We Light the Advent Candles - Four candles burning brightly announce that Christ has come...

For the last ten years, we've sung all or part of "We Light the Advent Candles" during our Advent worship services. You see, as we go through the four weeks, we sing the verses sung during the prior weeks, and we add a new verse recognizing the candles that have been and are being lit on that particular Sunday. During this Advent season, we're going to focus on the meaning of each verse, as expressed in the song. 

The last message dealt with "Four candles burning brightly announce that Christ has come..."

Well, we’re almost there. We’ve made the final turn and we’re heading down the home stretch. In other words, Christmas will be here in just three days. And I’ll tell you, when I get to this point, as I have 63 times, I tend to feel the same sort of way, and it’s really not what I would have expected two weeks before. Now I recognize that I’m only talking for myself and my experiences may be radically different from what y’all are feeling right now. But when I get to these last few days, I sort of feel this weird sense of calm, something I can guarantee wasn’t there at the beginning of December. As a matter of fact, it’s like this uncomplicated and uncluttered, almost child-like view of Christmas, with all it’s simplicity and innocence and wonder.

Of course, like I said that wasn’t the case a few weeks ago. I mean, back then, all the stuff that needed to get done was overwhelming. Good night nurse, I had to get the tree assembled and haul all the decorations up from the basement and down from the attic. And even though these last few years, I’ve done my shopping online, I still had to do go on the sites and buy the stuff, another source of stress. And as to my life around the church, trust me, Advent isn’t exactly a relaxing time. Let’s just say, as we entered December, with all the decorating and purchasing and activities, my stress level was hovering between orange and red. But I can’t say that’s unusual. The same thing has happened every year, starting right after Thanksgiving.

But I’ve got to tell you, right now, I’m feeling a real sense of peace. You see, in the last week before Christmas, my stress and anxiety tends to tank, which is a good thing. And the reason, well, I don’t think it’s exactly rocket science. I mean, let’s face it, when I get to this point, the stuff that’s still in the basement and attic will probably stay there for another year. And as to gifts, I’ve either bought them or come up with a good excuse for why they’re late. And right now, all I have to do is to finish preaching this sermon that I’ve already written and do a traditional candle light service I’ve done before (that’s a no-brainer), because we all know that Christmas Eve isn’t the time to innovate, certainly not in a Presbyterian church. And if you don’t believe me, let me just tell you about a colleague of mine who decided to change his whole approach to the night before Christmas and found himself not only alone on Christmas Eve but called a Grinch by his congregation. No, by the time I get to this point in the Advent season, I really do feel this genuine sense of peace.

And that’s probably a good thing, because this morning we’re going to talk about the last verse of the song we’ve sung as we’ve lit the Advent candles. I mean, after singing “We light the Advent candles against the winter night, to welcome our Lord Jesus who is the world's True Light,” on the first Sunday in Advent, we sang, “The first one will remind us that Christ will soon return. We light it in the darkness and watch if gleam and burn,” and with that in mind, we talked about the second coming of Jesus. And on the next Sunday, we added, “We light the second candle, and hear God's holy Word, it tells us, cling to Jesus, prepare to meet your Lord,” and during that service we focused on how the Old Testament pointed to the coming of the Messiah, the Christ. And then last Sunday, we added, “Three candles now are gleaming and show us the true way, rejoice, the Baptist cries out, your Lord has come today,” and we looked at how John the Baptist can still help us to prepare to celebrate the advent of Jesus. Now that’s what we’ve done. And this morning, as the fourth candle was lit, we sang, “Four candles burning brightly announce that Christ has come, prepare, my heart, believe it, and give the Christ child room.” Now that’s what we sang. And because of that, we’re going to focus on the peace that surrounded the birth of Jesus, and we’re going to talk about this idea, that we can best understand the coming of Christ when we take a step back and appreciate its almost childlike simplicity.

And I’ll tell you, when you think about it, peace and simplicity is really what the birth of Jesus was all about, especially when you read how it’s described in the Gospel of Luke. For example, just consider the birth itself. This is what Luke wrote: “About that time Emperor Augustus gave orders for the names of all the people to be listed in record books. These first records were made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to go to their own hometown to be listed. So Joseph had to leave Nazareth in Galilee and go to Bethlehem in Judea. Long ago Bethlehem had been King David’s hometown, and Joseph went there because he was from David’s family. Mary was engaged to Joseph and traveled with him to Bethlehem. She was soon going to have a baby, and while they were there, she gave birth to her first-born son. She dressed him in baby clothes and laid him on a bed of hay, because there was no room for them in the inn.” [Luke 2:1-7, CEV] Now that’s what Luke wrote. And I don’t know about y’all, but this doesn’t seem all that impressive, you know in a CGI sort of way. I mean, where are the laser beams and explosions and special effects? And where are all the animals that just started talking in a Hanna-Barbera kind of way? And my gosh, where’s that beam that sort of shot right through the roof of the barn spotlighting that cute, chubbie, white baby (I mean, he certainly doesn’t look Jewish), a kid who was at least a couple months old lying in the manger there with his mother looking amazing given the fact that she’d just given birth? I can tell you, Debbie didn’t look like that right after Maggie was born, and she was in a hospital, not a stable. No, when you get right down to it, as described by Luke, this is a pretty unimpressive birth.

And I think we can say the same sort of thing about first people who came to see Jesus. Again, according to Luke: “That night in the fields near Bethlehem some shepherds were guarding their sheep. All at once an angel came down to them from the Lord, and the brightness of the Lord’s glory flashed around them. The shepherds were frightened. But the angel said, ‘Don’t be afraid! I have good news for you, which will make everyone happy. This very day in King David’s hometown a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. You will know who he is, because you will find him dressed in baby clothes and lying on a bed of hay.’ Suddenly many other angels came down from heaven and joined in praising God. They said: ‘Praise God in heaven! Peace on earth to everyone who pleases God.’  After the angels had left and gone back to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see what the Lord has told us about.’ They hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and they saw the baby lying on a bed of hay. When the shepherds saw Jesus, they told his parents what the angel had said about him. Everyone listened and was surprised. But Mary kept thinking about all this and wondering what it meant. As the shepherds returned to their sheep, they were praising God and saying wonderful things about him. Everything they had seen and heard was just as the angel had said.” [Luke 2:8-20, CEV] Now I know this part of the story is pretty impressive, with flashing angels and a heavenly choir and all. Let’s get real, that’s impressive. But the guys who heard this just weren’t, were they? They were shepherds for crying out loud. And do you have any idea where shepherds stood on the ladder of success in ancient Judea? Well, not on the bottom rung, that was reserved for children and women and foreigners. But right above them were the shepherds. Let’s just say, the only parents who hoped their boys would grow up to be shepherds were shepherds. And yet it was to these rough men that the announcement came. And they were the ones who were the first to see Jesus. And after seeing him, they returned to their flocks and were never heard from again. I mean, if the birth was unimpressive, the ones to whom it was announced, man, they were mega unimportant.

And yet, I believe this is extremely important for us to remember as we make our final approach to our celebration Christmas. For example, because his birth was so unimpressive, that reminds us that Jesus really was and is one of us. You see, he wasn’t some kind of star child beamed down to earth. He didn’t spring from the head of Zeus like Athena nor was his birth the result of an elaborate game between the gods like Hercules. No, the birth of Christ just wasn’t dramatic at all. And I’ll tell you, that’s really a good thing, at least for us. You see, we don’t need to be superior to follow his example. And we don’t need to be god-like be his disciples. And we sure don’t need to be perfect to be considered one of his brothers and sisters. Instead we can be who we actually are, men and women who are made of flesh and blood but also animated and inspired by God’s spirit, human beings who are collections of a whole bunch of stuff that’s positive and negative, a race of folks who are both sugar and spice and everything nice as well as snips and snails and puppy dog tails. You see, because Jesus was a real person like us, we can find direction in his life and freedom in his death and genuine hope in his resurrection. You see, his birth reminds us that Jesus really was like one of us.

And since the first folks called to see him were a pretty motley bunch, well, that can remind us that he really did come to call other motley people, you know, people like us. You see, his message was never intended for just the high and mighty or those who are important or even self-important. Rather, he came to be the savior for folks on every rung on the socio-economic ladder, with particular focus on the guys and gals near the bottom, because they may have a greater need to feel secure than those at the top. And I’ll tell you why I believe that’s so important for us to recognize and to accept right here and right now. Since shepherds were the first to the manger, our relationship with him isn’t about who we are or even who we expect to be. And it isn’t about the work we’ve done or even the work we may have promised to do. And it’s sure not about what we’ve achieved or even what we believe we’re capable of achieving sometime in the future. As a matter of fact, when it comes to our relationship with Christ, it really doesn’t start with us at all. It all begins with him, who he is and what he’s done for us. Therefore, all we can really do is to trust and believe, you know, to trust in his work and to believe in his promises. You see, it really is good news that some pretty unimportant people were the first to come, because that can actually give us hope that we’ll be included too.

And so there it is, the birth of Jesus. And now, as we move into the last few days before Christmas and our pace settles into something less hectic and more peaceful, maybe we’ll be able to appreciate the simplicity of the whole story and remember that, based on his birth, Jesus really was like us and thanks to those who were first invited to come, we can believe that we’re invited too. And I’ll tell you, that really is good news, something that we can understand when we claim the simplicity and the innocence and the wonder that children can feel this time of year. Because let’s face it, when it comes to Christmas, “Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.”