Homily Dan
Neary
Love
Here we
are… a bunch of good Christian people. And, above all others, we know precisely what this season is
all about. We are not among those who buckle under the pressure from the
politically correct; we don’t merely say Happy Holidays. We’re careful to write
out Christmas… not merely Xmas.
We’re not troubled by what we might have borrowed from other cultural
or even religious observances. Whatever else it might have been or represented,
I have a Christmas tree, with Christmas lights and it all points to my
Christian celebration of Christmas.
We’re not troubled by how non-believers may celebrate. There’s enough
Santa Claus to go around for everyone. And for us… the giving celebrated by the
Jolly Red-Suited One symbolizes the generosity that ought to mark the lives of
all of use saints.
We’re not troubled by those who want to make a big deal bickering about
what date might be a better choice for pinpointing the actual date of the birth
of Jesus. This is the date that we picked; December 25 is when we celebrate the
birth of our savior.
And that is what this season is all about! Right? Good!
Now that we have that out of the way…
don’t you like the presents??!!!?
Don’t you love all that surrounds the gifts?
I love presents! I love giving them. I love getting them. I love
watching other people give ‘em and get ‘em.
I love gifts!
I like tradition too… especially gift giving tradition.
Story of 1st Married Christmas and Stockings
- Stayed Over
- According to Plan
I think the joy of gift giving was instilled in me early on by my dad.
I have a lot of great memories watching him give Christmas gifts (I have a lot
of great memories receiving gifts from my dad… my mom was generous too, but I
think she liked to keep her generosity reasonable… the unreasonable generosity,
the kind we couldn’t really afford, I think came mostly according to my dad’s
urging).
One of my dad’s traditions with gift giving was in the attention he
gave to wrapping. He’s a great wrapper. (I didn’t get these genes)
My dad was also one of those who would take great pleasure in making
the outside deceptive. He was one of those who would wrap a box, inside of a
wrapped box, inside of another wrapped box with a couple of bricks for weight…
just to throw you off. Once you got inside the small wrapped box that was inside
this wrapping-maze, you might only find a clue to where the real present was
hidden.
You really couldn’t tell what was inside merely by the size, shape or
wrapping of the box.
This sort of thing makes Christmas fun.
Everybody has different nuances to their gift-giving traditions. When I
was a kid, we wouldn’t find presents actually under the tree until Christmas
morning. These days, at my house, presents seem to appear every couple of days
or so.
I like it that way… it adds to the build-up of anticipation.
For the kids… OK… and us too.
It’s a lot of fun to look under the tree and wonder what is inside
those packages.
Like I said, I love presents…. giving gifts and getting ‘em too!
And, like I said before that… all of this points us back to reason we
celebrate.
The
angels were the first to announce that
human history was interrupted with an extraordinary event. It is recorded in
our Bibles starting with Luke 2:8.
What the shepherds heard from the angels was later echoed from the
mouth of the Lord himself.
This
plain statement, which helps us understand what the Gospel is all about,
underscores that what the angel announced was the greatest gift ever given.
This was the gift to us from a God who loves us.
God gave… and the shepherds went to take a look.
And
they found something fairly ordinary in less than ordinary circumstances.
Now… think of the confusion that the shepherds must have been dealing
with. In an evening that began the normal way, just out in the fields at night,
an angel appears and proclaims that the Savior is here.
The angel explains that it is a baby in a manger… but now actually
standing there… what were they supposed to expect from this gift.
This wrapping, a common stable?
And the package, what seemed like an ordinary baby boy?
And I thought that a box, wrapped inside a box, wrapped inside a box
with some bricks was confusing.
And this is what we celebrate now 2,000 years later.
The birth of a baby.
This gift from God.
Everybody
knows that… you can get that much by just watching the Peanuts Christmas
special on TV.
And most are content with the idea… the story that God sent a special
baby to
It’s a pretty easy story to take… God showed us that he loves us by
giving us this baby… and we celebrate it all with Christmas.
We’re grateful for that, but we know that merely believing in the
trappings of the Christmas story doesn’t really make us a Christian… a follower
of Christ. We know that there is so much more.
We are
grateful for the gift that is explained in John 3:16. This gift from God that
demonstrates His love.
We can
look to 1 John 3:16 to help us embrace the whole story of this gift from God
that demonstrates His love.
By this we
know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren.
Christ does
the blessing (the heavy-lifting if you will). He laid down His life.
A Son was born and Savior died; it could work no other way!
But now He
gives us a part in the plan that follows.
What He
demonstrated in His love, we replicate (in a comparatively small way, of
course) in our service to Him.
Jesus
glorified God by spending His life for us.
We glorify
God by spending our lives for others.
Let’s go on
to the passage in chapter 4 that Pat read earlier.
4:7 Dear
friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who
loves has been born of God and knows God.
4:8 The one who does not love does
not know God, because God is love.
Love is evidence that we are His.
4:9 God's
love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His only Son into the world so
that we might live through Him.
Love’s greatest expression is in
the gift of His Son.
4:10 Love
consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins.
Love’s greatest work is that He
paid for our sins.
2:2 He
Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for
those of the whole world.
Love’s demand is that we love one
another.
Love is displayed by those who are loved.
- Jesus with skin on him
Love’s deposit is His Holy Spirit.
So what?
There are a
few… first:
Unwrap the Gift… don’t settle for the wrapping…
or even the package
It is so easy
at this time of the year to settle for the wrapping… you know the trappings of
it all… the carols and bells and tinsel and lights and presents
Enjoy the
wrapping… but don’t just stop there.
It is even easy to settle merely
for the gift of the baby Jesus.
Such a great
gift!
But it wasn’t
His birth that saved us.
It wasn’t His
Advent… His coming to that stable that made it possible for us to enjoy
eternity with Him in heaven.
It wasn’t the
manger… it was the cross.
And that is
not all… Jesus was not only born as God’s gift of love to us… not only died to
pay the penalty for our sin… he rose from the dead conquering death and we
will, likewise, live forever. But that isn’t the end of the fully-unwrapped
gift either. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit, God in us and through us,
would be with us.
Unwrap the whole gift.
The second so-what is Re-gift!
You all know
what I mean, especially at this time of the year.
There are
some gifts that you receive that you’re really not quite sure how to enjoy.
So you
scheme, and decide that there is somebody else that would enjoy it.
So you
re-gift.
We all need
to be about the business of re-gifting Jesus!
That may
sound just a bit cheap… it isn’t the same.
When I give
away an unwanted gift, I don’t have it anymore.
When I “give
away” Jesus, I don’t have any less of Jesus.
In some ways it
seems like I have more.
We have so
much.
Materially?
Sure, look around the world.
Spiritually?
How much more.
We have been given the greatest
gift,
God’s love in Jesus.
Now it is
given to us to express this gift by loving others.
- It is loves demand.
- It is the way a broken world will see God’s love
- It is enabled by the gift
of the enduring Holy Spirit.
God with us, in us, and thru us
I will tell
you this morning that when I think of how much He gave out of His great love… I
realize how very little I give.
There is more that I can do to demonstrate
God’s love.
So for family members who will
test our patience this season: Love one another.
For the
friends who are inconsiderate: Love one another.
For the
co-workers who take much more than they give: Love one another.
May you not
only experience God’s gift of Love
this Christmas.
May you
express God’s gift of Love through your life.
Let us pray.