn't last all night, of course: just long enough for Jim and me to get to sleep. And that's all we cared about.
Besides, we figured, that was no ordinary nightlight. It was a cross. Even Count Dracula stayed away from crosses. Maybe that was why, after one of our babysitters left it too close to a hot light bulb during the charging-up phase, and the top part of it drooped sadly over to the right, we still kept it around.
Are you afraid of the Dark? Abram is, in today's Old Testament lesson. And he's a grown man.
Genesis 15 says, "A deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him." It's strange that Abram should feel so scared, because he's just heard the greatest news of his life.
"Look toward heaven and count the stars," the Lord has promised, "if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be." That's just the sort of pledge a near-eastern nomadic chieftain like Abram would have cherished, above all others: a multitude of descendants.
More than that, the Lord has just instructed Abram in the first step of the ancient covenant-making ceremony. The Lord has directed him to bring in the sacrificial animals: a cow, a goat, a ram, and a couple of birds. Abram doesn't need to be told what to do next. He cuts each animal in two, laying the bloody halves across from each other -- forming a grisly sort of gauntlet for the covenant partners to walk.
In the usual order of things, two people making covenant would then walk between the halves of the butchered animals -- thereby witnessing to the general public that, if either one were ever to break that covenant, may it go with them as it did with the poor, unfortunate beasts. "Cross my heart, and hope to die," kids still say to one another, in making a solemn promise; this is the kind of thing the Lord and Abram are doing.
That's what Abram expects to happen, anyway; but what do you do when your covenant partner is the Lord? You sit down and wait for the Lord to come.
Abram waits a very long time. As the animal carcasses lie rotting in the hot sun, he continues to wait. He waits so long, he has to run over to the sacrificial site, waving his arms like a madman, and shouting -- how else to frighten the vultures away? Still, the Lord does not arrive, to seal the bargain.
This is when Abram becomes afraid -- afraid of the dark. The sun has gone down, and he falls asleep -- or is it a trance? The "deep and terrifying darkness" descends upon him.
In the darkness, Abram has a vision. "A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between the pieces" of the butchered animals. As Abram receives this vision, he knows that the Lord has made covenant with him indeed.
Some parts of the Bible just seem to belong to a different era -- and surely, this is one. It's hard for the likes of you and me to relate to this ancient rite of covenant-making: the promise of many descendants ... the blood and gore of the butchered animals ... the careful precision with which Abram arranges the carcasses, following a ritual older than history -- older, it seems, than time itself.
Maybe the only thing you and I can relate to is the darkness -- and the fear of it.
Abram's experience of God that day is not all sweetness and light. On the contrary, it is filled with fear and trembling. Sitting there in the desert darkness, head in his hands, exhausted by the efforts of the day -- the rounding-up and slaughtering of the animals, the chasing-away of the vultures, the interminable waiting -- Abram goes into a kind of trance, a dream state. The darkness he enters, then, is "deep and terrifying." It seems voracious: capable of swallowing him whole.
Some of you have known that kind of darkness. Maybe it was a time in your life when dreams were shattered ... or hopes were dashed ... or illness intruded (physical or mental) ... or maybe a loved one died, leaving you lonely. In that dark hour, you wondered where God was. You shouted questions at the cosmos that included the word "fairness." You wondered if you would ever be able to pray again.
In the movie, The Empire Strikes Back, there is that scene when Luke Skywalker goes off to learn from the Jedi Master, Yoda. After some weeks of careful instruction, Yoda reluctantly sends Luke into a thick, overgrown swamp, crawling with slithering snakes and dark beasts with glowing eyes. It is a place, Yoda tells him, where "the Dark Side" is strong. In that mysterious and horrifying gloom, Luke does battle -- not so much with the creatures that live there, as with his own psyche. It is a grueling and psychologically bruising experience, from which he emerges with his sanity barely intact.
Maybe that was what Abram's "deep and terrifying darkness" was like. Maybe it was something like the experience we know as "depression."
It's a common enough experience, depression. The psychologists tell us it's among the most common of mental disorders. Sometimes depression is situationally induced, brought on by experiences of grief or loss; other times, it is chronic -- caused either by a chemical imbalance, or by some mysterious cause the psychologists can't identify.
Depression, in its mildest form, can be an inconvenience; in its most extreme form, it can be debilitating. Depression can lead its victims to sleep, night and day; or to withdraw themselves from interaction with others, taking shelter behind a barricade of silence.
Listen to these words that were written by a 40-year-old victim of depression, named Harriet:
"I had this dream. I was standing on the beach. A tidal wave was sweeping toward me. It was massive -- a massive wave crested by a rim of fire. I felt tiny. I knew there was no way out. I was about to be overwhelmed. As the wave hit I decided not to fight it; I decided to go with it, to let it take me. It caught me up, sucked me up to its crest and carried me ashore. I didn't die.
"That's when I learned my depression was teaching me not to fight it or try to defeat it. It was teaching me to ride it, to use it, to go to new places in myself and in my life.
"Now I consider my depression my ally. Which doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I am. But I own the fear, I ride the fear; the fear doesn't own or ride me. I listen to what it has to tell me."
Then there's the experience of another depressed person, who wrote in a letter to his brother, "I think the game is up! ... I believe no man has ever had greater difficulties and less means to extricate himself from them." The writer of that letter had nearly abandoned hope, in the year 1776 -- when he and the soldiers under his command were encamped in the frozen snows of Valley Forge, some of them without so much as shoes for their feet.
George Washington is the author of that letter. Of him and his men, in that critical hour of our nation's history, perhaps the words of Paul in Second Corinthians apply:
"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed...."
Sometimes, I think, God leads us into darkness. We are led there for a purpose -- a purpose that may not appear clearly at the time, but which emerges only later, with hindsight. It is in darkness, sometimes, that faith is tested and refined; it is through struggle that you and I grow stronger; it is through pain that we learn to prevail. It's like the coaches say to athletes who are entertaining fantasies of quitting: "No pain, no gain."
The preacher Peter Marshall once uttered this prayer: "Lord, when we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure."
Sometimes what you and I need most, in a time of darkness, is not instantaneous light -- but perseverance. Just as dawn follows midnight, God's light can be counted upon to enter, in time, even the darkest, most seemingly God-forsaken corners of this human life of ours. What it takes, in such an hour, is a spirit that refuses to be cowed by darkness, that will not permit itself to be inundated by dark floodwaters of depression -- that, to borrow an image from the mental patient I've just quoted, ceases its floundering and allows the wave to carry it ashore. "When you give up on yourself," a wise person has observed, "you've committed a crime, and it carries with it a life sentence."
If you ever visit the Vatican in Rome, you're sure to take a look at St. Peter's Cathedral. Just inside the entrance of that greatest church in all Christendom, off to the left, is the baptistry. The great baptismal font is set atop a stone base of red jasper.
There may not seem to be, at first glance, much about that red stone base to attract attention. But in fact, it is the coffin-lid of the Roman Emperor, Trajan. Now Trajan was one of the most hated and feared persecutors of Christians. It surely must have seemed, to those desperate believers hiding away in the catacombs of Rome, that the Emperor Trajan's power was without limit. Yet the day came when even he died. And the church ultimately triumphed. New converts to the faith, ever since, have stood upon Trajan's coffin-lid to confess faith in Christ and be baptized. Sometimes the only thing to do with darkness is to wait it out.
Such was the practice of the author of the hymn, "O God, In a Mysterious Way." (You may know it better under its old title, "God Moves In a Mysterious Way.") William Cowper was his name; he lived in 18th century England.
Cowper had reached the point, in his spiritual life, that is sometimes called "the dark night of the soul." He felt he had tried every avenue, turned to every understanding person he knew, vainly seeking to lift his depression. But nothing worked. No solution was in sight.
Finally, one foggy night, he called for a horse and driver. Cowper asked the driver to take him to London Bridge; he didn't tell the cabbie it was his plan to commit suicide by throwing himself off the bridge.
Not only was it a foggy night, it was one of those famous London fogs -- so thick you could barely see your hand in front of your face. After driving around in the mist for over two hours, the cabbie admitted to his passenger that he was lost -- he couldn't find London Bridge, not in that fog. Disgusted by the driver's incompetence, Cowper left the cab. He was sure he could find his way to the river on foot.
Walking but a short distance, Cowper discovered that he was back at his own doorstep. He and the cabbie had been traveling in circles, all night!
It was then that William Cowper caught a vision that was brighter than his interior darkness. He recognized the hand of God at work. Re-entering his house, he turned to the Lord in prayer; and, wonder of wonders, the prayers he had felt bottled up inside him for so long came rushing out, at long last. After the prayers came the warming of his heart -- and then the tears.
Cowper then took pen in hand and wrote a poem, that became the basis for this famous hymn:
"O God, in a mysterious way Great wonders you perform; You plant your footsteps in the sea, And ride upon the storm....
O fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head."
Are you afraid of the dark? You have good reason to be -- for the darkness of this life can truly be "deep and terrifying," as Abram discovered. Yet sometimes, if you and I hang on long enough and trust God earnestly enough, we will glimpse, in the midst of that darkness, a vision of light. For Abram, the vision took the form of those numberless stars, spangling the heavens -- he could never have glimpsed their gentle light, were it not for the darkness. For Abram, also, it was "a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch," passing between the pieces of those butchered animals; once again, it was only in the darkness that he could glimpse the presence of God. Who knows what form the vision will take, for you or for me?
The particular form of the vision doesn't much matter. What's most important is the insight that, as the old spiritual-writer puts it, "Trouble's long, but hope is longer...."
Truly, hope is longer ... light is brighter ... faith is deeper.
Related Illustrations
As a cause of situational depression, bankruptcy has to be high on the list, even with the reduced public stigma that now seems to accompany it. According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal (November 26, 2002, D3), for the three-month period ending September 30, 2002, the number of bankruptcies has reached the highest point ever, rising 12 percent from the year earlier to a total of 401,306. For the 12-month period ending September 30, they reached 1.6 million, again the highest in history.
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How can Christians help those struggling with job loss, bankruptcies and the like? Jonathon Smith of Lima, Ohio, tells of something done in his church: "Our church does not have a tree decorating ceremony or event, but rather we "undecorated" the tree. Small paper ornaments identifying needs of local families/individuals are initially hung on the tree. Members then remove the ornament(s) of their choice and purchase/obtain the needed item and place it under the tree. The goal is to have a completely "undecorated" tree. Near Christmas all the items are then distributed to the families/individuals with the needs.
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"The Winter of Our Discontent" refers to winter in a metaphorical sense. Those of you who read a lot may remember a novel by John Steinbeck that bears this same title. If you've read that book, you may recall that it is about a crisis in the life of a man that takes place between Good Friday and just after the Fourth of July. So it's clearly not a story about the winter season.
If you are even more well read, you may know that Steinbeck borrowed the phrase as well. It comes from Shakespeare's play, King Richard III, where the line reads: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York" (I, i). It is spoken by the Duke of Gloucester, as he thinks about directing a plot against the English king. Richard is obviously a man who is discontent with his present circumstances.
When we fall in love for the first time, we sometimes speak of "springtime in the heart." When everything is going well, we might describe it as "a time of endless summer." Or in the later years of life, we sometimes refer to the "autumn years."
That leaves winter. Winter, at least in the northern climes, is the bleakest of the seasons and as such is sometimes used to connote a dark or bleak mood, a kind of despair or depression. It can be symbolic of a "what's-the-point-of-it-all" frame of mind. For those times, the "winter of our discontent" is an apt phrase.
(from Stan Purdum, "The Winter of Our Discontent," March 21, 1999)
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In an old book called Lanterns on the Levee, William Percy, an American who fought in WW I, narrated how he and some of his comrades felt when the war ended. He described the physical relief, the freedom from fear, and the gladness that the killing was over. But then he added:
Each of us was repeating to himself in his own dim words something I heard crying out in me: "It's over, the only great thing you were ever part of. It's over, the only heroic thing we all did together. What can you do now? Nothing, nothing. You can't go back [to your old job]. You can't go on with that kind of thing till you die."
That short period of my life spent in the line is the only one I remember step by step ... Not that I enjoyed it; I hated it. ... but it, somehow, had meaning, and daily life hasn't.... ([New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941], 222-223)
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Martin Luther King, Jr., though noted primarily for his civil rights leadership, once made a good observation about this soul weariness. He said, "Burnout is surrender ... We have just so much strength. If we give and give and give, we have less and less and less -- and after a while ... we're so weak and worn, we hoist up the flag of surrender. We surrender to the worse side of ourselves, and then we display that to others." He went on to say that it can be called depression or burnout, but it can also be called "the triumph of sin -- when our goodness has been knocked out from under us" (quoted in Context, March, 15, 1994).
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The writers of the Bible were no strangers to depression. In the wilderness when the people of Israel complained about the food, Moses cried out to God, "I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once" (Numbers 11: 14-15). The author of Psalm 42 inquired, "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?" Job said, "My soul is weary of my life" (Job 10:1 KJV). Even Paul, who had such strong faith, wrote to the Corinthian Christians about "the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself" (2 Corinthians 1:8).
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Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author best known for his book, War and Peace, had serious struggles with a terror that life was meaningless. This caused him such great depression that for a time, he would not handle a gun for fear of what he might do to himself.
For Tolstoy, peace came through turning to Christ and through absorbing himself in labor to help his fellow human beings. He found that his anxiety increased when he worried about the origin or end of life, but that peace came when he threw himself into involvement with the concerns of others. To be sure, he had reoccurring bouts with depression, but on the whole, he found that it usually abated when he worked for the good of others.
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There is a form of depression that strikes some people and does not go away, at least not without treatment. It may be referred to as clinical depression, chronic depression, or recurrent depression. Thankfully, I have never suffered this myself, but I have a friend who has, and looking at it from the outside, I can tell you it's a very difficult thing to live with. Also, I gather that if you've not experienced it yourself, you cannot fully understand it.
My friend Frank had a wife and children, a job he liked and a pretty good life, but he would drop into long periods of deep gloom that little by little were destroying all that. There were times when I saw him locked in an inertia that made me want to just kick him in the pants and say, "This is silly. Get moving and stop dribbling your life away," but that just showed how hard it is for someone who's not suffered from it to understand it.
Over several years, Frank spent a fortune on counselors, psychiatrists, and antidepressant medicines, none of which seemed to bring him any lasting relief. Finally he decided to go through electroconvulsive therapy (sometimes called electroshock therapy). This is a treatment of last resort, for it has some significant effects beyond the help it is intended to render. In this therapy, which is usually done in a series of 8-12 separate treatments, electric current is sent through the patient's brain inducing a seizure, which in turn is supposed to produce the desired therapeutic effect. One side effect is that some portions of the patient's memory may be wiped out. In Frank's case, although his depression was somewhat alleviated by the treatment, he lost all memory of his oldest son's babyhood and the other things that happened in that time period.
The treatment helped, and I don't think Frank regretted going through it, but he hated the actual procedure, and even afterward, he was not totally cured.
We may think of depression as simply a gloomy or hopeless mood, and that is part of it, but for some people, there is more than that to it. (From Stan Purdum)
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Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. (Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History [New York: Scribner, 1952])
Worship Resources
By Chuck Cammarata
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Everywhere you look there is darkness.
People: JESUS SAYS, "I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD."
Leader: Wars and rumors of wars fill the airwaves.
People: JESUS SAYS, "DO NOT BE TROUBLED. I GIVE YOU MY PEACE."
Leader: The depressed, worn out, and sick surround us.
People: JESUS SAYS, "COME TO ME ALL OF YOU WHO ARE BURDENED, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST."
Leader: The emptiness of so many hungry souls haunts us.
People: JESUS SAYS, "I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE. COME AND BE FILLED"
Leader: And death finally comes to us all.
People: JESUS SAYS, "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN ME SHALL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE ABUNDANT LIFE."
Leader: Come, let us celebrate the light,
People: THE PEACE,
Leader: The rest,
People: THE MEANING,
Leader: The life,
People: THAT HAVE ALL BEEN GIVEN,
Leader: Through the Babe of Bethlehem.
People: AMEN.
If your congregation lights an Advent wreath, this would be a good place for the lighting
As an alternative, the above call to worship can be done as a reading for several readers. See below for one example of how it could be done.
Reader 1: Everywhere you look
Reader 2: There is darkness.
Reader 4: Jesus says, "I am the light of the world."
Reader 3: Wars and rumors of wars fill the airwaves.
Reader 4 Jesus says, "Do not be troubled. I give you my peace.
Reader 1: The depressed,
Reader 2: The worn out,
Reader 3: And the sick surround us.
Reader 4: Jesus says, "Come to me all of you who are burdened, and I will give you rest."
Reader 1: The emptiness of the world's hungry souls haunts us.
Reader 4: Jesus says, "I am the Bread of life."
Reader 2: And death finally comes to us all.
Reader 4: Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me shall not perish, but shall have abundant life."
Reader 3: So come, let us celebrate the light,
Reader 1: The peace,
Reader 2: The rest,
Reader 3: The meaning,
Reader 1: And the life,
Reader 2: That have all been given to us
Reader 3: Through the Babe of Bethlehem.
Reader 4: Amen.
ADVENT CANDLE LIGHTING
Also included this week are several dramatic readings for those of you who like to do something different for the ceremony of lighting the Advent candle wreath. The readings are done first person by a prophet, a shepherd, and Mary the mother of Jesus. (This assumes you have already lit the first candle last Sunday.)
THE PROPHET
Once - long ago - in a time when there was darkness and fear upon the land - God gave these words to be spoken:
(pause)
The time will come, my people - when there will be no more sorrow for the sad.
For the people walking in darkness will see a great light;
And God will enlarge us and increase our joy;
So we will rejoice as people rejoice at a plentiful harvest,
For just as God once defeated the enemies of his people
He will again shatter them, and the chains that bind us will be broken
Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood
will be burnt as fuel for the fire -- no longer needed
For to us a child will be born, to us a son will be given, and the government will be on
his shoulders -- and he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
And of the growth of his government and of peace there will be no end.
He will reign over his kingdom, upholding it with justice and righteousness forever
And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on him-
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD-
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will make his judgments
with justice he will make decisions for the poor of the earth.
In his kingdom the wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion together;
and a little child will lead them.
They will neither harm nor destroy one another under his rule
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
And all the nations will rally to him --- and it will be glorious
These words were given by God nearly 3,000 years ago
And I give them to you again today
For a child has been born
And in every heart where he rules
There is peace and power -- wisdom and love
And glory upon glory shall be to these hearts
Light two candles
THE SHEPHERDS
Ordinary is the word you would use to describe me.
All my life I've been nothing but ordinary.
I have an ordinary family - a wife and a couple of kids.
I have an ordinary job - working in the fields outside Bethlehem on a sheep farm.
I don't have any extraordinary talents or lots of money or incredible looks
I'm just an ordinary guy - like most of you
Not that ordinary is bad - it's just that there was nothing in my life that qualified me to be privileged to be visited by an army of angels who sang and announced the most important event in all of human history - to me and a couple of other completely ordinary guys
Doesn't make sense
You'd think - the greatest of all Kings is coming -- he'd certainly want a bigger and better audience for the birth announcement than a few not too important - not too well dressed - not too powerful - shepherds half asleep on a hillside
You'd think - but - God - the true God is so very different from what we expect or want him to be
We think he's all power and wrath and judgment
And there is that - immense power - hatred of sin - but these qualities are tempered by and put in the service of his love
That is his essential character - love - given freely - not to the successful or influential or even the especially deserving - but to anyone - great or small - ordinary or special - given to anyone
I think that's what his birth was all about - it made it clear to all that this king isn't just interested in important people - this king is interested in - in love with - all people
When the first angel appeared to us - and we were terrified - the angel said to us - Be not afraid for I bring to you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people
I guess the joy really is meant for all the people
Light three candles
MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS
Some people say - all babies are beautiful - but I distinctly remember looking at him when Joseph laid him in my arms just after he was born and thinking - he doesn't look at all like a savior.
His head was misshapen - his complexion was spotty - his nose seemed too big for his face. I decided he would never get by on his looks.
But as I pondered these things in my heart, I realized that if he was to truly accomplish the work God had set out for him - it would have to be based on a lot more than looks or physical strength or any special talent or even on intelligence.
It would have to be based on having a huge heart.
And I remembered the old story of how God chose young David to be king. God said to Samuel who was confused because God seemed to have rejected all of Jesse's strong handsome sons - God said to Samuel - Humans look on the appearance, Samuel - but I look on the heart
You will have a whole church full of children before you this morning. Some will be big and strong - some smaller and weaker. Some will be beautiful to the eye and others not as much. Some will be brilliant students and others will struggle with their schooling - some will be graceful athletes or dancers and others will be clumsy.
And all around you the people of this world will be judging them based on these things
Let me ask you to do something for me this morning.
When you look at people all around you these next few days - try to look at them as their papa in heaven does - try to see what is in their hearts.
There are few things that have more potential to change the world than seeing each other with heaven's eyes.
Light all four candles.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Leader: At night, lying on my bed, wide awake, I sometimes wonder,
"Are you really there, Lord?"
People: "ARE YOU REAL AT ALL?"
Leader: I saw a little boy hit by a car today.
People: WHERE WERE YOU?
Leader: I heard that 42 million people have A.I.D.S.
People: WHERE ARE YOU?
Leader: A man on TV said he hates gays in your name.
People: HOW CAN YOU ALLOW THAT?
Leader: And yet, the stars sparkled in the night sky last evening,
People: AND THE BLANKET OF SNOW WAS BEAUTIFUL,
Leader: And some carolers serenaded my soul,
People: AND I REMEMBERED
Leader: All the works of God,
People: HOW YOU GAVE OF YOURSELF
Leader: To suffer and die,
People: AND HOW YOU ROSE AGAIN,
Leader: And I came to see that in the suffering
People: AGAINST THE HATRED,
Leader: Beyond death,
People: YOU ARE WITH ME.
Leader: For you are Emmanuel
People: GOD WITH US.
HYMNS AND SONGS
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel -- is very good for the topic of depression
Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light
I Wonder As I Wander
Lo! How A Rose E'er Blooming
One Small Child
Amy Grant's "Emmanuel" would be wonderful as a special piece of music
Also, for those who have soloists, "The Christmas Shoes" by Newsong is a wonderful song. Accompaniment tapes can be purchased for this song.
A Children's Sermon
By Wesley Runk
Text: Isaiah 40:1-11
Object: a blanket of the kind a child would use for a sense of comfort
Good morning, boys and girls. This is our season of Advent, which means we are preparing to welcome Jesus into the world. It is a time when we take a good look at ourselves and try to get ready for the birth of Jesus. Sometimes when we look at ourselves we are not always happy with what we see. Are you always happy? (let them answer) Sometimes there are things that make us unhappy, like when we are told that it is bedtime and we are not ready to go to bed. Sometimes we are asked to eat food on our plate that we don't want to eat, and that makes us unhappy. Sometimes we are asked to share our favorite toy or we want to play with the toy our cousin or friend has and we don't get to. That makes us unhappy. We can be pretty unhappy people, can't we? (let them answer)
I brought along with me this morning something that many little people like to have with them when they are unhappy. (show them the blanket) Do any of you have a favorite blanket? (let them answer) I have a little friend who always likes to have his favorite blanket when he goes to bed. But my little friend also likes to have the blanket when he is unhappy. It makes him feel better. Moms and dads are pretty good at making their children feel better, but for many children, the blanket is also a must. No matter how bad my little friend feels, he always feels better when he has the blanket.
Sometimes we can't figure out why we feel bad, we just know that things are not right. It could be the weather, but it isn't always the weather. We feel bad sometimes when the sun is out and there is a gentle breeze. It could be because someone we love is feeling bad, but that doesn't always explain it either. It could be because we want to do something special, but we don't always get to do special things. We feel bad. It just happens. Sometimes we get up from a nap and we feel great and sometimes we get up and we don't feel so good.
What are we going to do when we feel like this? (let them answer) Some of us still have our blankets, but there is another answer and one that people have been using for years. The answer is God! God is something like the blanket. You always want God near when you are in trouble or when you just feel bad. The Bible talks about how God feels when his children get into trouble or feel bad. We hear the words of the Bible when it says, "Comfort, O comfort my people." God comforts us. He listens to our troubles and shelters us against the bad feelings we have.
When I was young, I really liked having my blanket near me at all times. When I grew up, I began to feel differently and I wanted to read words that made me feel better. I found those words in the Bible. When I was young, I really liked my blanket, but then when I got a little older I wanted to pray to my Father in heaven. When I was young and I just felt as if I were all alone, my God told me to go out and share with others the gifts that I had. When I did what he asked, I felt a lot better. God is so close and such a great comfort.
The next time you see someone with their blanket you can remember how good the blanket makes the person feel. But when you see that blanket maybe you will also think of your Father in heaven and how he comforts us with our Bibles, our prayers, and our willingness to share his love with others.
The Immediate Word, December 8, 2002, issue.
Copyright 2002 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
The Christmas season can be an especially difficult time for those struggling with depression. Something about the contrast between the cheeriness of the season and the reality of people's lives seems to exacerbate existing depression and may even bring it on in others.
So for this week's installment of The Immediate Word, we've asked team member Charles Aaron to write about how the church can speak to those who are depressed, using the lectionary reading from Isaiah 40:1-11 as a basis. We've also included another approach by team member Carlos Wilton, titled "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and it is based on other texts. Between the two, you'll find a lot of preachable material on depression.
As usual, you will find team comments, related illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon as well.
It Just Doesn't Feel Like Christmas This Year
By Charles Aaron
Isaiah 40:1-11
The Christmas season is usually a complex time for our feelings. With all of the uplifting music and the expectation of Christmas "cheer," it feels as though we are expected to be happy. Advent and Christmas do not always find us feeling happy, however. Even in average times, the weeks before Christmas can leave us frazzled, stressed, and simply longing for it to be over.
If Christmastime just by itself is difficult, it is especially trying for people who struggle with depression. Even though depression is much more prevalent than many people think, it is a misunderstood condition. Depression has different causes and levels of severity. Depression affects people in different ways. Some depression is a medical condition, such as bipolar disorder, caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Other forms of depression arise from a specific event, such as unresolved grief. Sometimes depression goes away on its own; sometimes drugs or verbal therapy is needed, and sometimes depression is chronic, resisting even the best medical interventions.
People who work in mental health have long known that depression can grow worse during the holiday season. If we are lonely the rest of the year, Christmastime can intensify the loneliness. If we are grieving over the death of a loved one, that person's absence becomes downright palpable during the holidays. If we are unemployed and unable to buy gifts, the disappointment on our children's faces burns even more deeply into our hearts. Sometimes, just the contrast between the Christmas trappings with the bright decorations and peppy songs, and our own blue mood can make us feel more isolated.
A recent article in Newsweek highlights the seriousness of depression.1 The article is specifically about teen depression, a widely misunderstood situation, and the article points out several aspects of the problem. Depressed adolescents are often misdiagnosed. Parents think their children are just going through a "phase." Mental illness, including depression, still carries a stigma. The article even mentions a psychiatrist who advised the parents of a 14-year-old girl to keep her suicide attempt a secret to avoid stigma. Untreated adolescent depression can lead to risky behavior, such as sexual promiscuity, excessive drinking and drug use. Depression at a young age can leave a child isolated in the present and prone to more serious mental illness later in life. The article declares that as many as eight percent of adolescents (about three million) struggle with depression.
Although the scriptures have much to say about sadness (see Jeremiah 8:14-9:1), the biblical writers did not have a sophisticated understanding of depression. The preaching of the church is not a substitute for medical intervention when it is needed. Nevertheless, we can speak to depression and bring the light of the gospel into this darkness.
The Old Testament lectionary text for December 8 is Isaiah 40:1-11. This oracle was written for a dispirited community. The Judean exiles had tasted defeat, deportation, deprivation, and despair. The poet we know as Second Isaiah wrote to encourage and empower them. The passage arises not out of scientific research, but from mythology. The divine council speaks, and the prophet somehow hears the words from on high. The word that comes from the divine council is a word of comfort.
Despite this unscientific approach, Second Isaiah's oracle makes several connections with the modern-day experience of depression. These pre-modern insights are not the only help we would want to give people who are depressed, but they can touch anyone at a deep place in the soul and help in healing.
The oracle recognizes that the Judean exiles are in a "wilderness" experience. The wilderness is both a metaphor and an allusion. As a metaphor, wilderness connotes isolation, barrenness, displacement. As an allusion, the term harks back to the wilderness wanderings of the Hebrew slaves who escaped from Egyptian oppression. This allusion serves as a reminder that the people had been in difficult times before, but the Lord had seen them through.
The unidentified "voice" which the prophet hears tells him to "prepare the way of the Lord" in the wilderness. Into the despair of the wilderness the Lord brings hope. Things will change, not only existentially, but also concretely. The circumstances that have led to the despondency of the exiles will change. The Lord will act. The Lord will work through Cyrus of Persia to bring the exiles back home. One of the characteristics of depression is a sense of hopelessness. Depressed people can't see how things will change. A part of the preaching message concerning depression is that bad situations can be transformed and/or can be left behind. The message of the text to "prepare" the way of the Lord is instructive. Sometimes, taking concrete action to change can be a positive step for depressed people.
The oracle declares God's turn toward the exiles as an offer of forgiveness. The time of punishment for sins has ended; guilt has been removed. Excessive guilt feelings are part of the baggage of depression. Preachers can speak a word of forgiveness and reconciliation during Advent to ease the burden of guilt. Depression can make forgiveness hard to hear. Depressed people can think that their sins are so dark they can never be forgiven. The preacher may need to stress the assurance of God's mercy.
The last verse of the oracle describes a sense of community among the soon-to-be-reconstituted people of Judah. They will experience God's presence and nurture ("He will feed his flock like a shepherd"). Depression often arises out of dysfunctional families and broken relationships. The preaching ministry of the church can work to heal such brokenness. By attending to verse 11, a sermon can speak to the isolation that depressed people experience. The church can be a support group that nurtures others and helps to strengthen families.
The preaching ministry of the church is only one of its responses to depression. The church addresses this problem through pastoral care and referral and education. A word from the pulpit about how seeking help can actually be a sign of strength can help with the stigma of therapy. The church also advocates for more and better mental health facilities and for improved insurance coverage. The church works to strengthen families. Poverty is a frequent cause and/or contributor to depression, so the church's work to alleviate poverty is part of its ministry in depression. These aspects of the church's response can be named from the pulpit.
In a sermon that speaks to depression, a preacher can offer hope, comfort, and release from guilt. The coming of the Christ-child into the world's many wildernesses is an act of God's grace. God reaches out to us in our loneliness and sadness. The coming of Christ is cause for joy, a deeper experience than Christmas cheer. God's grace, seen definitively in the Christ-event, can bring healing of body, mind, and soul. Without being simplistic, the preacher can hold out the possibility of God's healing in circumstances of depression. We should avoid telling depressed people to "snap out of it," but we can affirm the possibility that God can heal. Where healing is not to come by God's direct intervention, the hope created by God's love can sustain us if we cannot yet escape the wilderness.
Notes
1 Pat Wingert and Barbara Kantrowitz, "Young and Depressed," Newsweek (October 7, 2002), 52-60.
Team Comments
Carter Shelley responds: Your material on "the Christmas blues" causes me to regret that I am not scheduled to preach this Sunday. I love the way you have focused upon the lectionary text's historical and emotional situation of the people the prophet addresses. While their political situation does not parallel that of 21st century Americans, the need for comfort, hope, and assurance that God is with us remains crucial, especially in the season of Advent.
In your references to Deutero-Isaiah 40:1-11, I would make some language distinctions to help the congregation not get sidetracked or confused by the juxtaposition of "scientific research" and "mythology.". When people get into debates about the historicity of the Creation stories in Genesis versus the theory of evolution, they often assume that both sides are claiming their interpretation as factual when neither can legitimately make that claim. The Genesis creation stories present "truth" about God's role in creation, and truths can be discovered in myths and in the kinds of insights that prophets such as Isaiah offer in this text.
Irrespective of one's place on the mental health spectrum (if there is such a thing), everyone has experienced depression or the blues during the Christmas season at some time or another. When I was in seminary, many of my married classmates had to deal with guilt feelings about which of their families they'd spend Christmas with each year, because neither set of parents seemed willing to be gracious and take turns. I was fascinated and appalled by how often parents of these young adult children would make them feel really awful:
"Christmas won't be the same without you."
"You can't come here for Christmas? But you have to."
"Your mother has been crying for a week over this decision. Now, I know, ________'s parents will understand you have to spend Christmas with us."
My parents have always been wonderful about Christmas expectations. The year I was 19 I was studying in Manchester, England, and could not afford to return to South Carolina for Christmas. My father wrote me a really nice letter telling me what a unique and wonderful opportunity I had to celebrate Christmas in England; therefore, I shouldn't feel bad about not being with my family. Of course, they would miss me, but they knew I had an opportunity there, I might never have again, and should make the most of it. He was right. I stayed with an English housemate whose father was an Anglican vicar, and I got to participate in all the worship and celebrative aspects of Christmas with Felicity and her family, and it was a wonderful experience.
The way we emphasize family, being together, and good cheer during the Christmas season makes the more than 50 percent of our population who do not live in traditional family settings feel like there's something wrong with them, or that it isn't possible to enjoy Christmas if one doesn't fit the Norman Rockwell image. You've alluded to many such situations in your piece. The emotionally rawest include:
* Someone whose spouse has died in previous year.
* Someone who has been through a divorce in the previous year.
* Children who have lost parents during the previous year.
* Anyone with loved ones in the military stationed either in war zones or too far away to come home for the holiday.
* Single people of all shapes and stripes: widows and widowers, unmarrieds and never marrieds, gay couples who have to celebrate Christmas apart due to secrecy of relationship and lack of acceptance by their birth families, merchants, ministers, highway patrol personnel, police, anyone who has to work extra hours due to the needs of the public during the holiday.
What can Christians do to support one another in the face of the Christmas blues? You make some good suggestions. I would reiterate the role the church community plays for church members, especially those who are single and those who've got good reasons to be sad at Christmas. How much richer are most of our celebrations when we include others in addition to our immediate families. Christians need each other and need to take care of each other. Moreover, the depressed or really sad person needs others to take the initiative to get him or her out to activities and events that bring that person into contact with other people. It's not that hard to do, but it does take intentionality on the part of the church staff and congregation.
One of the best holidays I ever had was one where I invited six single or widowed women over the age of 65 and five single young adult women (I was the sixth) over for a post-Christmas service luncheon. Of course, everyone offered to bring something to contribute to the meal, and it was an afternoon that extended into the early evening, because the lives of the older women were a revelation to the younger ones and vice versa. As a result, we started having a group that informally gathered for lunch each Sunday after church and a splendid bond was established between groups.
In the biblical texts for the day, God's prophets call God's people to account and to a more hopeful and communal future. If they repent and return to God, God can be in relationship with them and they will be able to have a full relationship with God, their neighbors, and themselves. Depression alienates the individual from himself or herself almost as much as it alienates us from others. Being restored to a right relationship with God makes possible community with one's fellow human beings.
Larry Hard responds: The sequence of the sermon is excellent: recognizing different reasons for depression, relating that to the Christmas season, reference to the recent article in Newsweek and the limitations of pre-modern insights of scripture, before moving to the Isaiah text. The development of the text is also very helpful.
What I would need as a preacher are real life stories about how persons feeling depressed in this season have found help. The abstractions about how the preacher can offer "home, comfort, and release from guilt" and that God does heal are true, but what does this mean? Are there avenues of help for those feeling depressed during the holidays? Examples of persons feeling free to experience the tears when alone or with others, or reaching out to others such as making visits or doing some other ministry, accepting the depression as a means of deepening the spiritual life, etc., would give direction to both those feeling depressed and those who wish to help them.
George Murphy responds: It's important for the preacher to keep in mind who he or she pictures as the primary addressees of the sermon -- those who are depressed or those who aren't. For the latter, an important part of the message should be to try to understand, support, and help -- as is appropriate -- those who are depressed for one reason or another. This may include preachers and counselors -- though of course they may be depressed too!
Those who are depressed may be so for various reasons -- genuine clinical depression, seasonal affective disorder, the stress of the "holiday season," post-Christmas letdown, sadness about the absence of loved ones for various reasons, etc. -- or some combination thereof.
The basic gospel message is the same for all, but it must be addressed to people in ways that make contact with their situations. The Isaiah 40 text can certainly be helpful, but it is necessary to realize that someone suffering from clinical depression isn't in just the same situation as that of the exiles 2500 years ago, so the message requires some translation.
And more broadly, both law and gospel need to be spoken. While the gospel should receive the primary emphasis, some people, e.g., those with unrealistic expectations about the holidays, gifts, etc., may need to hear a realistic word of reproof first.
An Alternative Approach
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
By Carlos E. Wilton
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Philippians 3:17-4:1
"As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him." (Genesis 15:12)
I can still remember -- maybe some of you can, too -- how it felt to be a child, going to bed in the dark.
"The Dark" was that shadowy curtain that fell over Jim's and my bedroom, the second Mom clicked off the light switch. The Dark, in our mind's eye, was the realm of "ghosties and ghoulies and odd little beasties" (in Robbie Burns' words). The Dark was the last place any self-respecting kid wanted to be.
There were only two things to do, in defense against The Dark: burrow down deep under bedspreads and blankets (which did not make breathing very easy) -- or use a nightlight.
Of those two choices, Jim and I generally went for the nightlight option. We had a variety of them over the years: mostly the plug-in electric type. The best nightlight, though, didn't plug into the electric socket at all. It was the glow-in-the-dark white-plastic cross I'd won, one summer, in vacation Bible school, for memorizing 21 scripture verses, in the King James Version.
For vanquishing The Dark, that little cross couldn't be beat. You'd hold it up to a lamp for five minutes or so, before turning in. Then you'd set it up on the dresser: and there it would glow, with a dim, blue light -- a beacon of reassurance in a gloomy world. It didn't last all night, of course: just long enough for Jim and me to get to sleep. And that's all we cared about.
Besides, we figured, that was no ordinary nightlight. It was a cross. Even Count Dracula stayed away from crosses. Maybe that was why, after one of our babysitters left it too close to a hot light bulb during the charging-up phase, and the top part of it drooped sadly over to the right, we still kept it around.
Are you afraid of the Dark? Abram is, in today's Old Testament lesson. And he's a grown man.
Genesis 15 says, "A deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him." It's strange that Abram should feel so scared, because he's just heard the greatest news of his life.
"Look toward heaven and count the stars," the Lord has promised, "if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be." That's just the sort of pledge a near-eastern nomadic chieftain like Abram would have cherished, above all others: a multitude of descendants.
More than that, the Lord has just instructed Abram in the first step of the ancient covenant-making ceremony. The Lord has directed him to bring in the sacrificial animals: a cow, a goat, a ram, and a couple of birds. Abram doesn't need to be told what to do next. He cuts each animal in two, laying the bloody halves across from each other -- forming a grisly sort of gauntlet for the covenant partners to walk.
In the usual order of things, two people making covenant would then walk between the halves of the butchered animals -- thereby witnessing to the general public that, if either one were ever to break that covenant, may it go with them as it did with the poor, unfortunate beasts. "Cross my heart, and hope to die," kids still say to one another, in making a solemn promise; this is the kind of thing the Lord and Abram are doing.
That's what Abram expects to happen, anyway; but what do you do when your covenant partner is the Lord? You sit down and wait for the Lord to come.
Abram waits a very long time. As the animal carcasses lie rotting in the hot sun, he continues to wait. He waits so long, he has to run over to the sacrificial site, waving his arms like a madman, and shouting -- how else to frighten the vultures away? Still, the Lord does not arrive, to seal the bargain.
This is when Abram becomes afraid -- afraid of the dark. The sun has gone down, and he falls asleep -- or is it a trance? The "deep and terrifying darkness" descends upon him.
In the darkness, Abram has a vision. "A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between the pieces" of the butchered animals. As Abram receives this vision, he knows that the Lord has made covenant with him indeed.
Some parts of the Bible just seem to belong to a different era -- and surely, this is one. It's hard for the likes of you and me to relate to this ancient rite of covenant-making: the promise of many descendants ... the blood and gore of the butchered animals ... the careful precision with which Abram arranges the carcasses, following a ritual older than history -- older, it seems, than time itself.
Maybe the only thing you and I can relate to is the darkness -- and the fear of it.
Abram's experience of God that day is not all sweetness and light. On the contrary, it is filled with fear and trembling. Sitting there in the desert darkness, head in his hands, exhausted by the efforts of the day -- the rounding-up and slaughtering of the animals, the chasing-away of the vultures, the interminable waiting -- Abram goes into a kind of trance, a dream state. The darkness he enters, then, is "deep and terrifying." It seems voracious: capable of swallowing him whole.
Some of you have known that kind of darkness. Maybe it was a time in your life when dreams were shattered ... or hopes were dashed ... or illness intruded (physical or mental) ... or maybe a loved one died, leaving you lonely. In that dark hour, you wondered where God was. You shouted questions at the cosmos that included the word "fairness." You wondered if you would ever be able to pray again.
In the movie, The Empire Strikes Back, there is that scene when Luke Skywalker goes off to learn from the Jedi Master, Yoda. After some weeks of careful instruction, Yoda reluctantly sends Luke into a thick, overgrown swamp, crawling with slithering snakes and dark beasts with glowing eyes. It is a place, Yoda tells him, where "the Dark Side" is strong. In that mysterious and horrifying gloom, Luke does battle -- not so much with the creatures that live there, as with his own psyche. It is a grueling and psychologically bruising experience, from which he emerges with his sanity barely intact.
Maybe that was what Abram's "deep and terrifying darkness" was like. Maybe it was something like the experience we know as "depression."
It's a common enough experience, depression. The psychologists tell us it's among the most common of mental disorders. Sometimes depression is situationally induced, brought on by experiences of grief or loss; other times, it is chronic -- caused either by a chemical imbalance, or by some mysterious cause the psychologists can't identify.
Depression, in its mildest form, can be an inconvenience; in its most extreme form, it can be debilitating. Depression can lead its victims to sleep, night and day; or to withdraw themselves from interaction with others, taking shelter behind a barricade of silence.
Listen to these words that were written by a 40-year-old victim of depression, named Harriet:
"I had this dream. I was standing on the beach. A tidal wave was sweeping toward me. It was massive -- a massive wave crested by a rim of fire. I felt tiny. I knew there was no way out. I was about to be overwhelmed. As the wave hit I decided not to fight it; I decided to go with it, to let it take me. It caught me up, sucked me up to its crest and carried me ashore. I didn't die.
"That's when I learned my depression was teaching me not to fight it or try to defeat it. It was teaching me to ride it, to use it, to go to new places in myself and in my life.
"Now I consider my depression my ally. Which doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I am. But I own the fear, I ride the fear; the fear doesn't own or ride me. I listen to what it has to tell me."
Then there's the experience of another depressed person, who wrote in a letter to his brother, "I think the game is up! ... I believe no man has ever had greater difficulties and less means to extricate himself from them." The writer of that letter had nearly abandoned hope, in the year 1776 -- when he and the soldiers under his command were encamped in the frozen snows of Valley Forge, some of them without so much as shoes for their feet.
George Washington is the author of that letter. Of him and his men, in that critical hour of our nation's history, perhaps the words of Paul in Second Corinthians apply:
"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed...."
Sometimes, I think, God leads us into darkness. We are led there for a purpose -- a purpose that may not appear clearly at the time, but which emerges only later, with hindsight. It is in darkness, sometimes, that faith is tested and refined; it is through struggle that you and I grow stronger; it is through pain that we learn to prevail. It's like the coaches say to athletes who are entertaining fantasies of quitting: "No pain, no gain."
The preacher Peter Marshall once uttered this prayer: "Lord, when we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure."
Sometimes what you and I need most, in a time of darkness, is not instantaneous light -- but perseverance. Just as dawn follows midnight, God's light can be counted upon to enter, in time, even the darkest, most seemingly God-forsaken corners of this human life of ours. What it takes, in such an hour, is a spirit that refuses to be cowed by darkness, that will not permit itself to be inundated by dark floodwaters of depression -- that, to borrow an image from the mental patient I've just quoted, ceases its floundering and allows the wave to carry it ashore. "When you give up on yourself," a wise person has observed, "you've committed a crime, and it carries with it a life sentence."
If you ever visit the Vatican in Rome, you're sure to take a look at St. Peter's Cathedral. Just inside the entrance of that greatest church in all Christendom, off to the left, is the baptistry. The great baptismal font is set atop a stone base of red jasper.
There may not seem to be, at first glance, much about that red stone base to attract attention. But in fact, it is the coffin-lid of the Roman Emperor, Trajan. Now Trajan was one of the most hated and feared persecutors of Christians. It surely must have seemed, to those desperate believers hiding away in the catacombs of Rome, that the Emperor Trajan's power was without limit. Yet the day came when even he died. And the church ultimately triumphed. New converts to the faith, ever since, have stood upon Trajan's coffin-lid to confess faith in Christ and be baptized. Sometimes the only thing to do with darkness is to wait it out.
Such was the practice of the author of the hymn, "O God, In a Mysterious Way." (You may know it better under its old title, "God Moves In a Mysterious Way.") William Cowper was his name; he lived in 18th century England.
Cowper had reached the point, in his spiritual life, that is sometimes called "the dark night of the soul." He felt he had tried every avenue, turned to every understanding person he knew, vainly seeking to lift his depression. But nothing worked. No solution was in sight.
Finally, one foggy night, he called for a horse and driver. Cowper asked the driver to take him to London Bridge; he didn't tell the cabbie it was his plan to commit suicide by throwing himself off the bridge.
Not only was it a foggy night, it was one of those famous London fogs -- so thick you could barely see your hand in front of your face. After driving around in the mist for over two hours, the cabbie admitted to his passenger that he was lost -- he couldn't find London Bridge, not in that fog. Disgusted by the driver's incompetence, Cowper left the cab. He was sure he could find his way to the river on foot.
Walking but a short distance, Cowper discovered that he was back at his own doorstep. He and the cabbie had been traveling in circles, all night!
It was then that William Cowper caught a vision that was brighter than his interior darkness. He recognized the hand of God at work. Re-entering his house, he turned to the Lord in prayer; and, wonder of wonders, the prayers he had felt bottled up inside him for so long came rushing out, at long last. After the prayers came the warming of his heart -- and then the tears.
Cowper then took pen in hand and wrote a poem, that became the basis for this famous hymn:
"O God, in a mysterious way Great wonders you perform; You plant your footsteps in the sea, And ride upon the storm....
O fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head."
Are you afraid of the dark? You have good reason to be -- for the darkness of this life can truly be "deep and terrifying," as Abram discovered. Yet sometimes, if you and I hang on long enough and trust God earnestly enough, we will glimpse, in the midst of that darkness, a vision of light. For Abram, the vision took the form of those numberless stars, spangling the heavens -- he could never have glimpsed their gentle light, were it not for the darkness. For Abram, also, it was "a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch," passing between the pieces of those butchered animals; once again, it was only in the darkness that he could glimpse the presence of God. Who knows what form the vision will take, for you or for me?
The particular form of the vision doesn't much matter. What's most important is the insight that, as the old spiritual-writer puts it, "Trouble's long, but hope is longer...."
Truly, hope is longer ... light is brighter ... faith is deeper.
Related Illustrations
As a cause of situational depression, bankruptcy has to be high on the list, even with the reduced public stigma that now seems to accompany it. According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal (November 26, 2002, D3), for the three-month period ending September 30, 2002, the number of bankruptcies has reached the highest point ever, rising 12 percent from the year earlier to a total of 401,306. For the 12-month period ending September 30, they reached 1.6 million, again the highest in history.
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How can Christians help those struggling with job loss, bankruptcies and the like? Jonathon Smith of Lima, Ohio, tells of something done in his church: "Our church does not have a tree decorating ceremony or event, but rather we "undecorated" the tree. Small paper ornaments identifying needs of local families/individuals are initially hung on the tree. Members then remove the ornament(s) of their choice and purchase/obtain the needed item and place it under the tree. The goal is to have a completely "undecorated" tree. Near Christmas all the items are then distributed to the families/individuals with the needs.
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"The Winter of Our Discontent" refers to winter in a metaphorical sense. Those of you who read a lot may remember a novel by John Steinbeck that bears this same title. If you've read that book, you may recall that it is about a crisis in the life of a man that takes place between Good Friday and just after the Fourth of July. So it's clearly not a story about the winter season.
If you are even more well read, you may know that Steinbeck borrowed the phrase as well. It comes from Shakespeare's play, King Richard III, where the line reads: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York" (I, i). It is spoken by the Duke of Gloucester, as he thinks about directing a plot against the English king. Richard is obviously a man who is discontent with his present circumstances.
When we fall in love for the first time, we sometimes speak of "springtime in the heart." When everything is going well, we might describe it as "a time of endless summer." Or in the later years of life, we sometimes refer to the "autumn years."
That leaves winter. Winter, at least in the northern climes, is the bleakest of the seasons and as such is sometimes used to connote a dark or bleak mood, a kind of despair or depression. It can be symbolic of a "what's-the-point-of-it-all" frame of mind. For those times, the "winter of our discontent" is an apt phrase.
(from Stan Purdum, "The Winter of Our Discontent," March 21, 1999)
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In an old book called Lanterns on the Levee, William Percy, an American who fought in WW I, narrated how he and some of his comrades felt when the war ended. He described the physical relief, the freedom from fear, and the gladness that the killing was over. But then he added:
Each of us was repeating to himself in his own dim words something I heard crying out in me: "It's over, the only great thing you were ever part of. It's over, the only heroic thing we all did together. What can you do now? Nothing, nothing. You can't go back [to your old job]. You can't go on with that kind of thing till you die."
That short period of my life spent in the line is the only one I remember step by step ... Not that I enjoyed it; I hated it. ... but it, somehow, had meaning, and daily life hasn't.... ([New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941], 222-223)
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Martin Luther King, Jr., though noted primarily for his civil rights leadership, once made a good observation about this soul weariness. He said, "Burnout is surrender ... We have just so much strength. If we give and give and give, we have less and less and less -- and after a while ... we're so weak and worn, we hoist up the flag of surrender. We surrender to the worse side of ourselves, and then we display that to others." He went on to say that it can be called depression or burnout, but it can also be called "the triumph of sin -- when our goodness has been knocked out from under us" (quoted in Context, March, 15, 1994).
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The writers of the Bible were no strangers to depression. In the wilderness when the people of Israel complained about the food, Moses cried out to God, "I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once" (Numbers 11: 14-15). The author of Psalm 42 inquired, "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?" Job said, "My soul is weary of my life" (Job 10:1 KJV). Even Paul, who had such strong faith, wrote to the Corinthian Christians about "the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself" (2 Corinthians 1:8).
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Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author best known for his book, War and Peace, had serious struggles with a terror that life was meaningless. This caused him such great depression that for a time, he would not handle a gun for fear of what he might do to himself.
For Tolstoy, peace came through turning to Christ and through absorbing himself in labor to help his fellow human beings. He found that his anxiety increased when he worried about the origin or end of life, but that peace came when he threw himself into involvement with the concerns of others. To be sure, he had reoccurring bouts with depression, but on the whole, he found that it usually abated when he worked for the good of others.
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There is a form of depression that strikes some people and does not go away, at least not without treatment. It may be referred to as clinical depression, chronic depression, or recurrent depression. Thankfully, I have never suffered this myself, but I have a friend who has, and looking at it from the outside, I can tell you it's a very difficult thing to live with. Also, I gather that if you've not experienced it yourself, you cannot fully understand it.
My friend Frank had a wife and children, a job he liked and a pretty good life, but he would drop into long periods of deep gloom that little by little were destroying all that. There were times when I saw him locked in an inertia that made me want to just kick him in the pants and say, "This is silly. Get moving and stop dribbling your life away," but that just showed how hard it is for someone who's not suffered from it to understand it.
Over several years, Frank spent a fortune on counselors, psychiatrists, and antidepressant medicines, none of which seemed to bring him any lasting relief. Finally he decided to go through electroconvulsive therapy (sometimes called electroshock therapy). This is a treatment of last resort, for it has some significant effects beyond the help it is intended to render. In this therapy, which is usually done in a series of 8-12 separate treatments, electric current is sent through the patient's brain inducing a seizure, which in turn is supposed to produce the desired therapeutic effect. One side effect is that some portions of the patient's memory may be wiped out. In Frank's case, although his depression was somewhat alleviated by the treatment, he lost all memory of his oldest son's babyhood and the other things that happened in that time period.
The treatment helped, and I don't think Frank regretted going through it, but he hated the actual procedure, and even afterward, he was not totally cured.
We may think of depression as simply a gloomy or hopeless mood, and that is part of it, but for some people, there is more than that to it. (From Stan Purdum)
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Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. (Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History [New York: Scribner, 1952])
Worship Resources
By Chuck Cammarata
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Everywhere you look there is darkness.
People: JESUS SAYS, "I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD."
Leader: Wars and rumors of wars fill the airwaves.
People: JESUS SAYS, "DO NOT BE TROUBLED. I GIVE YOU MY PEACE."
Leader: The depressed, worn out, and sick surround us.
People: JESUS SAYS, "COME TO ME ALL OF YOU WHO ARE BURDENED, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST."
Leader: The emptiness of so many hungry souls haunts us.
People: JESUS SAYS, "I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE. COME AND BE FILLED"
Leader: And death finally comes to us all.
People: JESUS SAYS, "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN ME SHALL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE ABUNDANT LIFE."
Leader: Come, let us celebrate the light,
People: THE PEACE,
Leader: The rest,
People: THE MEANING,
Leader: The life,
People: THAT HAVE ALL BEEN GIVEN,
Leader: Through the Babe of Bethlehem.
People: AMEN.
If your congregation lights an Advent wreath, this would be a good place for the lighting
As an alternative, the above call to worship can be done as a reading for several readers. See below for one example of how it could be done.
Reader 1: Everywhere you look
Reader 2: There is darkness.
Reader 4: Jesus says, "I am the light of the world."
Reader 3: Wars and rumors of wars fill the airwaves.
Reader 4 Jesus says, "Do not be troubled. I give you my peace.
Reader 1: The depressed,
Reader 2: The worn out,
Reader 3: And the sick surround us.
Reader 4: Jesus says, "Come to me all of you who are burdened, and I will give you rest."
Reader 1: The emptiness of the world's hungry souls haunts us.
Reader 4: Jesus says, "I am the Bread of life."
Reader 2: And death finally comes to us all.
Reader 4: Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me shall not perish, but shall have abundant life."
Reader 3: So come, let us celebrate the light,
Reader 1: The peace,
Reader 2: The rest,
Reader 3: The meaning,
Reader 1: And the life,
Reader 2: That have all been given to us
Reader 3: Through the Babe of Bethlehem.
Reader 4: Amen.
ADVENT CANDLE LIGHTING
Also included this week are several dramatic readings for those of you who like to do something different for the ceremony of lighting the Advent candle wreath. The readings are done first person by a prophet, a shepherd, and Mary the mother of Jesus. (This assumes you have already lit the first candle last Sunday.)
THE PROPHET
Once - long ago - in a time when there was darkness and fear upon the land - God gave these words to be spoken:
(pause)
The time will come, my people - when there will be no more sorrow for the sad.
For the people walking in darkness will see a great light;
And God will enlarge us and increase our joy;
So we will rejoice as people rejoice at a plentiful harvest,
For just as God once defeated the enemies of his people
He will again shatter them, and the chains that bind us will be broken
Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood
will be burnt as fuel for the fire -- no longer needed
For to us a child will be born, to us a son will be given, and the government will be on
his shoulders -- and he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
And of the growth of his government and of peace there will be no end.
He will reign over his kingdom, upholding it with justice and righteousness forever
And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on him-
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD-
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will make his judgments
with justice he will make decisions for the poor of the earth.
In his kingdom the wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion together;
and a little child will lead them.
They will neither harm nor destroy one another under his rule
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
And all the nations will rally to him --- and it will be glorious
These words were given by God nearly 3,000 years ago
And I give them to you again today
For a child has been born
And in every heart where he rules
There is peace and power -- wisdom and love
And glory upon glory shall be to these hearts
Light two candles
THE SHEPHERDS
Ordinary is the word you would use to describe me.
All my life I've been nothing but ordinary.
I have an ordinary family - a wife and a couple of kids.
I have an ordinary job - working in the fields outside Bethlehem on a sheep farm.
I don't have any extraordinary talents or lots of money or incredible looks
I'm just an ordinary guy - like most of you
Not that ordinary is bad - it's just that there was nothing in my life that qualified me to be privileged to be visited by an army of angels who sang and announced the most important event in all of human history - to me and a couple of other completely ordinary guys
Doesn't make sense
You'd think - the greatest of all Kings is coming -- he'd certainly want a bigger and better audience for the birth announcement than a few not too important - not too well dressed - not too powerful - shepherds half asleep on a hillside
You'd think - but - God - the true God is so very different from what we expect or want him to be
We think he's all power and wrath and judgment
And there is that - immense power - hatred of sin - but these qualities are tempered by and put in the service of his love
That is his essential character - love - given freely - not to the successful or influential or even the especially deserving - but to anyone - great or small - ordinary or special - given to anyone
I think that's what his birth was all about - it made it clear to all that this king isn't just interested in important people - this king is interested in - in love with - all people
When the first angel appeared to us - and we were terrified - the angel said to us - Be not afraid for I bring to you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people
I guess the joy really is meant for all the people
Light three candles
MARY THE MOTHER OF JESUS
Some people say - all babies are beautiful - but I distinctly remember looking at him when Joseph laid him in my arms just after he was born and thinking - he doesn't look at all like a savior.
His head was misshapen - his complexion was spotty - his nose seemed too big for his face. I decided he would never get by on his looks.
But as I pondered these things in my heart, I realized that if he was to truly accomplish the work God had set out for him - it would have to be based on a lot more than looks or physical strength or any special talent or even on intelligence.
It would have to be based on having a huge heart.
And I remembered the old story of how God chose young David to be king. God said to Samuel who was confused because God seemed to have rejected all of Jesse's strong handsome sons - God said to Samuel - Humans look on the appearance, Samuel - but I look on the heart
You will have a whole church full of children before you this morning. Some will be big and strong - some smaller and weaker. Some will be beautiful to the eye and others not as much. Some will be brilliant students and others will struggle with their schooling - some will be graceful athletes or dancers and others will be clumsy.
And all around you the people of this world will be judging them based on these things
Let me ask you to do something for me this morning.
When you look at people all around you these next few days - try to look at them as their papa in heaven does - try to see what is in their hearts.
There are few things that have more potential to change the world than seeing each other with heaven's eyes.
Light all four candles.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Leader: At night, lying on my bed, wide awake, I sometimes wonder,
"Are you really there, Lord?"
People: "ARE YOU REAL AT ALL?"
Leader: I saw a little boy hit by a car today.
People: WHERE WERE YOU?
Leader: I heard that 42 million people have A.I.D.S.
People: WHERE ARE YOU?
Leader: A man on TV said he hates gays in your name.
People: HOW CAN YOU ALLOW THAT?
Leader: And yet, the stars sparkled in the night sky last evening,
People: AND THE BLANKET OF SNOW WAS BEAUTIFUL,
Leader: And some carolers serenaded my soul,
People: AND I REMEMBERED
Leader: All the works of God,
People: HOW YOU GAVE OF YOURSELF
Leader: To suffer and die,
People: AND HOW YOU ROSE AGAIN,
Leader: And I came to see that in the suffering
People: AGAINST THE HATRED,
Leader: Beyond death,
People: YOU ARE WITH ME.
Leader: For you are Emmanuel
People: GOD WITH US.
HYMNS AND SONGS
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel -- is very good for the topic of depression
Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light
I Wonder As I Wander
Lo! How A Rose E'er Blooming
One Small Child
Amy Grant's "Emmanuel" would be wonderful as a special piece of music
Also, for those who have soloists, "The Christmas Shoes" by Newsong is a wonderful song. Accompaniment tapes can be purchased for this song.
A Children's Sermon
By Wesley Runk
Text: Isaiah 40:1-11
Object: a blanket of the kind a child would use for a sense of comfort
Good morning, boys and girls. This is our season of Advent, which means we are preparing to welcome Jesus into the world. It is a time when we take a good look at ourselves and try to get ready for the birth of Jesus. Sometimes when we look at ourselves we are not always happy with what we see. Are you always happy? (let them answer) Sometimes there are things that make us unhappy, like when we are told that it is bedtime and we are not ready to go to bed. Sometimes we are asked to eat food on our plate that we don't want to eat, and that makes us unhappy. Sometimes we are asked to share our favorite toy or we want to play with the toy our cousin or friend has and we don't get to. That makes us unhappy. We can be pretty unhappy people, can't we? (let them answer)
I brought along with me this morning something that many little people like to have with them when they are unhappy. (show them the blanket) Do any of you have a favorite blanket? (let them answer) I have a little friend who always likes to have his favorite blanket when he goes to bed. But my little friend also likes to have the blanket when he is unhappy. It makes him feel better. Moms and dads are pretty good at making their children feel better, but for many children, the blanket is also a must. No matter how bad my little friend feels, he always feels better when he has the blanket.
Sometimes we can't figure out why we feel bad, we just know that things are not right. It could be the weather, but it isn't always the weather. We feel bad sometimes when the sun is out and there is a gentle breeze. It could be because someone we love is feeling bad, but that doesn't always explain it either. It could be because we want to do something special, but we don't always get to do special things. We feel bad. It just happens. Sometimes we get up from a nap and we feel great and sometimes we get up and we don't feel so good.
What are we going to do when we feel like this? (let them answer) Some of us still have our blankets, but there is another answer and one that people have been using for years. The answer is God! God is something like the blanket. You always want God near when you are in trouble or when you just feel bad. The Bible talks about how God feels when his children get into trouble or feel bad. We hear the words of the Bible when it says, "Comfort, O comfort my people." God comforts us. He listens to our troubles and shelters us against the bad feelings we have.
When I was young, I really liked having my blanket near me at all times. When I grew up, I began to feel differently and I wanted to read words that made me feel better. I found those words in the Bible. When I was young, I really liked my blanket, but then when I got a little older I wanted to pray to my Father in heaven. When I was young and I just felt as if I were all alone, my God told me to go out and share with others the gifts that I had. When I did what he asked, I felt a lot better. God is so close and such a great comfort.
The next time you see someone with their blanket you can remember how good the blanket makes the person feel. But when you see that blanket maybe you will also think of your Father in heaven and how he comforts us with our Bibles, our prayers, and our willingness to share his love with others.
The Immediate Word, December 8, 2002, issue.
Copyright 2002 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
