Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Luke, the second chapter:
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
This is my favorite time of the year. The snow is falling. The days are actually getting shorter. It’s Christmas. It’s Advent. It’s a time of waiting. It’s a time of fun. It’s a time of wonder. Someday, when you guys get old enough, you might notice this as you’re driving home, that even, this time of year, the cars on the highway all look like they’re celebrating Christmas with all the red and the white. It’s really my favorite time of the year.
I imagine it might’ve been a good time for Mary, too. She was waiting the birth of her new little baby. Everything else would’ve taken a back seat to that. You guys know that we just had our little baby, baby Ava, a couple few weeks ago. There’s so much that you have to do to get ready when a baby is coming. For Mary and Joseph, it was probably worse. Not only did they have to get everything ready, but then they were forced to travel all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the midst of it. And Mary was so close to having that baby, every step along the way probably was like torture for her.
Yet, when baby Jesus came, I imagine all the difficulties she had gone through seemed to feed away. That’s what happens. You start freaking out. You need to get the room ready, the diapers ready, the clothes ready, the humidifier ready, everything needs to be ready. Then, all of the sudden, the baby comes. You don’t control when a baby comes into your life, it just does. And when that baby comes, when I held Ava in my arms for the first time, everything that I had gone through to wait for her just seemed to disappear. It didn’t matter anymore. You had to be happy with whatever was ready at that time.
That’s what Advent and Christmas are really all about, you know. We prepare and prepare and prepare for Jesus to come back again. We see what it was like when He came in the flesh the first time, when He was born as a baby. But, now we wait for Him to come again. After Jesus died for your sins and was resurrected from the dead, He ascended to heaven to rule next to His Father and to wait for the day when He would return. That’s what he’s doing right now: He’s waiting.
And we wait, too. We wait and we prepare. We prepare our hearts, asking Him to forgive our sins and make us holy like He is holy. We prepare our families and friends, encouraging them in the faith. We prepare our minds, learning more about Jesus all the time. We prepare. And we wait. We act like the shepherds, going and telling everyone we can find about this little baby, this baby who is truly God and truly like us, who dies to take away the sins of the entire world.
And when He comes back, and make no mistake, friends, Jesus is coming back, then we can rest, then all the preparation is done. When He comes back, all that we’ve gone through in this life won’t matter. It’ll all fall to the side and we’ll be amazed at our Lord Jesus who forgives all of your sins. And then, like Mary, we’ll look back on all of our life and treasure it, because it brought us closer and closer to Jesus Himself. It brought us to the day of His return. It brought us out of our grave. It brought us to life eternal. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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